I am surrounded by mothers (and fathers) who just want to help their children. In fact if you think back to many of the arguments you have had with your teen you will quickly realize that most ended with you repeating the phrase “I am just trying to help you”. As humans our brains distort, delete and generalize experiences. It is just how our brains function. There’s so much data being sent to our brains every second through all of our senses that we need to do this to process and use information. So while you walk away thinking you are trying to help them they may delete that important part and just hear that mom is angry.
Let’s use taking supplements to explain the concept. Imagine a 5 minute conversation or argument about your 15 year old daughter not taking her supplements. Think about all the different words said in those 5 minutes. You hope that they delete all the parts about the arguing back and forth and walk away with just the simple message to take their supplements. After all that is the part that you recall loud and clear. But they don’t! They are creating a story based on all the information collected in those 5 minutes. They have their own diminished or condensed version of what just happened. And they are deleting different parts than you. It is not just your words that deliver this data to your teen. Your energy, tone and facial expressions are also a big part of this data collection. Here is a quick fact to help you understand this…approximately 2 million bits of data are sent to the brain per second for processing, yet the conscious mind seems to be able to process only about 134 bits per second. If your teen is only processing 134 bits of information per second you want that to be the most vital portion of your message. But it doesn’t happen this way because they have their own filter, beliefs and attitudes that do the job of filtering and distorting. Unfortunately they are likely to be processing that mom is annoying or mom yelled at me instead of thinking they better take those supplements.
Now that you have this information you likely want to know what you can do! Imagine you are making a smoothie. Every time you make this smoothie you put the same amount of fruit, milk, ice and whatever other ingredients you select. If the smoothie always comes out too thick or too sweet you need to change the input or ingredients to change the result. This is basically cause and effect. Changing the input when having these discussions with your teen is where you have some power. Being able to pause before reacting is key. Arguing, debating and going off track is adding way too much extra data that will interfere with the results you are hoping to achieve. Much like adding too much fruit will make that smoothly too thick or sweet.
This step can be hard for many parents because they are experiencing their own stress and anxiety. But if you approach your teen from this perspective they are less likely to walk away with the important message (taking their supplements is going to help them heal or mom cares about me and is trying to help). Before you enter the room try to pause and change your own internal dialogue about the situation. When you are feeling anxious or believe you have to protect or teach your teen something important you too are deleting and distorting a situation. Imagine your teen has been playing video games for 3 hours instead of working on homework. You might believe that not finishing that school assignment means they will drop out of high school, get rejected from every college and never be successful, etc…But when you can stop and recognize that you too have distorted this data (data meaning your thought) you can collect some of the deleted or distorted parts and be able to recognize that it unlikely means they will drop out of high school and never get into college. Approach your teen after you have had the clarity you need. Recreate and undistort the story. The new story is that your teen is having a lazy day and needs a little push to get the work done. When you take out all the stress and bantering the 134 bits of data processed will begin to include the most important parts of the discussion.
I realize some may be reading this thinking they have bigger problems than this. Those need to be handled in their own unique way. But what is consistent is that changing the ingredient or input will change the results of how your teen interprets the experience. And that is a powerful thing for a parent to recognize. And as an additional bonus less stress hormones will be released (in both you and your teen), your home will become less polluted with stress and more joy will be experienced.