0:00:00 – Speaker 1
nextTalk contains content of a mature nature. Parental guidance is advised.
0:00:36 – Speaker 3
A teenager in the studio again, yay, okay, so this is Mandy. Kim is out today and my daughter is here. She’s 15 years old. She’s a freshman at a local public high school. We did a show last week with her and we were doing a day in the life of and we actually didn’t get to finish that. So we’re going to roll that into this.
But today too, at the end this show, I really want to focus on what I’ve done to help you and what I’ve done to not help you, like what doesn’t help, because I think that will be really good for the parents to hear, like what helps and what doesn’t. So we’re going to talk about that. But we have a lot to get into, because we didn’t finish the last show Absolutely, and so I want to get. I want to kind of continue where we were before. If you have not listened to that show yet, go listen to it.
Yes, we did a day in the life of and we were kind of up to the point where I picked her up from rehearsal that late night kind of rehearsal and we talked about some things that she stresses about in high school class rank and bathrooms and being recorded at any time and being made fun of through those recordings, and so those were just a couple things. We’re going to touch on some more today Before we get going. For those who didn’t do a brief introduction, because they can hear the intro from the last show.
0:01:55 – Speaker 1
Okay, well, I’m Matthew and Mandy’s daughter, which is weird to say their names, but they’re just mom and dad. 15. I’m a freshman at a public high school in Texas. The generic thing I always say about myself I have a bunny. Her Instagram is pixiedbunny. I keep plugging.
0:02:12 – Speaker 3
Yeah, I have to.
0:02:13 – Speaker 1
You know me followers you have right now, I think 114. Okay, guys, come on, let’s get it up. Let’s get it up, let’s get to 150. Come on, we’ve set ourselves a goal. Okay, let’s see, I just got my driver’s permit. Really excited about that. And I love theater, you know, it’s a thing I really enjoy. It’s like my extracurricular. I’m not athletic, so I’m not into like sports and stuff, but theater is my thing.
0:02:37 – Speaker 3
Okay, great Brief introduction. A little bit more in the last show. Okay, so normally we talked about your day and what you’re thinking about throughout the day. So you get home and you get home normally about five, thirty or seven. We have dinner typically pretty fast after that, depending on everybody else’s schedule and I would say we probably eat dinner together three times a week as a family I mean depending on people’s schedules and stuff and then let’s talk about homework. Oh my gosh how much. And you it’s. It’s a lot. You mentioned on the last show time management.
0:03:16 – Speaker 1
Yeah.
0:03:17 – Speaker 3
You have four pre AP classes this year I do, which helps with your class rank, but it causes stress. Yeah, it’s stressful.
0:03:25 – Speaker 1
Well, you know, as a freshman, my classes aren’t that hard. They’re not, but they’re trying to teach me what it’s going to be like when I do become like a junior. A junior, from what I hear, is the hardest year, like year, yeah. So they’re trying to work me up to that. I take four pre AP classes, two of my classes. One of them is kind of like an easy class. I don’t have homework in that. Yeah, there is theater and I’m in which I you know forward to, I look forward to it’s, it’s highlight of my day even though, like, we have rehearsals every night and most Saturdays yeah, almost every Saturday we have a full day rehearsal.
0:04:07 – Speaker 3
It’s either nine to three or one to five or something like that, but it’s. You guys are like a family, right? Yeah, we are like it’s a great little place for you.
0:04:17 – Speaker 1
Yeah, with all my homework, it’s not a lot of like every day stuff, it’s more of like on Monday five of my classes give me like a big assignment and then they’re like by Friday you need to have this done.
0:04:32 – Speaker 3
Okay. So, let’s talk about when you get home, we have dinner and then normally you’re starting homework. Yeah, now for our family, how we do this, because I have a younger son too. You know, I have my baby and he’s in fifth grade, and so you’re like he’s not a baby. He’s so mean sometimes, that’s what he?
is. I mean, I see the look on your face. Okay, they get out, they get out, they get out. And so what we typically do is we have dinner. My daughter is normally at the counter Doing your homework, right, yes, and so about 8, 30, 8, 45, we will then pray as a family, like I will tuck little brother in and you are normally petting your Pixie the bunny.
0:05:17 – Speaker 1
Yeah or whatever.
0:05:19 – Speaker 3
Yeah, I’m having my pixie while we’re praying or whatever, and then that is our time where phones get shut down, right. So yeah, I mean, before the prayer we, you, you normally take your phone to the mud bench. That’s kind of what we’ve agreed on. How do you feel about that? Because now that you’re older I’m sure you feel like you know you’ve, you can manage it a little bit better. But what do you?
0:05:41 – Speaker 1
think, well, I’m glad we keep it at the bug bench. I am because I know for a fact, if I were to be able to keep it in my room, I would stay up on it all night. Yeah, scrolling through Instagram, looking at snapchat, like everything, well should you to.
0:05:59 – Speaker 3
You even get distracted, and we have a lot of conversations about doing your homework with your phone. Mm-hmm, because you’ll be using your phone to do homework.
Yeah, projects looking at stuff and or whatever, but you’ll get sidetracked, yeah, and I’ll walk by and see you watching an Instagram like cooking video or something. Yeah, and I’ll be like I thought you were doing homework, like I was. I think sometimes, what should take an hour or two, it takes three or four, yeah, hours, because you get sidetracked and we’re just as parents are just as guilty about that, yeah, but I think that’s something that we it’s a good thing, because I do think it’s difficult, yeah, and so that’s kind of our routine. But you stay up, you, even though we all go to bed, and after we pray and it’s when the party starts. So tell me what you’re doing.
0:06:50 – Speaker 1
I’m, I Take a while to do stuff. Yeah, like you need your, you need a minute.
0:06:55 – Speaker 3
I mean I’m yeah.
0:06:56 – Speaker 1
I do. That’s why it’s a struggle for me in the morning, because I have 15 minutes to do everything. Yeah, so I mean it’s just normal stuff. I get ready for bed, I read my Bible yeah, like a chapter, okay tell us about that, because that’s kind of cool.
0:07:13 – Speaker 3
I’m pretty proud of you about that who you had a pastor right.
0:07:16 – Speaker 1
Yeah, a youth pastor at a camp Inspired us to, like you know, you should read a chapter of your Bible every night before you get a bed, and then you can get finished. You know, by the time you with the whole Bible, by the time you graduate high school and you started this what? In sixth grade?
0:07:33 – Speaker 3
Yeah, I think so and you’ve almost read the whole Bible, almost yeah, again there. Um, I think what’s so cool about this is like I don’t tell her she has to do it, mm-hmm. And it’s really neat, because this past summer we went on a vacation and I remember we were at the Grand Canyon and it was like 2 am and we were all like exhausted.
We had been touring the Grand Canyon all day long and I look over and my daughter has Her Bible and her phone reading her chapter a day. Yeah, and it was pretty. It was a pretty cool moment for me. Okay, so you read your Bible. You do any other homework, I guess yeah, I do.
0:08:11 – Speaker 1
I try studying. I try and get the homework out of the way where I have to use my phone, um, I try and get that out of the way before I go to my room. Yeah, I can’t take my phone in my room, um, but yeah. So then when I, when I go to my room, I usually pet pixie for like an hour. I’ll get sidetracked doing that. It’s literally like a stress reliever for you, it is. Is she so fluffy? Yeah, okay, yeah, I’ll feed Pixie and I’ll you know.
0:08:41 – Speaker 3
Watch her eater carrots yeah yeah. That’s kind of a stress reliever too. So you go to bed about 10.30, 11. Normal, yeah, I’d say, but range between 10.30 and 11.30.
Do you think your mind quiets because you don’t have your phone in there? And you have? Absolutely yeah, I think that’s really important, that I think sometimes, even as adults, we’re on our phones right before we go to bed and our mind is not quieted, because if we get an email or we get a notification, then your mind starts racing About how to respond to it or what we’re going to do, and so it’s really important to just do that quieting right before we go to bed.
0:09:18 – Speaker 1
That’s why I try and read my Bible right before I go to bed, so it kind of like you know, you know, gives you peace, gives me peace A little bit.
0:09:25 – Speaker 3
Okay, all right, we wanted to finish. What that day looked like let’s talk about. We need to get on to the next episode.
0:09:31 – Speaker 1
I know we have so much to cover.
0:09:33 – Speaker 3
Kim is going to be like oh my gosh, we should have done more shows. Okay, let’s talk about we talked about baby peer pressure. Let me just throw out some things and you tell me what you think when I first say it Okay, like suicide.
0:09:47 – Speaker 1
Oh, it’s a thing, it’s in high school, it’s a serious thing that I mean it happens, but it’s also so talked about. You know, people will just joke and say like oh, kill yourself, kys, kys, is that still a thing?
0:10:06 – Speaker 3
Yeah, that’s still a thing, and it’s also like a thing of like kill myself, kys, kill yourself, kms is kill myself.
0:10:12 – Speaker 1
Yeah, so they’ll be like like we get a project and be like, oh, I’m going to kill myself. You know they’ll joke about that, but it is something that like it’s for real.
0:10:22 – Speaker 3
Yeah, and as a teen do you struggle with like saying are they for real or are they not? Are they?
0:10:27 – Speaker 1
serious, or are they not? It’s so hard to tell yeah, you don’t want to dismiss it if it’s an issue.
0:10:34 – Speaker 3
Yeah, okay, all right. Nudes Tell me about sharing nudes. We did a show on the sexting versus sharing nudes. Go listen to that. Tell me what you think about that when I say it.
0:10:44 – Speaker 1
It’s relevant, it’s definitely happening. Oh yeah, Happening there’s whenever you start like if someone’s gossiping about a girl or a guy, you’d be like, oh yeah, their nudes are everywhere, Everyone has their nudes and are they labeled?
0:10:58 – Speaker 3
Oh yeah, Like shamed we can slut shamed. Let me just say it yeah. Yeah, I think I can say that on the radio, hopefully, so that’s a thing. So if a child, a teenager, falls prey to this, they are going to panic because they are going to get talked about and made fun of and cyber bullied, probably. So that’s a thing. Okay, all right, let’s go into. We covered so many things. I think we could do this. Let’s really get into things that I don’t do well, like things that just irritate you.
0:11:34 – Speaker 1
So those were some stressors and these are some things that she does to try to help these stressors and it doesn’t help. Yeah it just. It fires me up my segway, babe.
0:11:43 – Speaker 3
Yeah, thanks. Good you got a future radio.
0:11:48 – Speaker 1
Okay. So, oh my gosh. One thing that just absolutely gets me fired up is when you’re like texting me and it’s like school, just let out. I kind of irritated because I had a bad day, and you’re like how was your day? Did you pass your test? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You asked me a million questions at once and I’m like, yes, no, 100, four. Like I’m just trying to answer them all at once, I just have to text you. I’m like one question at a time. I have learned this what is the most important question you want to ask me?
0:12:21 – Speaker 3
I just say that this is so funny. I hope that you see that I’m getting a little better. You are. You’re getting better Because I have noticed if I ask you more than one question, you won’t respond. I just won’t. I’ll just be like no, so now I will be like how was your day?
0:12:35 – Speaker 1
And then I’ll wait, and then you wait for a response, and then I text yes, and then you ask another question.
0:12:39 – Speaker 3
I’ll wait for the K, Because that’s all I’m going to get K. It was okay, All right. So don’t ask a million questions at once. I kind of think that’s kind of nagging. That would be my thing on it. But I know you are trying to be nice. Okay, what else?
0:12:53 – Speaker 1
Also not listening. There’s two sides to this Not listening, as in, you ask me about my day and I’m like, oh, it was awful, so I start franting about it. And then you’re like on your phone, you’re unloading the dishwasher, you’re talking to my brother, and then you look up and you’re like, oh, what was that? What were you saying? I’m like you just asked me to tell you how my day was and then I told you and you weren’t listening.
0:13:17 – Speaker 3
You know what’s so funny about this? This just happened today with me and daddy, yeah, and I told him something and he was and I was like you’re not listening and I got irritated. So I get that that’s very annoying.
0:13:28 – Speaker 1
And the other side to this is when I’m trying to tell you something and you automatically think, oh, I need to fix it.
0:13:35 – Speaker 3
Yeah.
0:13:36 – Speaker 1
I think that’s a fault. A lot of parents go to because they want to protect their kids and they want to help their kids, but a lot of times we don’t want you to solve the problem. We just want you to listen. Yeah, we just want someone we can rant to and we can talk, to Cry with if you need to.
0:13:52 – Speaker 3
Get mad at. Yeah, you know parents, I know you’re thinking I want to hear my kid, but I also want to help them. You know role play on how to fix it. You know, not necessarily fix it for them, but help them with examples. Here’s a tip that I think I’m learning that works really well In the moment when my teen is venting, I just listen.
When she’s angry, when it’s that emotional, you know that emotion coming out. Then I will just pause and, you know, maybe pray about it that night, just give it some thought, talk it over with my husband and then the next day on the way to school, when the emotion is gone, I sometimes come back to it if I feel like I should, and I will say, hey, I’m thinking about what you’re dealing with. What if you did this? And I give like two or three examples of like role playing, like what about if you did this? Sometimes she will take those and sometimes she will not, but you get to kind of give input in that situation. I think that works a little better. Yeah, I think so too. It’s being able to pause in that moment when you’re frustrated and not try to jump in and just start telling you what to do. Yeah, that is annoying to you, oh yeah.
0:15:11 – Speaker 1
Okay, we got it All right next thing. Oh my gosh, it is annoying, hold hold that All right, all right.
0:15:20 – Speaker 3
All right, if you’re just now tuning in, this is nextTalk Radio at 2 pm on AM 630, the word nextTalk Radio is sponsored in part by PAX Financial Group and listeners just like you. Everything we do at our nonprofit to keep kids safe online is accomplished through your donation To support our organization. Go to NextTalkorg and click on GIF.
0:15:42 – Speaker 2
There’s big news if you are an investment client of USAA. Just recently, usaa announced that a Cleveland Ohio corporation has entered into an agreement to purchase USAA asset management. They have always been an exceptional organization and will continue to serve our community well, but if you are considering a change, this might be the right time to look at San Antonio’s PAX Financial Group 210-881-5700, paxfinancialgroupcom.
0:16:08 – Speaker 3
Investment advisory services offered through PAX Financial Group. Okay, we’re in the studio today with my teen daughter. We’re talking about things that I don’t do well, that irritate her, that shut down conversation. She has shared asking a million questions all at once. I’m so guilty of that. She has shared not listening. We’re getting ready to hear the next one that she seemed a little bit passionate about. Oh, yeah, okay.
0:16:35 – Speaker 1
This isn’t necessarily something that shuts down our conversation, but it’s just annoying and kind of funny when you think you understand our culture. Yeah, moms and I mean even dads all parents will not understand the teen culture as it is right now. It’s so different from when you grew up.
0:16:57 – Speaker 3
Well, and I think even in our nextTalk work I think about nextTalk and our nonprofit and we study how the culture is different and we explain that to parents. Even though we communicate that to parents, we’re not walking in your shoes, we don’t fully get it, we don’t fully understand the pressures, and I think that we need to know that right Even like slaying is hilarious for you to try to incorporate into your everyday talk, because I can just be like like talk to my friends, I’m like, oh yeah, and that’s the tea.
0:17:35 – Speaker 1
If we’re like talking about gossip or something, okay, tea is gossip, tea is gossip. So if you’re saying like and that’s the tea, you’re saying like you just spilled the beans, you know, or spilled the tea.
0:17:47 – Speaker 3
Yeah, you can say that.
0:17:48 – Speaker 1
If you say spilled the tea, that’s saying like spilled the beans. Okay, if you’re saying that’s the tea, you’re saying like that’s the scoop.
0:17:53 – Speaker 3
So what annoys you when you get in the car and I say what’s the tea today? Yes, I’ll text you and say what’s the tea. Yeah, mm-hmm, okay.
0:18:02 – Speaker 1
So I mean actually it’s kind of funny, so it’s not annoying, it’s funny.
0:18:06 – Speaker 3
I mean that that’s funny. Now, if in front of all your friends that they had over, that would be embarrassing. If I didn’t do it in a joking way, because I sometimes will joke about the tea or whatever slang words with your friends, but if I did it in a serious way, if you were for real, trying to fit in, that would be. That would be embarrassing.
0:18:26 – Speaker 1
That would be pretty mad at you.
0:18:28 – Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay. So that’s a good tip. Okay, what else I think?
0:18:32 – Speaker 1
this is the last thing. Crazy mom mode. Yeah, I assume you’ve touched on this before.
0:18:38 – Speaker 3
Well, you’ve read my book.
0:18:39 – Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean, you know, I know You’ve gotten better at it, though you know you don’t yell at us anymore yeah, as much as you used to. Yeah, you know, we of course still need to be like disciplined and stuff, but you know, if we tell you something, you don’t freak out. Well, even, or at least you contain it.
0:18:58 – Speaker 3
Even with the discipline now I don’t find myself going to a high-pitched tone when I need to take away a phone or, you know, you lose screen, like I try to do it in a calm manner, like you didn’t do this today. So when you come home, check your phone at the mud bench. You don’t get it at all tonight. So I try to be more calm about it. But what happens when I go crazy? Mom mode.
0:19:22 – Speaker 1
It just shuts down. It shuts down. Usually my brother is the one who’s more like upset about it. He’s like, oh my gosh, mom got mad at us and I just roll my eyes. I’m like whatever.
0:19:34 – Speaker 3
But you get mad at me, I do, and so it breaks down the relationship. So do you get as mad at me, like when I have to discipline you, when I have to take away the phone or the screens or whatever, and I’m calm about it? Do you get mad at me or are you more like OK?
0:19:49 – Speaker 1
yeah, I deserve that. I mean, I’m still mad because I’m a teenager.
0:19:52 – Speaker 3
Yeah.
0:19:53 – Speaker 1
That’s how we work. Yeah, but I’m more accepting of it, I’m more like yeah.
0:19:59 – Speaker 2
I see that.
0:20:00 – Speaker 1
I see that. I see that I understand what I did wrong. Yeah, I deserve to get my phone taken away.
0:20:04 – Speaker 3
OK, so the more calm I can remain when having to discipline you, the more your app to see what you did wrong in the situation. I think that’s really important for parents to hear. Ok, so you beat up on me a little bit, yeah, so let’s talk about some stuff that I help you with. How do I help? So, tell me, Tell me.
0:20:26 – Speaker 1
Well, good stuff. I mean what you say. That really encourages me. You always make sure that I know that you’ll love me, no matter what, even if I mess up, if I make some really bad mistakes. I know that if I come home, mom’s going to be disappointed, she’s going to be upset, but she’s still going to love me.
0:20:47 – Speaker 3
Right. I think that’s so important because in today’s culture there’s so many ways you can mess up. You can accidentally post something inappropriate, you can comment inappropriately. I mean there’s so many things you know. Class rinks not a big deal to me, and you are more hard on yourself about class rink than I am. Right, don’t you think. I mean, I’m like let’s strive for top 25% and you’re over here like no, Like we are going for this.
0:21:15 – Speaker 1
We’re going for the top, yeah.
0:21:17 – Speaker 3
So, um, I think, too, just not putting a lot on you extra, like extra pressure, like you got to get into this college and you got to be this and you got to have straight A’s, like I don’t do that right. No, I mean, and it you’re motivated yourself to do that kind of stuff, um, and that’s true. I mean, if you come home with a bad grade, I’m going to love you, no matter what, it’s just a grade, yeah, right, and I think that, um, that’s important, okay.
0:21:41 – Speaker 1
What else? Um, you’re always honest, you’re well, I’m able to be honest about what drives me crazy, like about you. So, like all that bad stuff I just said, I can attest to this. She’s not staring me down in the studio right now. She’s not getting mad at me, she’s just like, yeah, I do that.
0:21:59 – Speaker 3
I struggle with that, yeah. So this is an important part of the journey that I touch you on. My book about that it’s really like it really does start with me. I have to look within and realize there’s things about myself that I need to fix. And you, what I love about how open communication has changed our relationship is the more that I allow you to say, mom, this doesn’t work. Yeah. Then I see you doing it in yourself Like, um, I think it was the last show you were talking about. You don’t like group work and you have identified that that’s not a great quality, because I need to be a team player, yeah, but it’s something I struggle with, and so you’re able to be humble because you see me saying, yeah, I mess up in this area, these are not my strong points, so I think that’s important Absolutely.
0:22:46 – Speaker 1
Okay, what else you noticed when I have a really stressful week, I knew try to help. Okay. A lot of times you do help you. You bled up on my chores, something like that. I remember one week when I had literally five performances and one week for theater. Like I came home I was so stressed out because I had like four projects due by Friday and I had five performances really stressing rehearsal every night until like 7 30. And I got home one night and I walked in my room and there’s like a little candy and a little note on my dresser. I was like aww, that’s sweet, thank you. Something simple, something simple, but it just cheered me up a lot.
0:23:31 – Speaker 3
Yeah, I think that’s one of the things that, um, you know, some of the nextTalk team members have taught me who have older kids. You know, love on your kids the way you would like to be loved, so when you have a stressful week, you know you want your spouse or your kids to be extra supportive. We need to do that with you guys too, cause you do have a lot of stressors going on. Okay, is there anything else? We’re almost out of time here.
0:23:55 – Speaker 1
Yes, well, last thing, um, last good thing you did when you came to me and asked one time, what can I do better as a boss, a mom? And, um, that’s when I answered you know you’re not a good listener. Yeah, you do that thing where you are trying to multitask and like, I applaud you because you’re a mom and you’re a strong woman and you can multitask, but you ask how my day is going and I try to explain but you’re not listening. Yeah, you know, it’s just kind of frustrating.
0:24:26 – Speaker 3
Um, so, the fact that I went and asked you what can I do better as a mom? What?
0:24:31 – Speaker 1
did that say to you. It really showed me that you cared about how you, like I don’t know, presented yourself to me and like how you parented yeah.
0:24:40 – Speaker 3
You know well and you know I asked you that in fourth grade. That was like my wake up moment.
0:24:46 – Speaker 1
It’s in my book.
0:24:47 – Speaker 3
Yeah, Um, but I constantly think that I do kind of go back to is there anything else I can do better? Like are we okay? Is there anything I’m doing that’s annoying you? Yeah, Like we have those conversations on the go in the car all the time now.
0:25:01 – Speaker 1
And you’ve absolutely been improving. Yeah, it really means a lot to me that you’ve been really trying to improve Well and I see you improving in group work a little bit, so that’s good.
0:25:12 – Speaker 3
Um, I’m really. This was really fun for me that you got to come.
0:25:16 – Speaker 2
You liked it. Yeah, I liked it.
0:25:17 – Speaker 3
Yeah, I’m really glad you got to come. Maybe we’ll have you back another time, but this was fun for me. Yes, and thank you for being honest. I know that’s not easy in today’s world being a teenager and being out there, yeah. So thank you for that, no problem.
0:25:33 – Speaker 2
Thanks for joining us on nextTalk radio with Mandy and Kim on AM 630, the word. You are not alone, trying to figure out how to parent in this digital world. We are here with practical solutions to help you. Follow us on Facebook, instagram and Twitter. Find our free video series and podcast at nextTalk Dot org. Are you ready for the next time?
Transcribed by https://podium.page
