81. Dr. Aliza Pressman on Parenting Styles, Improving Parent-Child Relationships, and Navigating Conflict

Jan 5

listen to this episode:

Today I am joined by Dr. Aliza Pressman—a developmental psychologist with over 15 years of experience working with families. Dr. Aliza holds a BA from Dartmouth College, an MA in Risk, Resilience and Prevention from the Department of Human Development at Teacher’s College and her PhD in developmental psychology from Columbia University Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. She is an Assistant Clinical Professor in the Devision of Behavioral Health Department of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital where she is co-founding director of The Mount Sinai Parenting Center. (bio via draliza.com)

Dr. Pressman's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/raisinggoodhumanspodcast/

Dr. Pressman's Website: https://draliza.com/

Dr. Pressman and I dive into the following topics…

+ The 4 parenting styles and which help vs. hurt parent-teen relationships

+ How our parent's emotional reactions can shape how we express emotion and our adult relationships

+ Why we pursue the familiar feelings of our home environment even if they’re unhealthy

+ A step-by-step guide to decrease conflict and navigate it when it does arise

+ Why parents should ALWAYS be the ones to repair after a conflict

+ The most common points of contention between parents and teens

+ Resources for both parents and teens to improve their relationship

+ so much more!

Mentioned In The Episode…

+ Jen Atkin's New Year's Goal Setting Template

+ Diane Baumrind

+ Brainstorm by Dan Siegal

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

☕️This week's episode is brought to you by Nutpods. Shop their delicious Vegan, Gluten-Free, Non-GMO, Kosher, and Whole 30 creamers today and use code 'SHEPERSISTEDPODCAST' at checkout for 15% off your order.

🍓This week's episode is brought to you by Sakara. Sakara is a nutrition company that focuses on overall wellness, starting with what you eat. Use code XOSADIE at checkout for 20% off your first order!

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: Welcome to she persisted. I'm your host Sadie Sutton. Every Friday, I post interviews about mental health dialectical behavioral therapy and teenage life. These episodes break down my mental health journey. Teach skills to help you cope with life and showcase testimonials from individuals, including teens.

Whether you've struggled yourself or just want to improve your mental fitness. This podcast is your inspiration to live a life you love and keep persisting low.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of she persisted. If you like, I start every episode the same with my little hello. Hello. But I don't know.

I just love it. It is. 2022. This is the first episode of the new year, and we are starting off with a bang. We have one of my dream guests on the show today, Dr. Aliza . She is a world-renowned parenting expert and she is someone that I've been pitching. Like since almost the beginning of the podcast. We finally connected last year.

Got to recording. And this episode does not disappoint. Whether you're a parent who wants to support your teen, if you're a teen, who's struggling with your parent relationship. If you just want to understand more about how you are impacted by your parents and growing up and how that affects you and your relationships later in life.

This episode is absolutely worth the lesson. Before we get started a little bit of a catch-up. I feel like it's been forever since I've sat down and done an intro, but I'm still home. We're still on winter break school. Got pushed back a week. I'm hoping we'll go back soon, but you never know with AMI, right?

Break has been an amazing much needed break. I think being able to slow down, be able to do things like sleep Ben and not be working 24 7 has been just a much needed break from the hustle and bustle on the fast pace of school. I'm excited to go back. Both have a place in my heart, but the break was definitely needed in the new year.

I have literally like 47 resolutions. I know that like, it's, that's not the best practice. Like you focus on a couple, you're probably going to stick to them more easily, but we just went all out. If you saw an Instagram, I tried a little goal-setting technique from Jen at Ken, which I'll link in today's show notes.

I did a mood board, which I think turned out pretty keel. I journaled using some prompts that I found on Pinterest. Like we were really manifesting out here, but to give you the gist of it, I really just want to have a healthy. Habits in my daily routine that helps sat me and my mental health up for success.

So like reading more unplugging more before bed. And when I wake up and getting more daily movement and getting outside more often fueling my body with better foods, of course, continuing the podcast really, really, really going to try and do my best to do weekly episodes in 2020 to hold me to. Please like be like city.

Where's the next episode we're waiting. I really, really want to stick to that goal. We're going to be doing more tech talks, get excited, making my bed more often, trying to journal more, lots and lots and lots of things, but really just trying to create a daily routine that keeps me energized and motivated, motivated, and feeling good.

So I can give myself best self to the podcast to work to school, to my relationships. All of that. So let me know on Instagram, what your new year's resolutions are. I want to know, I want to be in the loop and hold each other accountable, but even though you can really start new goals anytime of the year, I think the new year is just such a great time to reflect and see how much you've grown in the last year, and then decide where you want to be a year from now.

I think it's a perfect opportunity, even though new year's resolutions can sometimes be kind of cheesy and stupid. I think you can still do a lot with it to reflect and. Give yourself some goals to work towards year round. So with that, we're going to dive into this week's episode. Like I mentioned, Dr.

Aliza Pressman is on the podcast today. She holds a BA from Dartmouth and Mia and risk resilience and prevention from the department of human development at teacher's college and her PhD in developmental psychology from Columbia. She's an assistant clinical professor in the division of behavioral health and department of pediatrics at Mount Sinai hospital.

And she's also the co-founding director of the Mount Sinai. Is that better? Dr. Pressman also has a podcast it's called raising good humans. She has amazing guests on like Jennifer Garner. It has so many great resources for parents. And if you have younger kids as well, she talks a lot about how you compare in younger children as well as teens.

So she's just a great resource. Check out her website, check out her podcast. She is the best of the best when it comes to parenting advice. And I really hope you enjoy this episode. If you want to follow her on Instagram, her handle is at raising good humans podcast. Of course, everything will be linked in today's show notes, but without further ado, let's dive into it.

Thank you so much, Dr. Pressman for joining me on G persisted today. I'm so excited to have you on the.

Dr. Pressman: I am so excited to be here. Thank you.

Sadie: So diving right in, I want to talk about parent child relationships and younger adolescent years and kind of what goes right there. That leads to a healthy relationship and teenage years and adulthood.

And then what goes wrong there? That then leads to later challenge.

Dr. Pressman: So broadly, I would say there's parenting styles that are really, really highly linked with positive relationships with your teen. And there are ones. Are not. And so I would say we could go through those parenting styles, the ones that promote those relationships and the ones that sort of take away from them and then be separately.

Would that be helpful? Yeah. So, so this is developmental literature. I didn't make this up. This is Dan Bowman. From decades of research and then it's been replicated in different cultures and communities. And so there are four parenting styles. One of them is neglectful parenting, which I don't really talk about because nobody's listening to this conversation.

Who's an neglectful parent. Though there is a possibility of somebody who's listening to it, who is the child of a neglectful parent. And in that case, you really need to find a grownup who can, I mean, frankly, re give you the replacement that you need for someone who gives you social and emotional and intellectual connection.

But for the most part, that is very, very, that's a small percentage. And really we're talking about three parenting styles, authoritative authoritarian and permissive, and they're measured in the developmental literature on these two dimensions. Sensitivity and what's called demandingness, which she could translate to boundaries or like expectations.

And so if you think about a scale on one side of the scale is sensitivity. Once side is this demandingness. The permissive parent is really heavy on the sensitivity part. Really good at really paying attention to you as, as your kid and seeing what your needs are and talking through things and explaining, but really not good at boundaries or expectations being clear because it tends to be more best friends parenting.

And those parents are really uncomfortable with. Over demanding there or putting any demands on their kids. And so what happens is that these well-meaning parents end up having kids who are more anxious and acting out more and doing things that seem counter intuitive, like, but I'm so close with my parents.

This doesn't make any sense, but it's missing the safety of having the boundaries and the separation between. You know, friendship and that less, you know, you can be friends with your parents, but like, after you're fully grown, because it feels so safe to know that ultimately you're not in charge of the other person's feelings.

Like I, the teenager, I'm not responsible for you, the mother. And how you feel that day and, and a friendship is reciprocal. And then in that way, and you don't need that burden as a teenager, like you've got enough to figure out your own stuff. And then on the other side of it is authoritarian parenting style, which has no weight on the sensitive part and lots of weight on the demands.

And it tends to be more controlling and more because I said so, and that has another. Negative impact because it's usually fear-based parenting. And when you're afraid of your parents, you don't want to tell them the truth. So you'd rather, almost get in trouble with the police than you would with your parents.

So you will get into more trouble, but they won't know about it. And what's dangerous about that. Of course, is that you lose the connection with your adults and also. Put yourself in danger because you don't want to have to call the person that you should be able to call when you are in a situation. So like you're at a party and you are, if there's a choice between getting in a car with a drunk driver or calling your parents to admit that you were at a party drunk, you're not going to want to call them.

So that's a very dangerous situation to be in. And so this, the, the parenting style in the middle that is more closely linked with positive outcomes is what's called authoritative parenting. And then. The weight has kind of even because the demand yeah. And the sensitivity and that happy medium allows you to feel safe and seen and connected.

And then. You know, there's still going to be wear and tear, and it's still going to be tense and pushback back and fighting and feeling crappy and mad because you couldn't go to some event or whatever, but your long-term relationship is going to be better off. And then your relationship with your, your, even your romantic relationships are better off as you, as you become an adult and you start to understand the different kinds of relationships you're going to have as an adult, you have such a clear.

Foundation for what's healthy.

Sadie: If you are in a household where you have two parental figures, is it possible for them to be completely different parenting styles or is it more common that they are both kind of in the same room? It actually

Dr. Pressman: doesn't matter. I mean, here's what, what matters. It matters to the individual parent, but if one parent is like I'm authoritarian and I don't believe in your other stuff, That's their loss really is what's going to happen.

Probably that won't be the parent that you go to when you're in trouble. That's all that means. So you can do it. It doesn't have to be both parents, of course, in a dream world everybody's aligned, but that's just not necessarily practical. Part of our parenting style comes from the way that we were parents did.

So if you just aren't familiar with authoritative parenting, how can you possibly, and nobody's consciously walking around being like, well, I was raised with a third date of parents, but it's just like, if that's not familiar to you, that's even harder to do. If you're not thinking about it really consciously.

Sadie: Yeah, that's so interesting. Are there certain needs that get met in childhood by specifically your parents and, and what are those? And then my followup question will be what happens in teenage years and early adulthood when those needs are not met.

Dr. Pressman: Well, I mean, I hate to say what happens because. It feels like it's not like doom and gloom. If things don't go right. And childhood, like you're screwed as an adult. But I do think that it's easier to be an adult. If things go right and the style to it, and it's

Sadie: helpful to be aware of like, okay, what can I keep an eye out for?

Or what might I be more susceptible to falling into this pattern so I can work to avoid that, that kind of thing.

Dr. Pressman: Totally. So like, if you know that every time you got to emotional, when you were a kid, Or even as a teenager, because I think the attachment relationship between the parent and the child can evolve over time.

So let's say it was not really strong in infancy or early childhood, and then it became stronger later. You grow from that. And it's wonderful. Ideally it started out of the gate, but that's. Again, not necessarily practical, I would say like 60, 60 to 65% of the, of the parent child relationships in the research, which is obviously not a completely accurate number, but that's about the numb, the average that you would get of.

Uh, attachment style being just a secure, healthy style. So it's the majority of relationships without conscious like attempts at being healthy. It just happens to be that way. So if you are getting, if you are not getting your emotional needs met, because every time you're upset, your parent is like, we don't cry about this stuff, or you need to have better perspective.

And so you didn't get the moment of like, I am here for you. And even if that story feels stupid to me, because I've lived a longer life, I get that this story is big for you. I think, you know, what happens is you over time learn that your feelings do not get support and you keep them inside where you react.

When you're with other people, with disdain, for people who express their feelings or, you know, a number of things could happen. But if you think about it and then you think what, what does feel like home to me? Emotionally, like what, what kind of parents did I have? Were they available? Were they overly identifying?

Like if I cried, they cried and that felt, you know, unsafe because now I have to take care of you and there's so many different things that can happen. I think if you pay attention to what the relationship looked like, you're. At our position, because you can say, look, I don't, I wouldn't say it was ideal, but I'm aware of what wasn't ideal.

And I'm going to look out for those red flags in my interpersonal relationships. And sometimes red flags are also really complicated because what is home to you in your nervous system? What you feel in your body is that when you are. Happy your parents are happy. And because of that, you don't realize it, but you perform a lot, like, cause you want your parents love and you think maybe it's related to your mood.

And so you don't necessarily, or the opposite, or let's say your, you had a parent who left every time you got upset. Or angry or sad or scared they would just leave. You would learn not to get upset, angry, sad, or scared in front of them because you just don't want them to go. And you might have like an anxious relationship with that parent.

So again, you look at your adult self or your older adolescent self, and you've noticed God, why? I it's weird. I am so into people who kind of keep me feeling like I'm walking on eggshells. Like. Intellectually. I know that I should not be interested or attracted to this person as a friend or a romantic partner, but I keep getting drawn to it.

That may be because that's home to you and you don't even know it, but that's like, that reminds you of that cozy feeling of home. And unfortunately it's not a healthy feeling, but it's the one that's familiar to you. So it feels like I want more of this because this reminds me of what I'm supposed to feel like.

And so you have to do a lot of work to say. I should not necessarily listen to what my nervous system is telling me right now, because it's giving me inaccurate signals. And those signals are where there's a threat when there isn't, or that there's safety where there's actually a threat. And so then you do need to work on.

Recognizing that intellectually, because you can't recognize it in your body, your body's like, Ooh, that's pretty pretty, like, that's a pretty shiny object and that shiny object is not safe, but you're just drawn to it. Does that make any sense?

Sadie: That's so interesting. And it's, it's crazy to think about.

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And you're going to use coach she persisted podcast at checkout for 15% off your order. That is she persisted podcast at checkout for 15% off your order. Enjoy. If a listener has identified that one of these has popped up, but they're like, okay, I noticed this. I want to take steps to improve my relationship with my parental figure.

What steps can they take or what different dynamics can they start increasing?

Dr. Pressman: Like, I think that probably depends on if that parental figure is up for it. And most parents are not cultivating unhealthy relationships on. They really want to do there. Everybody's in it to win. And so most of the time, if you, you know, if you bid for your parents' attention and say, I've been thinking about this thing that I've been feeling, or I read about something, or I heard about this idea and.

Want to talk about it so we can repair our relationship and communicate better. I've been afraid to tell you when I'm unhappy, because I've been afraid that you won't love me the same way. And I am ready to talk about that and admit it to you and hear what you have to say. Those are hard words to say, but if you know that you're doing it because.

And you, and you w w with all people, but especially with your parents, if you're entering and saying, my goal here is to build our connection and make it stronger. And I think I'm onto something that I want to just state. And if it's too uncomfortable for you, then. Like then you're, you have to go seek that support from the other caregiver or from a teacher that you feel really connected to.

There are places to coach, but you need it. You just need it. And you deserve it as like a growing teenager to not have that safety is really a bummer. And. So most parents, if you approached them, you could also say something like I want, you know, I'd love to find a time for us to talk privately and just not have any noise around us because I've been thinking about something.

And so is now a good time, or can we set an appointment up to talk? Not because you have to schedule appointments to talk with your parents all the time, but just so that everybody's in the right frame of mind and prepared, and you don't have to worry about other siblings or other. Anything getting in the way and let's put our phones away and really dive in.

And if you really don't feel safe, you can say, I would love for us to work on our relationship. And I would like to do that with a family therapist.

Sadie: Those are all optional. Yeah, in my experience, one of the biggest things that made my relationship with my parents challenging was conflict. And then the dynamics that arose from that.

And so I want to talk, having conflict with parents and some of your favorite skills to use, to either resolve conflict or go into the interaction to try and be more effective and then repair after the fact, if a conflict does take place.

Dr. Pressman: Can you give me a sample conflict?

Sadie: Yeah. Let's think of what. I'm trying to think of like, what is a current, every team has had this argument. Okay. So if you're a teenager and you want to go out with your friends, do you want to go to a party? And your parents are like, no, you can't go out. And they're like, well, I've done all my homework.

Like it's the weekend. I really want to see my friends we've been in COVID and. No start it starts in argument will actually will. It's back up. That's what you want to ask your parents. How can you go into that situation to try and avoid conflict and be effective?

Dr. Pressman: So you might say, I ha okay. I wanted to ask if I can go to X party and before we talk about it, I want to alleviate some of your concerns.

I finished my homework. I know the parents are home. Or whatever. There, I have a game plan for getting there safely and returning safely whether, or I want a ride, which I have,

Sadie: or can you take me and pick me

Dr. Pressman: up? Yeah. Like the great thing that the ideal is that you take and pick your kids up because that's where you talk and that's where you look your kids in the eye.

And like, they will be less likely to want to be wasted in front of their parents. Lin. Like if you're. Going to a sleepover afterwards or, or a sibling is picking you up or you're getting an Uber or whatever. So I think it's actually kind of great to say, and I'd love for you to bring me and pick me up, not just because I need you to, but also because it makes me feel safer to have you as an excuse so that I can go to the party and have fun, but not do anything.

That's going to get me into. So now you've thought of all of the, the reasons why a parent might say no. And you could also say, and you tell me what timing works for you in my dream world. It's I arrive at this time. I get picked up at that time, but I'm, I'm. Um, you're

Sadie: not going to be like, yeah. So you'll pick me up at 3:00 AM.

That works for you now.

Dr. Pressman: Exactly. How late can you stay awake is basically when I picked up. And so then you you're, you've come in with the, the reasons why you're responsibly thinking about this, not just saying like, I want to go to a party and I haven't thought about the consequences and then if your parent doesn't want you to go then.

One conversation to have is, you know, obviously I I've missed being social and I really want to be able to be social. I would love to know from you what your expectations are for parties and things so that I can navigate which ones I should even ask you about and which ones you're just going to say no to out of the gate and maybe together, if I were the parent, I would want to say.

Why don't you tell me what your needs are and what your hopes are and what your freedoms list is. And if you can't. I have all of that. At least I know what you're aiming for, and we can build the trust up to getting you over the, because over the years, you know, a freshmen is different than a senior in what you're allowed to be doing and how much freedom you have and how much trust.

And that is built over time. So I think if both parent and teen can. Honestly, write down like what their expectations are and find a place where they're both comfortable, maybe pushing, you know, mom is getting pushed outside of her comfort zone a little bit. Give

Sadie: some sacrifices. Yeah.

Dr. Pressman: Cause there's no way.

I mean, if I could choose for sure. I'd be like, girl, I have two daughters and I would say like, I'm going to just bubble wrap you. Like you'll never do

Sadie: anything family game night tonight. It will be more fun than the party. Don't worry. I've figured out the social calendar.

Dr. Pressman: Yeah. I would love to do that, but you know, that's not very realistic.

So I think the onus is also on parents to do some work, to say, okay, I am not comfortable with my kid having a driver's license because it's terrifying. But they're supposed to have a driver's license, like that's part of growing up. And so you

Sadie: have to you're like, but I had a driver's license, so something's going to happen.

It has to

Dr. Pressman: have, we have to keep on evolving. So. It's a lot of deep breasts for parents. And just, I would say for teens who are asking about a party, for example, just saying like, what could help you, mom? I'm just saying, mom is a proxy for anybody who's in that role, but what, what would make you comfortable?

What do you need to know about a party in order for me to go? And if what the parent needs to know, isn't realistic. Like if it's just like, well, I can't give you the names of each attendee and I can't tell you exactly. You can't be

Sadie: on FaceTime the whole

Dr. Pressman: time. Like then at least you set the expectations, like, okay, well, it's very reasonable for you to give me a midnight curfew.

It's not reasonable for you to think that I'm going to be on FaceTime the entire. .

Sadie: So if you're having this conversation and your parent is like, I would like to sit outside the whole time. In fact, if I could be at the party, that would make me feel more comfortable, you get into a conflict. What's your advice?

Are you like? Nope. Okay. We step back. We don't talk about this at all. Is there certain communication strategies? Do you go anyways and just give up on the matter? Like, what's your advice there?

Dr. Pressman: I say, if you, so, so in the mind of the team, if you go do it anyway, You're lessening your chance of getting to do it at some point.

So you want to build trust with your parents so that they stop having so much leverage, right? Like it's the long game. And it's hard to along game when your brain is in a short game mode, which is what a teenage brain is.

Sadie: That sucks. It's so difficult.

Dr. Pressman: Yeah. You have to fight. W urges that are naturally just not supporting you because it's like all gas, no brakes.

And you have to somehow muster up the energy to press on the brakes when you're not naturally inclined to. And nobody would expect you to accept that you need to in order to get more freedom. So just being really aware of that and stretching that muscle is going to serve you, but sneaking out. In the one for the one important party loses out on the 10 other ones that you could be going to.

And then I would say, look, I'd love to have a family meeting about this and figure out how I can be a teenager, a social teenager in the context of also being. For your purposes and then you approach it like let's problem solve here. I think

Sadie: that's super helpful. If you get into a conflict, you haven't used those skills.

It went badly. The next day later that night, what are you doing to repair instead of just continuing to move

Dr. Pressman: on? Y okay. So I don't ever think that onus is on the kid to repair. I really believe the onus is on the parent. Even if the kid did something horrific. You're still growing and making mistakes.

Like your job is to make the mistakes, the parents' job. And we make mistakes too, but it's still to say, Hey, I love you no matter what you really screwed up, but I still love you. So let's like, we're not going to not repair from this. We have to. So let's figure out the game plan and will it include some consequences?

Yeah. It has to, and that's okay because we're going to get past them. You're going to get yeah.

Sadie: And that's where you get that parenting style where it's like, you're not driving your own car. Like you have the support. Yeah. And that makes the safe relationship. Exactly.

Dr. Pressman: And so of course it doesn't mean it's all going to be pretty because I'm not going to not, I'm not going to be like.

Oh, you, you didn't, you, you did screw up. You came home, you snuck out, you got wasted. Like any of those things, so, well, oh, well tomorrow's another day. There's still gonna be some consequences, but it's, but we're on the same team. It's not like sometimes punishments and consequences seem a lot. Like we're not on the same team.

Like I want you to suffer and I want you to see that you're wrong. That's not the goal. The goal is like to have a natural. Consequence for things. You, you steal a car, you don't get a car for the next month. You know, that makes sense. It's not to teach a lesson. It's to say this was too big of a responsibility for you.

So I'm going to take away that responsibility for now until you've built up the tools to have more responsibility.

Sadie: That's so interesting. This week's episode is brought to you by Sakara. I don't know about you, but it's a new year. New me, new year's resolutions going into 2022. I'm trying to eat a lot healthier, eat a lot cleaner, move my body more and really just have a fresh start and build great habits throughout the rest of the year.

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But how do I apply

Dr. Pressman: that? Sure. Okay. So sneaking out is another one. So you snuck out. And you were told that you couldn't go somewhere and now you did, or you went to your friend's house and said you were just going to your friend's house, but actually you went to a party that you said you were not going to go to, or any of those sort of combinations.

So the natural consequence is the, the con the statement from the parent is I'm glad you're safe. The most important thing is that you're back, you're safe. I love you. And also you betrayed my trust. And so we need to figure out. You know, the, the freedom you. Is related to the amount that I can trust you.

So I need to give fewer freedoms right now to give more space for you to, or to contain you a little bit more. So you don't have the, the ability to do the thing that's really dangerous. Like what do you know, what, what happened the other night last night could have gone terribly awry. And luckily the worst thing about it was that I lost trust in you, but it could have been much worse.

And so I need to. Figure out, you know, what is appropriate and I'm going to think about it. I don't know that I can respond right this second. And you've got, everybody has to take deep breaths so that you don't over compensate and just punish, punish, punish, but something is going to have to happen to sort of shift your ability or capacity to sneak out like that.

Like, you know, whatever that is.

Sadie: I think that makes a lot of sense. Yeah. What are like the top three parent teen points of contention that you see?

Dr. Pressman: Dress is one, particularly for girls. Yeah, just really hard for parents. I, again, I mean, I'm not great at that either, but we forget, like throughout time teens have pushed the envelope in what they're wearing and it's not to be sexual.

It's typically not really related to that. I mean, there's a little pretend grownup happening, but a lot of times it's just like, looks a lot more deviant than it is. Um, You know, I just was at a part picking up at a party where I was like, I cannot believe how everybody's true.

Sadie: Yeah.

Dr. Pressman: So it was shocking, but it's not, to me.

It's such a source of tension and such a silly source of tension. You can say no to what your kid is wearing in front of you, but then they can just take it off later.

Sadie: So my grandmother did that. She has this hilarious story where she went to school, wearing her Catholic school. Gore uniform, went to a light construction site down the street, put on her actual outfit, which she was not allowed to wear.

And then her like mom saw her walking around and was like, what's happening.

Dr. Pressman: Exactly. So it's been happening forever for ever. I think that's one of those fights that happens constantly. That's like such a waste because you can, you're much better off saying, okay, here's the deal. This is what my, in my dream, you were either high cut or short, but not both.

And here are a couple tips on like being a little classic. But beyond that, I'm not, I'm probably not going to agree with your choice because. That's just, you know, I'm more protective as long as you're aware really it's about you, what image you're projecting. So even if you don't mean to be super sexual, no, that that's being looked at in a particular way.

And is it society's problem probably, but it's still factually what it is. So you want to kind of help guide. B, so directive about it. That it's a fight. That's such a waste of a fight. I think screen time. Is it? Oh

Sadie: yeah. With me, my parents that was like number one point of contention.

Dr. Pressman: And it's the same thing.

This is how teens communicate. It's very hard to navigate. How much is too much when that's like, and I talked on the phone with my friends for three hours a night, every night, like I just was doing it on the phone. So I think for parents to remember, yes, you need to take, I, I really believe that you need to help teenagers contain their.

Screen time by having a set time at night and saying I'm taking the, you know, just turn in your screens because it's too hard for any of us, myself included to turn off my screen, unless I'm like, it's dead.

Sadie: Yeah. For you. Is your goal to, this is me being curious in relation to my relationship with my. Are you like, I want my child to be ready to go to college, take that next step and be able to independently manage their own screen time and get to that point.

Or is it like you facilitate that until they're completely independent?

Dr. Pressman: I think somewhere in between. So you facilitate it and help and then as, and then you give it a try and say, listen, let's see how you do with, with. So much, you know, you're, you're at a point where you don't need to turn it in anymore.

I think you can navigate this on your own. And then if they're like, I'm not, I'm actually, I'm still not there yet. So say that's cool. Let's just keep it in my charge because the truth is very few people. Teens or adults have really nailed down having self control when it comes to devices. And so we all kind of need a little help and, but that one's like much harder to train your brain to do so.

It takes longer.

Sadie: Totally. Totally. What would be your last point of contention between teens and parents? I

Dr. Pressman: mean, there are so many, but I think this is true. I think, um, the, the tension of. The workload and the stress and that are they doing enough, can go both ways. Some teenagers push themselves way too much.

And the parents are like not allowing for it. And the teenagers are mad because they're like, you don't understand how hard it is now to get into college, to do things. And I have to push myself. And then the other side of it, where parents are pushing and pushing for. Teens to be at a level of work and intensity.

That is just insane because there is a crazy world out there and it does make parents stressed out like, well, if they don't have the perfect extracurricular and the perfect volunteer work and the perfect scores and the perfect sports and the perfect plays, like they're not going to be a good candidate for college and jobs and whatever, and there's no way to help your kids through that.

Feeling loved for who they are and not for their accomplishments, without being able to say, what are you looking for? What are your goals? What are your college goals? What are your career goals? How much of this is going to matter in the grand scheme of things and how much is all of us getting stuck in the craziness I support where you want to be.

So if you want to push yourself and it feels like it's still healthy, I let me know what I can do to be of help. But if I'm pushing you and you are starting to wonder about your own worth, I've done this, this is terribly wrong and nothing is more important than figuring out the right balance for you.

And also just understanding that different kids have different goals and not everybody needs to be. Skyrocketed to what is perceived as like the best college and the best this or that, especially because it's not even relevant anymore. It's just a different world. So I think for parents that argument, or like doing homework and choosing.

You know, choosing to push yourself versus being pushed. That's a very strange tension and it really is family, you know, depends on the family. But if you do find that you're crying and scared by your grades, not because of your school records or anything, but because of what your parents are going to do, it's, you know, it's a time to talk to them now, culturally, for some families, it feels very ungrateful not to get good grades like.

I'm doing all of this so that you can have more opportunities. And I totally understand that. So I think we can all be sensitive to the unique circumstances of our family and what, what, where, where we're kind of where we stand culturally and still keep on reminding our teens that we love them for exactly who they are.

That's just so much more important to me.

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So to start your therapy journey today. You're going to go to teen counseling.com, Sashi persisted. Again, that's teen counseling.com/d persisted to find the therapist today. What are your favorite resources for teens and then for parents who are wanting to learn more about parental teen relationships or improve that relationship, that kind of stuff.

You know,

Dr. Pressman: it's interesting because in some ways, if you have a diagnosis of any mental health disorder and I hate the word disorder, but it is what it is. It has not been changed.

Sadie: I feel like disorder is sometimes better than illness though. Like for me, if there it's like, worst is mental illness than we have disorder.

And then I like to say like mental health challenges, it's kind of like my spectrum of how I look at it, but yeah. We could use some growth. There needs to be

Dr. Pressman: growth, and that's on the that's on the part of the adults in this field. But, but for atypical kids who are going through challenges, there are actually a ton of resources because one of the most important things you can do, if you have a kid who's suffering in any way from any, any diagnosis is family therapy and group therapy.

And you know, like you, you, you kind of. It's a family affair because it totally is. That's that that's the only way it's successful. So I'm less concerned, frankly, about the families who have already chosen to treat their teens, because they're obviously you have

Sadie: a third party and you have support. It's, it's easier as a plan.

I agree with.

Dr. Pressman: But for, for those who are just sort of typically developing normal wear and tear, and sometimes they're more alone and now there's a separate category of kids who are suffering and there's nobody helping them get treatment that is devastating and dangerous. And so I would, I, I encourage any teen or parent listening to make sure that they check in with each other because there's so much help out there, but not getting it is a hundred percent a pathway to much worse outcomes and getting help is so valuable.

And, and the difference between doing it and not doing it is lifesaving. So, but separately from that, if, if you're just like, my relationship is just tense, like all teenagers, like you can't get out of the adolescents without having a tense time, you know, there's a push pull with your parents. There should be like, what are those resources?

I don't even know. Right. Don't even know. It's a really, that's a really good question because I don't know of any, I mean, I have parent groups for just typically developing kids or. Typically developing whatever the parents work together. So the parents work with me, so it might be a teen group, but there are no, he nature's in it.

It's for the parents to sort of talk through stuff and then go home. But I don't actually know. I think it would be a really interesting, and I love the question and I'm going to look into the answer, but I actually don't know yet,

Sadie: sir. I'm trying to think from experience. I think that similar idea to the parent group of having like that third party person, group of people to be validating and supportive and kind of check you on your, your view of the situation, whether that's a friend or a school counselor, a teacher, I think.

A family friend, that's an adult that you really relate to and look up to, and that isn't in a parental role, but similar, I think is huge and so powerful because it provides like more support than just like your teenage friend. Who's going through the same stuff. I think there's something really powerful about educating yourself on what your teen parent relationship can look like.

And quote, unquote, should look like, like recognizing like, Hey, I don't deserve to be treated like this, or it's not normal to feel this way at home or that kind of thing. And recognizing that you're deserving of more, this is what you want from a relationship. And there's tons of books and podcasts and so many resources for that.

Dr. Pressman: I in that case, there's actually one book that I love called brainstormed by Dan Siegel because he wrote it, the parent part of it and the teen part of it. So you're like getting to know your brain as a teenager and getting to know your teenager's brain. And even though it's about the brain, it's all, it's all relationships.

Sadie: I love that. I'll definitely link that in the show notes, but I think community, if your relationship with your parents is struggling having an escape to where your whole life isn't consumed by that same relationship is hugely powerful. And, and it's a game changer to wrap things up. If you had one piece of advice to give to parents and one piece of advice to give to teens, what would it.

For

Dr. Pressman: parents. And I, this sounds like much more a statement for younger people for, for people, the younger kids, but it, it, it's so important for teenagers, which is all feelings are welcome. All behaviors are not, and that parents need to, before you jump at your teenager about anything, remember. They're allowed to be angry.

They're allowed to be hurt. They're allowed to be sad. They're allowed to be scared. They're just not allowed to be nasty in the sense that like you can contain the behavior. You can make a statement about the behavior. To acknowledge the feeling is what separates a sensitive caregiver from one who's just authoritarian because you're going right to what they did wrong.

And there's no sense of like, by the way, the feelings that you're having, you're totally valid. And there's a lot of like, you should feel this way. You should feel grateful. You should be, you know, you're so lucky about this and I really wish parents could throw that away because it's so demoralizing for teenagers to hear.

Their feelings are wrong. Cause then of course, since you can't control how you feel, you're like, I guess I'm wrong. Like me as a person, she would. I dunno, but you're good. Yeah. So I really like, I can't stress enough how critical it is to be able to separate feelings from behavior and to never, ever, ever.

Tell a kid, you should not feel blank because they do. So it's a ridiculous thing to say. And now you can't control that because now you're like, oh, well, what do you do with that? You know,

Sadie: it totally a hundred percent agree with that. And I think for

Dr. Pressman: teens believing that ultimately your parents deeply, deeply love you and that you really, really are.

To talk to them. If you try not to go at them with an attack and, and reach, reach them at their emotional core, which is their entire existence has forever changed once they have a kid and they love you like, and so a lot of love looks ugly sometimes or mean or distant, and you don't know. Anything other than for the very majority of the world, your parents deeply love you.

And even if they don't know how to, even if they don't know how to show it and they probably don't know how to show it because nobody showed them in the way that made sense. And so it's the cycle. So if you can say to yourself, oh, there'll be. Cold to me right now, or they're stonewalling, you know, like pushing me away.

Cause they're not pleased with my behavior. Cause that's probably what was done to them. So they actually don't know how to lean in and also have boundaries. But if you go, if you enter the relationship, realizing that parents are not perfect and they are just basically doing their best and your best, maybe a wild guess because they were raised.

Parents who also didn't know what was going on. We're also giving

Sadie: it a wild guess.

Dr. Pressman: So, so taking the, you know, like removing the curtain a little bit and giving some grace to yourself and to your parents, because we're just not going to get it right all the time. And. Some people are going to get really wrong.

And by the way, I know all the information, not all of it, but I know what we know. Let's say that, cause we don't know a lot, but there's stuff we do know from science and I've got it all in here and that has no, you know, that doesn't mean that every day I'm making the best choices for my kids. Cause I'm an emotional person and some days I'm gonna do the opposite of what I would say.

I remember my best friend was sitting at a table with me and our kids were playing. They were much younger and I did not, whatever my daughter did. My older daughter did. I was so irritated and whatever I said to her, my friend said, I would've never thought that's how you're supposed to handle that kind of situation.

And I looked at her and I was like, Because I just feel

Sadie: like do, as I say, not as I do

Dr. Pressman: have to, as I do. And so I think that's one of those things that is important only because it doesn't matter how much information you have. We are emotionally so connected to our kids. We have such a history of being parented and being in this world then.

It's it's hard to get it right with your kids all the time. And as a plus side for both kids and parents, in terms of the message, we're not supposed to be perfect ever, ever, ever. So the more you can be perfect and not be it's a losing it's like don't set that goal because not only will you never reach that goal, but in fact, for parents to be perfect, sends a damaging message to a teenage.

Damaging. I would take seeing flaws in my parents any day over thinking that they're so perfect that I'll never live up to them.

Sadie: Yeah. So true. Well, this is going to be an amazing episode. I know so many people are going to find it so helpful. Thank you for sitting down with me. Where can listeners find.

Thank you so

Dr. Pressman: much for taking the time and for having me and for doing this listeners can find me. I have a podcast called raising good humans, and I'm on Instagram trying to answer questions and give clips. On. Oh my God. It's raising good humans podcast is the answer to

Sadie: perfect. I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much.

I'm so glad we got to do this. I know this will help so many people. I get so mad. It's funny because teens, when they're struggling, like I know that. The majority of listeners is teens, but the parents are the one that's that are like, what do I do? Can you help me? My Tito's struggling. So I know it's going to help them and answer so many questions.

So thank you so, so much,

Dr. Pressman: you so much, I love teenagers so much that it's just like the coolest time to parent to. It's

Sadie: so funny, especially whenever I have adults on the podcast, there's such the universal experience of like a teenager sucked. Like everyone gets it, everyone relates to it. It's such a common experience.

So it's, it's so funny to, for that people are like, oh my gosh, yes. Like this is a, this is a tough time. And everyone's willing to offer their advice and support. And it's, it's an amazing

Dr. Pressman: thing. Oh my God. I forgot. That is one last piece of advice is saying to your teenager when they come to you with anything, do you want my advice or do you want me to just listen?

Yes. I think that's a big deal because not everybody wants your

Sadie: oh. But whenever I go to my parents, I'm like, no, I know how to handle this. It's just really annoying. I just want to be upset. Like

Dr. Pressman: just let me do that a hundred percent. So anyway, I think that's true for adults too, by the way, like any revenge.

And you're just like, I didn't want your solutions. Like, I just want to know that I'm just, I've got this.

Sadie: Totally anyway. Well, I love it. I love it. Well, thank you again in Casey. Skip to the end, Dr. Pressman and I discussed the four parenting styles and which help versus hurt parenting relationships. We talked about how our parents' emotional reactions can shape how we express emotions and our future adult relationship.

We dive into why we pursue the familiar feelings of our home environment. Even if they're not necessarily healthy, we go through a step-by-step guide of how to decrease conflict and then navigate it. When it does arise. She talks about how parents should always be the one to repair after conflict. The most common points of contention between parents and teens and lastly resources for both parents and teens to improve their relationship.

If you enjoyed this week's episode, please, please share it with a friend or a family member who you think would enjoy it. Share it on social media, tag me at, at she persisted podcast. And I'll make sure to repost and give you a little shout out. Thank you for listening and I will see you next week.

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