One of my biggest fears as a parent is that my kids will hide things from me. As a teenager, I felt like my parents were so wrapped up in their own lives that they just didn’t have time to learn anything about mine. I lied to my parents all the time, about where I was, who I was with, and what we were doing. And it terrifies me beyond belief that my kids will lie to me too. All I can hope is that with the right communication, my kids will know how important they are to me and their Dad, that they will understand why it’s important for them to make safe choices, that they won’t ever feel like we don’t care about them.
Parent Bloggers Network sent me “The Teen Whisperer”, by cattle rancher and counselor Mike Linderman. That’s right, he’s a real-life cowboy who raises cattle on a working ranch, and then goes to a job at the Spring Creek Lodge in Montana. Spring Creek is a place where teens whose parents have tried everything to keep their kids away from drugs, alcohol, and other unsafe behaviors can go to learn the reasons behind their behavior, and how to live different lives. Mike Linderman has a no-nonsense approach to counseling these kids that works. What does he do? He treats them with respect, he is honest with them, he challenges them. And it works.
In “The Teen Whisperer“, not only will you learn how to talk to your teens, but you will also get a unique inside look at what teens are really thinking and feeling. By using examples from his counseling sessions, Linderman gives us a glimpse inside the minds of some really troubled kids. It turns out that the corpus callosum, the set of nerves that connect all the parts of the brain, is not yet fully developed in teens. Which means that teens can’t make the connections that adults can make-cause and effect, actions and consequences, etc.
I can hear myself, saying to my 11 year old, “didn’t you understand that if you did THIS, THAT could happen?” The answer is, no, he probably couldn’t. Not that it lets me off the hook, but it shows me that I need to ease up on the expectations.
The book is broken down into four separate sections-Part One is an introduction to Linderman, his philosophy, his method of counseling which is called “reality therapy”, and his experiences working with kids.
Part Two is a discussion of our five primary needs, which shape all of the choices we make. Those needs are Survival, Love and Belonging, Power, Freedom, and Fun.
Part Three gets into specific acting-out behaviors that teens use when one of those needs isn’t being met.
Part Four combines all of that knowledge with an understanding of how teens communicate so that you can develop your own approach to communicating with your teen.
Even if your children are not yet teens, I recommend reading this book. By incorporating some of these methods into how we communicate with our kids now, maybe we can avoid problems in the future. If our kids know that we understand that they are different than us, but that we are here to help guide the choices they are going to make, we can hopefully prevent breakdowns in communication at a later date. I am so grateful to Parent Bloggers Network for sending me this book, it might make the difference between having troubled teens and having, well, less troubled teens.
Although my kids probably don’t eat a wide enough variety of vegetables, we serve a veggie every night for dinner. Our standards are steamed frozen green peas or green beans, steamed carrots, or canned corn. Occasionally I steam broccoli, but not often. My boys have never eaten beets, or squash, and neither has eaten a sweet potato since they were infants eating the baby food variety (they don’t know what they are missing, either. Mmm, sweet potatoes). So when 
I don’t know any kid who doesn’t like chicken nuggets. Just don’t tell them what’s hidden inside!
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