Session 133: Communicating with Your Teen Daughter

Published Nov 20, 2019, 8:00 AM

The Therapy for Black Girls Podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a licensed Psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia, about all things mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves.

Today we’re chatting about how to keep the lines of communication with your teen daughter. For this conversation I was joined by Gretchen Campbell, LPC. Gretchen and I chatted about some of the common concerns she hears working with teens and their moms, how moms can take care of themselves while parenting their teen daughter, how to support your daughter in making healthy decisions about things like friends and social media, and of course she shared her favorite resources for moms of teens.

 

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Welcome to the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast, a weekly conversation about mental health, personal development, and all the small decisions we can make to become the best possible versions of ourselves. I'm your host, Dr Joy hard and Bradford, a licensed psychologist in Atlanta, Georgia. For more information or to find a therapist in your area, visit our website at Therapy for Black Girls dot com. While I hope you love listening to and learning from the podcast, it is not meant to be a substitute for relationship with a licensed mental health professional. Thanks so much for joining me for session one thirty three of the Therapy for Black Girls Podcast. Today we're chatting all about how to keep the lines of communication open between you and your teen daughter. For this conversation, I was joined by Gretchen Campbell. Gretchen is an original Jersey Girl currently residing in North Carolina. She's a licensed professional counselor with over nineteen years of experience. Even though she doesn't look like it, she loves working with tween and teen girls and their moms, and she has a new found passion for servicing young gen Z and millennial women. Gretchen also recently authored her first book, I'm the Mom of a Teen Girl. Help. Gretchen and I chatted about some of the common concerns she hears working with teens and their moms, how moms can take care of themselves while parenting their teen daughter, how to support your daughter in making healthy decisions about things like friends and social media, and of course, she shared all of her favorite resources for moms of teens. If you hear something while listening that really resonates with you, please share with us on social media using the hashtag tv G in session. Here's our conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Gretchen, Thank you for having me got to joy. I'm very excited to have you here. So you are fresh off the heels of your premier book called I'm a Mom of a Teen Girl Help, and I yes, and I'm sure that there are lots of moms of teens and tweets listening who definitely needs your help. So I'm glad you could join us today. Right, So, Gretchen, tell me what are some of the common concerns that moms of teens and tweets are coming into your office with. That is a great question, So I've been working with this population for a really long time, and a lot of the same questions constantly came up. Most of them were around like peer relationships, just girls being girls, school and teacher stress. A lot of privacy and social media is coming up nowadays, but also emotional health, dating and relationships, puberty and just the mother daughter relationship period and how they communicate. Yeah, and we have very actual community around the podcast, and so we definitely get lots of questions about, you know, how do I help my team do x Y and z are I'm struggling with her related to this, and so I'm glad that we have you here to talk about some of those very concerns that you just listed. Yeah, it's glad to be of service. So what are some of the primary developmental issues that kind of are coming up in this age that really kind of sometimes make it precarious for mom and daughter. Yeah, So I think some of the primary developmental issues that are coming up during this age is just there's a lot of development to hormonal changes that are happening between between and teen years, and some of the stuff is really just normal developments, And you know, I often have to ask moms like do you remember when you were this age and some of the things that came up for you. Because most of the stuff really is the same, it's just heightened a little more in this day and age because evolution exists and kids have evolved, and so some of the same norms that our parents might have viewed, some of the same parents and skills that they might have used, they just don't work with the kids these days. And so yeah, and so the developmental changes that are happening are just normal developmental changes. The relationship between the mother and daughter and that dynamic can be really trying, and sometimes moms are going crazy trying to figure out why doesn't she talk to me? Why is she always moody? And a lot of that really is because of the developmental hormonal changes that are going gone and the brain development um And so I sometimes try to give them some psychoeded but not too much jargon, just because it can be overwhelming even for myself. And so I try to normalize some of the changes that they're experiencing and explain it to you, the parent, on the level that they can understand. So can you share some of that with us, Gretchen, Like, what are some of the psychoed pieces that you typically try to share with your clients. Yeah, So I typically and in that show, I try to share with the parents, Like, think about all the changes that you experience as an adult, right, and this is with a normal developing adult brain. And so you might be trying to be a mom, a boss, a wife, and also dealing with relationship issues, right, and think about how much you can manage without wanting to explode. So, now put your child in that situation, right, and her brain is still developing and so brains are still developing up until the age of twenty five. And so that's the picture that I like to give parents, is that your kid's brain is still developing, but there's all these rapid fires coming at them. And so that's parents stress, that's school stress, that's social stress, social media stress, all these other additional attitudes that are happening with an underdeveloped brain. Hen you know, reactive responses that they do, being impulsive, imposted, decision making, all those different things that apparents like she's really driving me crazy. Well, it's because her brain is undeveloped. M Yeah, And I think that that is the key, right, is to really try to hold both of those things being true, that you have a team with an underdeveloped, are still developing brain, but that you're also getting kind of triggered probably by a lot of the decisions she may be making. And how do you really work on, like managing your own emotions and your own reactions so that you can support her. Yeah, so what are some of your tips for moms who are about how to kind of manage their own reactions so that they can't do a good job of supporting their team. So that's a great question because the number one to response that team girls give me as far as why they don't share information with their mother, it's because they are concerned about the reaction, how she's going to react. And when I tell you, like I've asked young girls this question dating back to early two thousand in my career up until this day, and that is usually the number one response is that they're fearful of how their mom is going to respond, typically because moms go into fix it mode, right, and so the daughter comes to them with a question and mom immediately goes into how do I fix it before she even gets the opportunity to really explain what's going on. So I try to encourage moms to allow them to sometimes just to talk, because at the end of the day, that's what the team really wants. She really just wants to talk, and sometimes she just wants you to listen. And so it does take some will power and holding yourself back and not responding immediately and just being my aful that she's a team and that she wants to communicate with you. But how you respond to her will definitely determine how often she comes back to you to share whatever's going on in her life. Mm hmmm. Yeah, So really trying to stop some of that fix it tendency and you know, the prepetitor you have sometimes I want to fix it and actually just listening, which of course is a great tip when we are even talking about relationships with other adults exactly. Yeah, and so some moms are able to do that really easy, but some moms really do struggle with it. I've even encourage moms to have like a no judgment zone where you are saying that you're going to allow your kids to just talk about whatever and you're not going to judge, meaning you just sit there and listen until sometimes if you specify a significant time that we are going to have a no judgment zone talk. You can go in being prepared that she might, you know, hit you with something that you really weren't accepting, which has definitely happened. M. Yeah, and then you have to hold up your into the bargain of not judgment. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely, So I want to get back into a social media topic because I do know that they're you know, and some of the previous episodes we've had with other therapists who work with teens, this is definitely something that continues to come up, is helping your teen and tweens and kind of navigate the social media space. So do you have particular policies that you like to work with your mom's and teens with about like how they might be using social media depending on their age. I do. And so every parent that comes to my office these days, they come and saying social media is an issue and they don't know how to handle it, they don't know how to manage it. And my question is always like, well, how can you not know? So you're the parent, you are purchasing the device, the kid is not paying the bill, which means that you control it, right, But most parents feel that they don't have any control over it. And I think because just our society today, everyone is so addicted to their phone, and so I think parents feel that they are obligated to allow their child to have the cell phone morning, noon, and night. And my responses, that's not healthy, and there's tons of research that says it's not healthy. Dr Joy. Every single week GM has something on the news about social media and kids and how there needs to be some limits put around it. So I often provide a contract or suggest a contract. There's tons of contracts that you can find online. I've actually got a contract in my book that parents can adapt to their family, because I think each family is going to look completely different. But having a kid being able to utilize the cell phone from morning tonight number one is the ultimate. No. Now that is going to be the thorn in your side for everything. They should have unlimited use to a cell phone. And so some parents will say, well, they actually need it for school, and so that may be true. They may need it for school, however you can still monitor that when they come home. There should be like a docking station. The kids should be able to do homework without a cell phone and they can usually if something is online, they can use a laptop or a computer, right. I also encourage parents to put in rules around ethically, like how you're going to use this phone, being real mindful about what you share on social media, the pictures that you share on social media, because the parent can be held responsible for what kids are sharing via social media these days, and so I think a lot of parents don't know that piece is that they can also be held accountable if their kid is using social media inappropriately. There's tons of other ways that you can monitor kids. There's tons of different apps now that parents can actually shut down social media. I think KTP is one. There's times that parents can actually put on their device and actually shut off internet and soil then the kid can't actually use it. Might also encourage parents to have family time that means that no one is using social media, no one is using their cellphone during that time. And I would imagine that some families are maybe hoping to and maybe struggling with like not even allowing the kids to have it at all, right, which I would imagine introduces another layer of maybe tension because the kid is probably going to school with their friends and everybody else is kind of using it. But maybe you have decided that you really don't want your child to have access to social media at all, So how might you navigate that, you know, within their like social relationships. Yeah, so there are some parents who have decided that they don't want their kids to have a cell phone and or just use social media period, even on a laptop or a computer at home, And so the kids are constantly asking. It's hugely betweens that are asking, and the parents are like no, Like I think they're you know, really not mature enough. But all their friends are getting the device, and so we talk about what are some healthy ways to have a cell phone? Right, and so how can you have a cell phone? Who's going to be on your contact list? What apps are you going to download? And really having open communication from the start, which is why I think any kid who has a cellphone should have a cell phone contract from day one, because it's sets the kids up to know that my parents is going to be monitoring me, and it really allows the parent and child to have open dialogue about appropriate use of a cellphone and appropriate use of social media. So, you know, I think twell, most parents are like eleven twelve they feel like, oh, like they might be ready to have it, And so that's when we start talking about what are healthy ways that you can have access to the cell phone, but not abuse the privilege and not allow the cell phone to take over. Yeah, and like you mentioned earlier, aggression, I think some of it also comes back to looking at your own use of the cell phone. Right, So if your daughter sees you on the phone all the time, then of course I think that that reinforces the idea that this is kind of what we do and I want to be a part of it too. Yeah, definitely. I've even had some kids say that their parents are on the cell phone all the time, and so it's confusing to them on how the parent is trying to set limits when they're actually on their cell phone. And so in the contract that I have it in the book, I actually encourage parents to implement family time where there is absolutely no electronic device at all, and so that's just specified for a family to interact and to engage, and families really appreciate that. I think we've gotten away from that as a society of just sitting down and having a family meal or stop having a device attached to us or without having the TV on, use that time to interact and to communicate with each other, which is great for just building the relationships. M hmm, yeah, I like that idea. So something else I want to chat about, Gretchen, And it probably goes back to one of your earlier points about moms reacting, But we have had a lot of questions come in about really struggling with their teens and tweens not being honest, so lying or leaving out things purposely, like just really really struggling with not being able to get the truth from their teens are tweens. So what are your thoughts about, like how you might be able to handle that if you have a teen or a tween who really it feels like it's having some trouble with the truth. Yeah, so you know, surprisingly well not surprisingly, but most of the families that I've worked with, we are the child is lying. It usually goes back to the relationship that they have with the parents, and often it's because the parents aren't communicating with the child, and sometimes the child feels like they have to be dishonest about whatever the situation is, whether or not it's a relationship or academic concerns is usually because there's not healthy communication on an ongoing basis, and so I really try to work with moms and daughters on establishing a good routine of checking in on a regular basis. And so that could look like a text for mom if we're going to be using a phone sending a text like hey, how was your day, or having a check in time when she comes home from school to check in to see how your day was, did anything come up? And it doesn't always have to be so structured. I try to highlight pointing out the specific times of the day where moms and doors are likely spending times together. And so maybe that looks like a drive to and from school, Perhaps that looks like when mom is preparing dinner and or cleaning you those downtimes to try to have open dialogue. I'm telling you, once you have open dialogue with your daughter, she the floodgates will open and you won't be able to shut her up. And I've had mom's come back and say like the tip was really helpful because once I provided the space for her that she felt more comfortable with sharing things, and then the dishonesty decreased because the kids feels like, Oh, like Mom is really open, she's listening to me, she's not judging, and so therefore I feel more comfortable with sharing things with her now. I think parents of today are definitely used to parenting the way our parents parents at us, which means I'm the parent. What I say goes, which is fine, Like I get it, but you gotta know that if you rule your house with an iron fifth that sometimes you're gonna get it back from kids because kids just are different today and you really do have to step outside of the box and try some different parenting tools. Yeah, I'm glad you've mentioned that aggresson because I did want to talk more about that, right, Like, because you will often hear like these conversations and we kind of like laugh and joke about it online, are in our relationships in real life about our moms telling us like I'm not one of your little friends, Like don't you know that kind of thing? Right? And I think that there has to be a really delicate balance there, Right, So mom doesn't necessarily have to be your friend, of course you're not her peer, but is there own way to parents and still have a relationship where she sees you as the authority and understands boundaries. But that is not one where she does not want to talk to you because she's afraid of you or your reaction. Yeah, there definitely is. And again I think it goes back to having good communication, setting healthy limits and boundaries, because, believe it or not, kids want boundaries, they want rules. I've worked with kids who said when parents set limits and boundaries for them, they know that the parent cares right, and so when they don't set limits and boundaries, or if they don't follow through with the limits and boundaries, they feel like the parent doesn't care because they aren't following through with what they said that they would because kids know when they're wrong, and so setting healthy limits and boundaries, having open communication, and just checking in with their kids on a regular basis. Like some kids tell me their parents don't check in with them, they feel like the parents don't care, right. I think we as adults are cut off in our own life, and so sometimes I think we think, if my kid has a roof over their head, food to eat, clothes on their back, like they're good, I don't need to worry about anything else. But there's lots going on today again with social media, kids are being exposed to so much it's impacting them in ways that you can't imagine. Yeah, so it sounds like, and you've mentioned this several times, catching the communication really is important. So beyond like the set times to check in, trying to establish a no judgment zone for maybe at some point in your week where you can kind of have these open conversations. Are there other tips you would share for how to do a better job of like setting up a good communication with your team. Yeah, so I think just using down time, um, having family time, specified family time, developmental milestones that young girls are reaching, doing some coaching with them. You know, when young ladies start to be interested in relationships, exploring that with him and being open to that the relationship might not look like the normal hetero sexual relationships. I think that parents are used to because I've also that was that as well, but in being open to like, your kid may be interested in things that you didn't expect them to be interested in, right, Because I think when moms have daughters, they expect them to be mirrors of themselves, And so I think you've got to take it off and put it on the shelf because your kid is not you knowing that they're their own person, respecting them for who they are and the decisions that they make, and just being open to parenting differently. I mean, you can use some of the same parenting techniques. I'm clearly not telling moms like don't do anything that your mother said because it's not a good work, because some of that stuff still work, but being open to integrating some new parenting techniques because your kids are different. So another struggle that I think a lot of moms have with teens and tweens is their support system. So what do their peer relationships look like? Sometimes, um, you get into a situation where you're not really may be fond of their teens that your children are making friends with, and so how do you manage that? How do you manage like allowing them to make their own decisions about relationships, but also wanting them to kind of be careful with something we may see going on that they may not quite see. So dumber one by not judging. Part of my book with I I wrote us it when she shows you a picture of the person that she like, like, hold your tongue, don't judge right because it might not be what you were expecting, but don't judge, but ax, you know, probing questions, why is this person important to you? Why is this relationship important to you? Right? Does this person make you feel special? Or how is this friendship important to you? How is the friendship positive for you? Asking questions where you can explore more about the dynamics of the relationships that your daughter is creating, because they won't be thinking right like, oh, she's just trying to figure out like if the relationship is healthy enough, they'll probably be thinking mom is just trying to be nosy, but it really is. You really trying to explore why she's identifying specific people and why she calls them friends, right, And so because you you'll be able to get more information because if she says, oh, I would like to hang out with them because you know, we have similar music interest so that might be one thing. But what if she says something like well, they're the cool kids in school that smoke. That's going to prove some different questions like well, what makes you want to hang out with them? Is it because they're the cool kids or is it because they're smoking? And let's talk about that and is that healthy? And gression do you watch This is Us. Okay, so are you caught up? What's caught up? What's the last episode? Um? So this season? Like, are you aware of what's happening? Okay? Perfect? So I when you were talking, and I hadn't even thought about this before our conversation when you were talking just about like how your teams may be interested in people that you may not have expected, especially when we're thinking about like not everybody has hetero sexual so you can't expect that your team will be interested in a boy, so to speak. So I think that they have done a really nice job Randall and uh, what's his wife's name? Oh? Yes, I'm not getting better. She's one of my favorites Randall and Beth. I feel like I've done a really good job in supporting tests who has come out as a lesbian on the show, and you know, really I'm not expecting that, but of course wanting to be supportive of her, and then the conversations they have kind of had behind closed doors about how they're going to continue to support her in her journey. Yeah, and so that is really really important, especially in this day and age. I can't tell you some of the parents who have contacted me with concerns about sexuality the damage that it does sometimes right when parents aren't accepting of their kids. Can't tell you how much it impacts young ladies when they come in and say, my parents don't accept me and who I'm attracted to or who I'm dating, and they're already thinking about moving out and saying I know when I turned eighteen that I'm not going back. And so I've had to have some difficult conversations with parents, like you realize that you are really doing damage to this relationship and that she's a really thinking about leaving. And some parents can come around and try to become more aware and more accepting. I refer them to different support groups, etcetera. But some parents just really are not open, and it does some real damage. It really does. And I think the more and more that society becomes accepting of the LGBT community, maybe the more pants will be open. I don't know, it's it's a it's a topic that comes up a lot, and it's coming up more and more and more. Yeah, and I and I do think it is really important to pay attention to, especially when you look at the continuing numbers we get you know, moving away from maybe sexual orientation to gender presentation, right, and the high numbers of suicides we see with trans young people of color specifically, you know, And so I think we have to do a better job as parents and talking about and being k and supporting and celebrating our kids and whatever their life will look like, but really making sure we do the work that we have to agrieve what we thought our kids were going to be and really celebrate exactly who they are. Yeah, I think that's what it is. I think every parent when they have kids, they automatically assume that it's going to be a mini version of themselves. And the reality is is that it's not that your kids like they're their own individual person, and so they are going to have different interests than you did. They're gonna like different music, they're going to address differently, their friends are going to look differently, and their sexual orientation and or identity might be different than what you expected. And you've got to be open and accepting of that or you're gonna lose your kids because it's happening on a regular basis. Yeah. Yeah, So, Gretien, are there other parts of the book that you feel like we definitely want to make sure that we cover you know, like something that you kind of keep seeing in your office that you're like, oh, we definitely have to talk about this. So, I think and teacher stress is a big one. I've worked with tons of parents who said to me that their kid is struggling in school, but they found out like after, you know, maybe at the end of the year or when we report cards come out. And I'm like, well, how could you not have known? He said, well, I thought that the teacher would have contacted me. And I'm like, ma'am, the teacher is teaching anywhere between I don't know students per day. You've got one kid, which means you've got one job to check or maybe you have multiple kids. However, you don't have sixty check in with the teachers to see how your kid is doing. Most schools I know here in North Carolina, they have online boards where parents can actually go in and look at their kids reports to see how they're dealing. Try to encourage parents to stay on top of that, reaching out the teachers on a weekly, bi weekly, or monthly basis, depending on how much your kid is struggling. If they're struggling at all. It also helps to you know, creates a network where you are in constant communication with the teachers that your child is interacting with on a regular basis, and then lets the kids know that you're gonna be checking in on them and so they'll stay on the top of their work and not wait until the end of the school year trying to catch up. So that's one topic that comes up a lot. I think because college and college prep is so huge, I think that's why it comes up so often. Parents are overwhelmed with what their kids need to be doing now, and this could be as early as middle school. They're concerned about what their kids are doing now and how it's going to impact them when they go to college. I'm just like, allow your kids just to be a kid. They aren't even in high school. And even when they're in high school freshman year, parents are already, oh, we need to be on top of things. Colleges are going to be looking at this year and that year, and trying to get them involved in so many different activities where the kids can't even be to be kids anymore. There's not a lot of downtime because of the activities that parents have lined up for the kids where they're not it's in school or outside of school, just so that it looks good on the transcript for college. I'm glad you brought that up, Gretchen, because I hadn't completely forgot about that. Of course, my little people are not college agent, so that isn't on my radar quite. Yeah, but you're red. I can imagine that that does introduce a new level of stress into the house once we're talking about college applications and what we're gonna need to do to get you ready in that kind of thing. And I do think that sometimes parents are typically driving the boat on that, right. I mean, sometimes kids are really insular, but I think more often it is the parents kind of thinking about, Okay, what are these next four years gonna look like? Yeah, pretty much? And and I think some parents do a great job at having a good balance. Some parents I work with go overboard with wanting their kids to be in every single activity inside of school and outside of school. And then it come to me and they're struggling with anxiety, and I'm like, well, this is why. Because they've got so many different responsibilities, there's no downtime. It's like you're filling up all of their time with different things to do so that it will look good on the transcript, which is not healthy because then the kids is struggling with anxiety, which is the other piece that we should probably discuss the emotional aspect and how that can be overlooked. Yeah, so what else would you say about that in terms of like the emotions that the team may be having during that time. Yeah, So a lot of teams these days are struggling with depression and anxiety. I would say about percent of my teams that I work with are struggling with anxiety. A lot of it is based around social stressors, academic stress, and parents stress. Right, And so I think that parents need to be mindful when their kids are coming to them and saying something is wrong. I feel like something is wrong. I can't tell you how many kids have come to my office and said, I've been telling my mom that I want to see a therapist for six months or a year, but they don't show up until after there's a crisis, after they've been assessed at the er, after they've been impatient. That's when they showed at the office. And I think parents try to gloss over overlook some of the emotional concerns because no one wants their kids to struggle. And I get that, like everybody wants their kids to have a normal, healthy life, and that's fine. However, there's a lot of stressors that your kids are under, and so overlooking the emotional peace is not doing the many justice when your kid verbalizes, because it takes a lot for a kid to come to a parent to say, Mom, I feel depressed, or Mom, I feel really anxious. I feel like I need someone to talk to take key to that and get them help, and don't prolong it because the prolonging process could be really detrimental to their emotional health and well being. I think it's also really important, you know, because I think sometimes what happens is that moms will kind of minimize what they feel like their teams are going through, like, oh, it's just a heartbreak, or oh her and her friend fell out, and so it's not a big deal. But your kids have emotions just like you, And so if you can think about, you know, when you have been broken hearted or you have struggled with a friend, kind of going back to your earlier comment, like you feel that deeply as well, So we shouldn't anticipate that our teams are not feeling those things on the same level as well. Yeah, definitely, And I tried to paint paint that picture for parents. Sometimes they get it doc joy and sometimes they don't. But kids do, like they are experiencing their life in their own in their own way. And sometimes I think it's difficult for parents to really understand why they are struggling so much when they have food to eat, clothes on the back, they got a cell phone, they might have a car. When you're providing all these tangible things for them and they're still struggling emotionally. Like, that's difficult for a lot of parents to grasp and understand because they kids these days now often have more than what the parents did, and the parents are wondering, like, why are you struggling so much when you have all these things? And that's because things can't prepare anxiety. They can't you know, repair depression. If your kid is struggling, there's another there's another layer that you're avoiding addressing because things don't address those. Yeah. The other thing that teams have access too much earlier than I think that we did. As you know, younger people is access to all of these mental health resources, right. So I think there's some information from the Crisis text line that talks about like thirteen year olds being one of their highest level of users, right, and so they also have this information about mental health, how to check in with themselves and with anxiety and depression. Feels like where we probably did not have access or you know, the language to really describe that as younger people. Yeah, you're absolutely right. I mean a lot of teams that come to me, they are already using different apps, you know, to to communicate with other people about how they're feeling. They're already using calm and headspace to try to manage stuff. The teams these days are real savvy, like they know how to research and get access to help. And it's the parents that you just need to get on board with accepting that it's it's not a life sentence, right. I think sometimes parents feel that if they start to see a therapist and something is really wrong and this is like a death sentence, it's not. It's not. Your kids may just need to talk to someone for a few sessions m hm, and you may discover that it's actually you that needs to talk to someone for some sessions, right, because I think a lot of times what we see acting out in our teams lives is really a function of like something going on with us as a parent. Yeah, definitely, again the dying amy between terence and kids these days with all the stressors that kids are under and parents are under two and the parents own emotional trauma that maybe they haven't dealt with, and maybe their relationship with their parents, because that shows up as well. Moms are parenting the way their mother parents to them, and they're not parenting because of some of the emotional trauma that they themselves experienced. And I often have to encourage some of my moms to seek counseling themselves because the way their parenting is damaging their relationship with their child. So what are some of your kind of final thoughts stretching for any moms who might be listening about how they can do a better job of taking care of theirselves so that they can do a better job of taking care of the teens. Yeah, So I think connecting with other moms who have tweens and teens because you're all experiencing the same thing. Moms often feel alone. At least that's what most of the moms have said to me, is that they often feel alone and can't imagine that anybody else is conspiracing some of the same things that they are, but connecting with other moms because it's likely that they are going through some of those same hurdles. Making sure that you're taking care of yourself and giving yourself a break, you know, just checking in with your extended support system when you need it, and also checking in with your kids to say, hey, like, am I doing a good job? Is there something that you feel like mom could be doing differently that could be helpful. I've encouraged parents to do that. You'd be surprised by the responses that the kids have gave moms. Like some kids say like, I love you Mom, I always feel supported, and some kids will say you're supportive, but sometimes I feel like you judge me. Those are the nuggets that you need to help improve the relationship with your kids, because in that moment, the kids feels like they can be vulnerable and that they can share with you. I love that dressing. Thank you. So what are some of your favorite resources that moms might want to check out? The tons of Instagram pages that I think are helpful. Okay, so there's parents, there's parents parenting, mac at parenting Gosh, what else, Mom, Mama, mac God, stop the joy You caught me off? Fine, you can send them to me later too, and I can add them to I will. There's tons of parenting resources that you can google online and find with tons of parenting advice and tons of parenting support groups online. There's some really funny ones on i G where it's like mom's and teen girls and they're always making jokes in light of being a mom who's parenting a tween or teen girl. Thank god you And where can we find you online? Gretchen? Where can we find information about your practice the book in any social media do you want to share? Yep? So I am at Grow Encourage, empower dot com. You can find me on I g at, Grow, Encourage and power dot com as well as Twitter and Facebook. So I G, Twitter and Facebook are all grow Encouraging in Power. Yes, perfect perfect, and they can find information about the book there as well. Yes, they can find information about the book on Instagram. The book is also on Amazon as well as Storms and Noble. The e book and the paperback perfect, but we will include all of that in the show notes, so don't worry. If you're listening, you'll have all of those resources at your fingertips. Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Gretchen. I appreciate it. Thank you so much. This is awesome. Thanks. I'm so glad Gretchen was able to share her expertise with us today. To find out more information about her and her practice, arn't you grab a copy of her book. Check out the show notes at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash Session one thirty three, and please remember to share this episode with two parents of teen girls in your circle, and don't forget to share your takeaways with us either on Twitter or in your I G stories using the hashtag t b G in session. If you're searching for a therapist in your area, be sure to check out our therapist directory at Therapy for Black Girls dot com slash directory. And if you want to continue digging into this topic and meet some other sisters in your area, come on over and join us in the Yellow Couch Collective, where we take a deeper dive into the topics from the podcast and just about everything else you can join us at Therapy for Black Girls dot Com slash y c C. We won't be having a new episode next week as I'll be away celebrating the holidays with my family, and I hope that you also have an opportunity to have some time off to rest and rejuvenate. But we'll be back with a new episode on December three, and we'll be releasing the last episode for this year in December seventeen. Thank you all so much for joining me again this week. I look forward to continue in this conversation with you all real soon. Take good care,

Therapy for Black Girls

The Therapy for Black Girls podcast is a weekly conversation with Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, a license 
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