Change Your Brain Every Day - Adult Kids - Tips for Parenting a Young Adult - Part 4 of an Interview with Dr. Jim Fay

Episode Date: April 3, 2017

Sending your child off to college doesn’t necessarily mean your parenting duties are over. Today we learn about ways you can help your child transition into a self-sufficient adult.

Hi, I'm Donnie Osmond, and welcome to The Brain Warrior's Way, hosted by my friends Daniel and Tana Amon. Now, in this podcast, you're going to learn that the war for your health is one between your ears. That's right. If you're ready to be sharper and have better memory, mood, energy, and focus, well then stay with us. Here are Daniel and Tana Amon.

Welcome back. We are here with Dr. Jim Fay, the Brain Warriors Way podcast. This is our Love and Logic, Parenting with Love and Logic week. We have been having so much fun. And today we're going to talk about young adults, because what I've seen as a child psychiatrist, the issues don't end at 17 or 18, that there are huge issues when you send a child away to college, which i'm actually not a fan of your brain is not fully developed until you're 25 and girls more like 28 in boys when you know i see kids who really struggled through adolescence and parents send them across the country to school it's often where their first psychotic break happens, where they get depressed, they become overweight, maybe even suicidal. And so parenting young adults is really

important. So I have a question on that, though. Does a lot of it have to do with how you raise your kids young and how strong they are before they go as far as what age they're ready to leave. So we'll let Dr. Fay weigh in on that. Let's jump into this issue, Dr. Fay, of older teenagers and young adults. What has been your experience as you have helped people parent with love and logic? Well, the lucky ones who have been parenting this way don't worry a whole lot about their kids at that point and don't get a lot of return, you know, kids coming back to live at home.

You know, when you were talking about college and how kids go off to college to start with and how they need to save up enough money to pay for the first their first quarter of school out there so that you can support them as they go along and what happens is they they pay for their first quarter of school and then if they bring back appropriate grades we reimburse them for the money that they spent on that first quarter and then they have money for the next quarter and so on interesting those kids usually get through school in a different way than other kids who go there to party because they've got some skin in the game. That makes a lot of difference. It's not something we think about often

with kids away from home, but they're going to... I don't send my kids off to college if I think they're going to go off to party to start with. Yeah, that's really interesting. So one of the things that we implemented early on was teaching decision-making with Chloe and also problem-solving. So even though we travel a lot, and even when we travel, there was a time that she and I got lost somewhere, and we didn't have cell phones. We were out of the country. And so she freaked out at first and I'm like, okay, so what would you do if I wasn't here? And I literally had her, I already knew what to do, but I literally had her

walk us through each step of what to do because we were in a very remote area, couldn't find a cab. So it was a really good lesson. Things like that, that we've done with her since she was young, and then, you know, just started stacking on more age-appropriate decision-making, but not easy decision-making, so that she has to figure things out. I think that that's made her a lot stronger, don't you, Daniel? Absolutely. I think that it sounds to me like you were using that technique called guiding kids to own and solve their own problems. You know, when the kids are facing a problem, instead of solving it for them or telling them what they ought to do, it's, oh, wow, would you like to hear what some other kids have tried before? Then give them a list of different ideas.

And each time, with each new idea, we say, how do you think that would work? How do you think that would work? And then we often start out with the worst one first. Right. Because they're going to reject that one anyway. You don't want to waste a good one. That's funny. So throw out several ones.

And even if you don't have a good one, you could throw out several bad ones and say, how do you think that would work? And then at the end, just say, well, I've run out of ideas. Good luck. And that whole idea that the quality of their life is going to depend on those kinds of decisions. If that is going on early before they have to leave the house, they're going to handle themselves a whole lot better out there. So one thing I've noticed with young adults, well, Chloe's only 13, but I've noticed with some of the parents that we know of either teenagers or young adults, they talk about their kids paying consequences, but then they don't follow through. And I think it's painful to let your kids pay consequences.

So for example, in the fifth grade or fourth grade, Chloe had a group project. My rule is I don't take homework to school. If you forget it, you forget it. And that's another one I learned because her grades aren't my grades. It's not a reflection on me as a person. So I got a call from her teacher, not from Chloe. Her teacher is saying it's the only time my daughter's ever forgotten something at school, at home that she needed for school. But the teacher called me and she said, you know, could you bring this to school? Because she has a

group project and their grade, all of their grades depend on it. I'm like, oh, I'm so sorry about that. I'm in a meeting. Chloe knows I can't bring, I can't bring homework to school. And so she knows that's her responsibility. And she said, really, you're not going to bring it to school, even though it's a group project. I said, that's not my problem. It's her problem. And she was, she was stunned. And then she laughed and she said, you know, I actually wish more parents would do this because then I wouldn't be making these calls. And I said, so why didn't Chloe call me? She said, cause her first response was my mom's not going to bring it so yeah that uh when we have to worry about their behavior out there uh we're not going to be paying for them to do self-destructive things

right um i know a lot of people who worry about the fact that their kids drink at parties, and they still let them drive there. Right. You know, the rule in our house was, hey, you can use the family car as long as I never worry about alcohol. Yeah, as long as I trust you. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, you can trust me. Yeah, I trust your intelligence what i don't trust quite yet is your experience and wisdom so uh as long as i don't worry about it you've got a car to drive and then when we smell alcohol one night oh, this was rough. What's your guess about the family car? Yep. You know, when you restrict that car until you're not worried about it again, it tears a little piece of your heart off. Yep.

But then you know that, wait a minute, there's a whole lot better chance when he's away from home that things are going to go a lot better well and it doesn't tear your heart out nearly as much as i have several friends who have lost kids to drunk driving so there's nothing more painful than that and that's you know um yeah it's much easier like you said pay the consequences while they're cheap the other thing is my daughter knows if she gets arrested for something like that i'm not getting up in the middle of the night to go get her. So she's going to stay there. So, you know, but she knows that I mean it, you know.

You know, when they get away from home. Oh, I'm sorry for that. I'm sorry. When they get away from home, most often you hear phone calls from them, but most often it's when they're down in the dumps or they need something. And those are those wonderful times when they call home and say, Oh, I've run out of money. And you so,

so desperately want to just send them a whole bunch so they don't have to suffer. And, uh, what pays so much better is, Oh boy, what do you think you're going to do? I know you can solve a lot of problems.

How are you going to solve this one? Interesting. There's another technique that we've used. When we wrote the grandparenting book, we thought we had written everything that grandparents needed, and then we had a focus group read it and they say well you didn't put in there what to do when the kids are away from home or our grand or our adult kids call up and they want money and things like that so we had to stick in a little

thing about that where they call up and say, you know, I was hoping that you could pay for Ralph's baseball this year. You know, we're kind of short. Oh, wow. Yeah. Well, thanks for sharing with that. Give me a few days. I'll get back to you and I'll let you know what worked for me.

And you buy yourself some time so that you can get up your nerve to say what you really need to say and sometimes you can say yeah i think that was something i'd enjoy doing or other times you say you know i might have an extra 50 but you've thought it through so uh that whole business of buying time when things are going wrong out there really becomes important at that age. I like that. That's actually really helpful. So you're not on the spot when they do that. You know, I teach my ADD patients to do that all the time.

It's, you know, I want you to practice in the mirror. I have to think about it. Because too often they just impulsively say yes when it really doesn't fit the goals they have for their life. This has been so incredibly helpful, Dr. Fay. What are some, and this can apply to children or young adults at any age. In the years you've been doing this, what are the three or four tips you would leave people with to really highlight parenting with love and logic? Well, first of all, that we really have to get begging backtalk and arguing under control that kids just when we set a limit it has to be the limit it has to almost be my way of the highway but not in a nice way so that technique about when they test the limits, we just say, what did I say?

Walk away. And then have a scheduled time each week when kids know they can come to their parents and talk about anything that they don't think is fair about how the family runs. And we say, we'll be really good listeners at that time, and we may or may not change what's going on here. So that becomes really important. The whole idea of buying time when things go wrong. Have a tattoo on your finger that says, I'm not sure how to react to that. I'll get back to you. I like that. So that when you actually deal with it, you're in a calm,

loving manner. That becomes important. The whole idea of, we didn't talk a lot about empathy, but parents having one empathetic sound on the tip of their tongue that they can spit out without having to think when things go wrong with their kids, instead of immediately trying to fix it or telling them what to do, but to have something that indicates, boy, I'm with you on this. It might be, wow. Oh, you know, in some states it would probably sound like, dang. Or if you were out in California, it'd probably sound like, dude, you know, bless your heart, you know, and give them a hug. You know, it's kind of, and then you have that available. When things go wrong, the kids wreck the family car, you know that you can buy some time. You can be really empathetic.

You can say, oh, wow. Oh, boy, that's rough, you know. And what's funny about that is, and, Doctor, you know all about how that changed brain chemistry for yourself when you do that yep you uh you feel a whole lot different then you can say oh that's rough wreck the family car well not to fear you'll be driving again someday so you get that car paid for how do you want to handle that you still got that fine relationship with your kid and you haven't destroyed it by saying what in the world are you thinking how

many you know and ranting and raving like the neighbors do that's awesome yeah no it's uh those consequences have been really helpful and one thing that i think i learned from you that is just i mean i always say oh i'm so sweetie. And then I think about what I'm going to say, but, or that, that, you know, that must feel terrible, but, you know, I think it's so helpful. One of the things that I've learned from you on how to handle those situations is when, not so much when she has an accident like that, but when she says something or when she used to say things that were disrespectful or difficult to deal with.

I don't do things for people who treat me that way, and you really shouldn't either. You should expect someone to respect you. And when you drain my energy, it means I don't have the time and energy to do other things for you. Yeah, it would be nice for all parents to have a sign on a kid's door and it says, happy to do the things you want when I feel respected and your chores are done.

And that can take care of an awful lot of problems. They come and say, well, will you drive me over? Well, did you ask in a nice way? Yeah. And are your jobs done? So important. If not, well, we'll try it someday when you haven't finished. Love it.

So helpful. Well, we want to thank you for your work, how important it's been to our family. The time you've given us today, we will continue to spread the word. For sure. I just want to, before we wrap up, I just want to say, so what has been so helpful? Your work has literally changed my relationship, which then, of course course changes your life to some degree. It's been so helpful. And I think combining that with what we know about brain development and brain problems and how to avoid some of those. And it's just, you know, I've got this person who's one of my favorite people

now, as opposed to a teenager where I roll my eyes and go, well, that's just typical teenage behavior. I don't think it is typical anymore, as long as your child's healthy. No, it doesn't have to be. No, see, I got to thinking along the way, I need to change my ways and find better ways to working with my kids because someday they're going to pick my nursing home for me.

Right, yeah, exactly. Well, it's actually one of the reasons i really focus on being healthy and doing the right things because i love my children i don't want to live with them i want to be independent and that means as an adult i have to parent myself with love and logic absolutely what is that decision? You know, how's that going to turn out for you? For my health. For my health, for my mind.

Independence. Independence and all of that. Well, this has been delightful. I've really enjoyed my time with you. Oh, it's fabulous. You also have materials for relationships, right? Like marriages and things like that. Yeah, we do.

It's amazing. There must be a hundred different things that we have. It's awesome. So go to loveandlogic.com and sign up for their emails. And this information can help your children. It can help yourself as a parent. It can even help your relationships. Thanks so much, Dr. Fay. So much fun. I hope I get to meet you someday. Thank you.

We will look forward to it. You're listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Thanks for listening to today's show, the Brain Warriors Way. Why don't you head over to brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com. That's brainwarriorswaypodcast.com, where Daniel and Tana have a gift for you just for subscribing to the show. And when you post your review on iTunes,

you'll be entered into a drawing where you can win a VIP visit to one of the Amen Clinics. I'm Donnie Osmond, and I invite you to step up your brain game by joining us in the next episode.