Hard Parenting Questions Answered: 'I Hate You,' Porn Talks, Vapes, and School Pickup Meltdowns

0:00Today is a solo episode. It's just us with a little guest. My producer, Mariel, is going to read your questions and I'm going to do a little listener Q &A because sometimes we don't get specific enough. So I want to take opportunities to address your direct questions.

0:20Dr. Aliza Pressman:I'm Dr. Aliza Pressman, developmental psychologist, New York Times bestselling author, associate clinical professor at the Icahn School of Medicine, and the host of Raising Good Humans podcast. I am so glad you're here. So, mystery reader, what is the first question? My five-year-old looked me dead in the eye last week and said, I hate you. I wish you weren't my mom. My head knew not to take it personally, but my heart did, and I froze. I don't want to shame her, and I don't want to pretend it didn't happen. I want to respond in a way that actually teaches her something or calms me down. How do I think about it?

0:59Okay, first, a sigh here because our kids are going to say some of the wildest things, and they're going to sound hurtful sometimes. But what we have to do is manage our own stuff so that we recognize that there's just a feeling underneath that behavior, which is something along the lines of, I don't like what just happened and I don't like how I feel. So I'm going to make you feel worse so that I can feel better. But since a five-year-old doesn't know that, they're just saying, I hate you. So I want you to think about taking a beat for a second, a breath or whatever is going to sort of regulate you.

1:37And then you can reflect back to your five-year-old if you have the kind of five-year-old that will receive it and say, sounds like you're really mad right now, or sounds like that was big, or sounds like you don't like what I just said, with the caveat that some five-year-olds will not like you to say that. They'll say like they're even more angry because of it. So pay attention. You are the person who knows your child best. But what you can get across is, I understand you don't like that I asked you to whatever, fill in the blank, get in the bath, read the book, go to bed, brush your teeth. And also, I'm going to give you a different choice of words.

2:19I don't want to because I hate you is about making someone else feel bad and I don't want to lets me know how you feel. Okay. The other thing that I want to tell you is sometimes you could just ignore the mean language. you know your child and sometimes that's just their way of lashing out and saying nothing and not giving it attention and staying peaceful inside you knowing my child of course doesn't hate me they're having a hard time you could just pass through it and then it doesn't need to be a thing every time because when sometimes we get into like either anger because you can't talk to me that way or you're not respecting me.

3:05And like, they're not, of course, they're not even, that's way too advanced thinking for them right then. Or we give them so much attention for it that they realize, okay, if I say I hate you, instead of having to brush my teeth or go in the bath or do the thing that I'm supposed to do, we'll focus on that. So you have three options that I just gave you. pick whichever one feels right to you and your child and just keep reminding yourself as children are developing they're figuring out how to integrate how they feel with the best way to move through the world and behave that helps them meet their goals and in the process when they don't have a fully developed prefrontal cortex they're gonna say things that are pretty harsh because they don't know what to do with their big feelings.

3:57So what's up next? I let my three-year-old watch Bluey for about 45 minutes most mornings so I can shower, eat something, and get ready for the day. I feel guilty every single day. Is there real developmental harm in this or am I torturing myself over something that's actually fine? The guilt is real and I understand it completely because if you're trying really hard to do all the things, one of the things is like not putting your kids on screens to zone out. And also you have a three-year-old, it's 45 minutes, and it's actually a really good show that's interactive and developmentally appropriate.

4:38I kind of need to tell you, give yourself a break. That's not what our worry is when we say there's too much screen time. The worry when we say there's too much screen time is that 45 minutes turns into four hours a day. It's the babysitter. It's the teacher. It's the connector. That's not what you're talking about. You're talking about just practically living your life and choosing something that makes it a little bit easier for you to have a realistic morning. So I would say let go of the guilt, though I understand it. Just pay attention. If it starts to drag out, if it gets longer, if there are tantrums after,

5:15Dr. Aliza Pressman:you might need to shift how you're treating screens. Oh, one last thing. Rather than looking on an iPad, it's much better to have the show on a television that's attached to the wall. Because with an iPad, there's kind of like, you can get sort of sucked into the show and the iPad and it's harder to let go of it. And it becomes a little bit closer to something that becomes bad habits.

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7:55Okay. My six-year-old is, according to her teachers, a dream at school, kind, regulated, helpful, the whole thing. And the second she sees me at pickup, she falls apart, tears, refuses to get in the car, tells me her day was awful, takes it out on her little sister on the way home. I'm starting to dread pickup. Should I never go again because it's me or is there something else going on? The thing is, everybody listening has had a moment, I suspect, where their delightful, loving, regulated child who's having a great day at school with not a lot of teacher complaints comes into the car and you're like bracing yourself.

8:34That's totally normal. Why? Because if you're in a safe place, you're going to let it all out. And over time, as you develop into a full human adult, you start to learn how to not just keep it together in public-facing environments and then fall apart. But as a child, your child is learning. There are certain settings where there are expectations of me. I'm going to work hard to meet those expectations. And then as soon as I'm in my safe place with my parent, I'm going to let go. So I would say just comfort yourself knowing that. And that doesn't mean that you have to put up with or tolerate, you know, full meltdowns every day in the car.

9:24You can pay attention to what's happening in the car. So a lot of times at pickup, we're cheerful, we're ready to see our kids, and then we ask them how their day was, and we start to grill them. And maybe that's a good time to practice just zipping it and letting them get into the car, being delighted to see them, and then just turning on music. Maybe siblings can choose the music. Maybe they, you know, can take turns. If that's going to cause problems, you just play music on a playlist that everybody's into. Then let them decompress in the car without using you as the way to decompress. After a while, if they're still lashing out at you after the school day, think about do they need a snack?

10:06Is that something we could add? Do they need to do 10 jumping jacks or run around a few minutes before they get into the car? Like, what does their body need? And you're going to be learning as you have this developing child and they're going to be learning what do they need at the end of the day. So for us, managing how we feel in those moments so that we don't let it get to us and figuring out what they need is going to be a practice that takes time. But rest assured, it's so typical. If it becomes much worse, you can, of course, check in with school, see how they're doing, see if there's anything that's inappropriate that's being asked of them in terms of developmental expectations.

10:47If over time it's getting worse and worse, not better, it would be a good time to check in with school and make sure, of course, that the day is something that is developmentally appropriate and something that is the right setting for them. But generally speaking, we all like to decompress in our safe place. Next question. My son is 11 and just got his first phone for logistics. And even though there's not a lot that he can do on it, kids are starting to send things around via text. I want to talk to him about porn before he stumbles onto it or something is sent to him. But I have no idea how to approach it without making it weird, shame-based, or so awkward that he tunes me out.

11:29I don't think he's actively looking for it, but I'm worried he's going to find something on his own. Okay. So you're on to something in that it might seem early to talk about porn at 11. But the minute we give our kids devices, the minute they have access to the internet, so it's still just called that, to the world wide web, to the world, they have access to porn. And you don't know what's going to come their way, so it's good to address that before something happens. And I want to mention something about shame. Shame is something parents often worry about. They don't want to shame their kids, which is a very noble thing to not want to do.

12:10But shame is about calling into question the value or worthiness of a human being versus calling into question their actions. So sometimes we confuse that and we think even mentioning something that was not okay, like yelling at someone, we say, oh, I don't want to shame them by saying something. You can tell them, hey, there are certain things that are acceptable behaviors and there are certain things that are harmful behaviors. I know that you are a great kid who sometimes might do something that you didn't realize was harmful or that you knew was harmful, but you just kind of lost yourself in that moment.

12:50So I'm going to help you make those decisions as you're growing. We'll talk through them. You'll make mistakes. We'll figure it all out. But underneath all of that, you're awesome. It's not about who you are as a person. So whenever you're thinking about having hard conversations with your kids, just remember, it's not shame to say something about behavior. It's shame to say something about the worthiness of who you are. So when it comes to porn or anything on the phone, first, when you decide to give your child a device, you let them know it's a borrowed device. It's something that is not private.

13:26So you're going to look at it periodically to check in. Other people can see it. And that's why they have to be very mindful of what they do on it. If someone sends them something that they know isn't okay, it's important for them to come tell you. And also you'll be checking and you'll be able to check in with them. So that opens up the possibility of saying, here are some things that could be sent to you that are not acceptable. And it's not your fault. It's just that it's something to come and tell me and to not look at. There's something called pornography that shows adults, hopefully, with their clothes off who are having sex or doing things with each other that they may or may not have consented to that show images that are giving misinformation about what it really means to have an intimate experience with another person.

14:20And it can be really harmful to see things like that, especially as you're still processing all of these ideas as a young person. So if you did get sent something like that, you always want to put it down and hand it to your grown-up. And then you can say, do you have any questions? And just give some silent space because kids sometimes are like, okay, that's more than I needed to hear from my parent. Or it opens up more and more questions. And what you want more than anything is to be an askable parent. So when you said shame, I think one of the other worries about shame is that if we have a tone of judgment, that our kids are going to get kind of an underlying sense of like, being curious about this makes me bad.

15:07So it's really important to be askable and to say, it is so natural to be curious about all sorts of things, even things that you might think are not supposed to be curious about. So let them know nothing is off limits for them to ask you, and you can help them figure out what is or isn't okay when it comes to things that they're sending or receiving on their phones. And one more thing. If you find that it's too overwhelming to have a device, then you might say, you know what, I made a mistake. I think we're not ready for this yet. There's too much stuff coming at you. It's too difficult to manage all of that at this age.

15:46And so we're going to pick a different way to communicate with each other when, you know, for travel purposes or whatever, because there are certainly options to have devices where you don't have capacity to send pictures or videos, for example. Okay, ready for the next one. Okay. My daughter is 12 and the only one in her friend group who is not allowed on social media. Every week there's a new thing she's missing out on and she's been asking for it every single night. I've read everything and I want to continue to wait, but I'm not sure how to explain it to her. And I don't know how to feel comfortable in my own decision.

16:21How do I gain more confidence and explain to her what I'm thinking? Okay. This is so many parents, okay? We don't need to convince our kids of all of the limits that we set. Because if we find that we need to convince them, they wouldn't even need to be limits, frankly, because they would be like, oh, that's not good for me. Okay, I won't ask for it again. So yes, give our kids reasons, but don't expect that you have to sell or market those reasons and that they have to agree with them. So you can say why you're not ready to give them social media yet or access to social media. You can be compassionate and understanding about the fact that it makes them feel really left out and that you can understand why they really want access, but that you have very good reasons why you're waiting.

17:12And you can give them the reasons, but don't wait for or expect them to say, oh, thank you, now I understand, so I'll stop asking. What you can say is, this one I'm not gonna bend on because my job is to make sure that I help support your developing brain. And we know that this isn't how I can best support it. And so it's gonna be a no for now, and I will revisit this conversation when I'm ready and you can always check in, but rest assured it's not happening this year or give them whatever timeline is appropriate for you. If you've decided they have to be 18, say it's a non-negotiable until then.

17:53Having said that, it makes total sense why you'd be worried, am I confident in this if you don't believe it? So figure out how you really feel about it. And if you feel like this is the right decision, which I agree with you, then that's where your confidence comes from. In the same way that you feel confident about putting them in a car seat when they're babies. You know they don't really like it and you don't sell it to a baby. You're just like, you know what? This keeps your body safe and so this is what we're doing and it's my job to keep your body safe. So I just want to let you know a lot of parents feel insecure about am I messing with their social lives?

18:33And the truth is, that's going to be a lot of asking yourself, what is it that's really bothering me? Is it bothering me because I feel like they're missing out on something and I wonder, did I miss out on things? Are they struggling socially? Or is it just hard for me to see them feel like, oh, they didn't know about the movie that was going on? If it's about you and like not knowing how to toggle between, of course, you're going to miss out on some social things. And that's okay. That's a good muscle to build. Or it's making it so hard for them to have social lives that they actually are completely left out.

19:1212 is still just young enough where you can check in with other parents and say, hey, if you guys do have a big plan, I mean, they still need to be driven somewhere. So if you do have a big plan and you know that it happened on social media, would you mind just asking your child, did you check in with Susie? because I know she doesn't have social media and just help get like the village involved in supporting this decision that you've made. Now, you can't control other people, but you definitely it's it's well within reason to just say like, hey, we've decided not to have social media, but I don't want it to be so prohibitive for my daughter.

19:51So I was wondering, would you mind mentioning something? Most parents are going to be like, of course, don't worry about it. Now, if you find that, no, they're leaving her out on purpose. They don't want her to participate. that's not about social media. That's about something else and it's something worth exploring. But you really can commit to not giving your child social media at age 12 with the confidence of knowing that, yes, it might interfere with a little bit of her social life, but you're gonna have decisions like that later when it's about parties that you don't feel comfortable sending them to.

20:22And you're not gonna put them in a dangerous situation when they're older, even if they're like, but then I'd be left out. It'll feel like, okay, I can tolerate that feeling of you being left out. I know it's hard, but this one I'm so sure about, and I think we can get through it.

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22:51Okay, juicy questions. What's next? I found two vapes and a lighter in my 15-year-old's backpack when I was looking for a permission slip. I haven't said anything yet because I'm terrified and I don't want to blow up the trust we've spent years building. I'm nervous and I'm honestly a little angry too. What should I do? Of course you're a little angry. It happens. It happens that kids do that, but it also happens that we're going to be angry about it because it's terrifying. So I just want to normalize that for you because I think we've kind of gotten a little far sometimes with staying calm. And so we feel guilty if we're feeling angry about things that we should probably feel a little bit angry about.

23:31The second thing I want to say is how great that you've spent all these years developing this trusted relationship. because that is why we do it, so that when these moments come up, our relationship is strong enough for the discord that is about to ensue. So what I would suggest is, first, what's your long game? It's probably that you want your teenager not to use these dangerous substances and also that they tell you honestly what's going on for them so that they don't sneak things and put themselves in danger. So why would somebody sneak something? They're worried about getting in trouble if they get caught.

24:16They know it's bad for them. Or they don't want to disappoint you or some, you know, a little bit of each. You do need to say something because you're not trying to have a gotcha moment. So you can just be very matter of fact. Once you've regulated yourself, taken a breath, you can say, Hey, I need to talk to you about something. let me know when a good time is. You don't know what they're going through in that moment. So if you storm in angry, you're putting them on the defensive and you don't know what they're doing right then. So they're old enough to check in, find a good time. Okay. So now they've said, yeah, tell me what's up.

24:53I went in your backpack to get a permission slip and I saw the vape in the letter and I want to talk about it. So you're not yelling. but you are letting them know what you saw. And then you just pause because chances are you're going to get a reaction that will help give you information, a reaction of shame, a reaction of anger, a reaction of tears. You know, who knows what the reaction, a defense. It might be that they're like, that's my friends. In fact, I'm pretty sure that's what they're going to say. And it might be their friends. But then the question is, okay, thank you for telling me.

25:36why do you think you're the person that should be holding on to these items for your friend and why do you think your friend feels like you're that person like tell me a little bit about that or if they say it's mine I'm sorry I or they might even say like how dare you look at my backpack to which I would just remind everybody you're still like in the house you know if you have a diary, I'm not going to read it, but a phone, a backpack, I feel like it's not a private space. So wait till they're calm. You can say even if they get upset, I know this is hard to hear, so we can, you can sit with this and we can talk about it when you're ready and give them a little bit of space.