60: Parenting a Struggling Kid: Acceptance and the Role of Connection with Brooks Witter
“It’s scary when your kids are going off the rails and you don’t know what to do, and you’re frustrated and feel kind of hopeless or helpless. That’s when you need to take care of yourself so that the steps that you do take are informed by your best thinking. Take time… Find a way back to yourself so that you can bring your best self to this work.” –Brooks Witter
Raising an adolescent is indeed a really challenging role for parents. It’s when the kid is finally crossing the bridge between childhood and adulthood. Around this period, the family is turned upside down. As teenagers witness and experience the sufferings in this world, they become more and more confused. Others act out while others withdraw and in time it becomes a head-on family struggle. Today’s episode is packed with guidelines and wisdom to help you towards your goal to get them through this troubled years and launch them as happy, responsible adults. Take care of both your teens and yourselves. Don’t get your hopes up. You can be successful and fulfilled parents.
Highlights:
02:21 Brook Receives His Call of Service
06:33 Being a Parent of a Child Who’s Acting Out
18:00 Being A Parent of a Withdrawn Child
22:38 How Parents Can Talk to Your Child
29:25 The Larger Picture of Human Suffering
36:15 Effective Family Time
39:48 A Resource for Parents
46:36 Take Care of Yourself
Let your kid know you’re there. Let them feel you’re there. Join @TFRSolution and Brooks Witter in a very enlightening discussion on how parents can connect with their teens. #calling #effectiveparenting #connection #communication #teenagers… Share on X
Quotes:
“It starts with recognizing that as the adolescent… need to push away from something to figure out more…” –Brooks Witter
“You are no longer raising a kid; you are now working to grow an adult. And that’s a very different thing.” –Brooks Witter
“The parent needs to reflect and get curious about who this person is becoming in their own right. And for a lot of parents that may mean, really accepting, and giving up the vision that you had of your kid, in order to accept the person that they are, that they are becoming.” –Brooks Witter
“As a parent of an adolescent, as opposed to a kid, your goal is to help them… so that they can launch as an adult.” –Brooks Witter
“We don’t want to be a problem. We don’t want to be problems for other people to solve. We want to have an intersubjective experience of being seen, and seeing others and that promotes connection. And that’s a basic need for human beings.” –Brooks Witter
“The value of human connection is part of the solution.” –Jeff Jones
“You want to be a mentor, not a tormentor.” –Brooks Witter
“If you’re able to work with that fear in an effective way, then you come to your kid in more from that genuine care, which is much more likely to yield positive influence.” –Brooks Witter
“It’s scary when your kids are going off the rails and you don’t know what to do, and you’re frustrated and feel kind of hopeless or helpless. That’s when you need to take care of yourself so that the steps that you do take are informed by your best thinking. Take time… Find a way back to yourself so that you can bring your best self to this work.” –Brooks Witter
About Brooks Witter
Brooks Witter grew up with a compassionate and sympathetic heart despite being raised in a family with addiction and connection issues. He knows how to understand people and realized it was his call of service to help others alleviate their sufferings. He now serves as an LPC Parent Coach, Values-Driven Mental Health Professional, Parent Educator and the Co-Founder of Wise Roots Parenting. He strongly holds on to the power of clear and honest communication as he gives parents and adolescents a leg up so they can strengthen the connection between them.
Website: https://www.wiserootsparenting.com/
Email: brooks@luminouscounseling.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brookswitter/
Telephone: 720-432-2015
Got ideas? Perhaps a future podcast? Schedule time with Jeff here: https://meetme.so/jeffjones
Transcriptions
Jeff Jones: So welcome, this is Jeff Jones, and I’m here today on a podcast Families Navigating Addiction And Recovery. And today my guest is a guy that I’ve known for, I don’t know, quite awhile. He’s a therapist around Boulder, and he also has a business Wise Roots Parenting. And it’s an online parenting resource for education for success of young adults, and they’re launching. So it’s, I see it as a parenting resource and I will let Brooks Witter talk more about himself. So, welcome Brooks.
Brooks Witter: Thanks Jeff, it’s good to be here talking with you again, I always enjoy our conversations. Yes, as you mentioned, I’m a therapist in boulder, I’ve been a clinical director of a therapeutic program for young adults where I spent 11 years working on the front lines with kids really struggling to find their way due to a number of issues, and also working with the parents, trying to help them figure out what things they could do differently to really support their kids in developing the tools, the strength, the confidence to step into the world, and make their way, you know, as a fledgling adult.
Jeff Jones: Right, yeah, yeah, great, great. Well, so can you talk a little bit about what kind of drew you to this?
Brooks Witter: Yeah. You know, I think, you know, in my view, nobody really sort of, look at it as a set of vocations and like, I want to be a counselor, I want to listen to people suffering all day. You know, maybe I’ve talked with a couple people that I’ve known early on, but I think it’s very much a calling and it has been in my life, a calling of service. I’ve had my own struggles, and I think sort of orienting to what really matters, and sometimes when I’ve known what really matters, I’ve struggled in really being effective in moving towards that.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: And you know, my family’s got its share of addiction, and distance, and neurosteve, and you know, we’ve been shaped in, you know, sometimes unique, and sometimes quite stereotypical fashion of our own families.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: And just so happens that, you know, the family that grew up in, kind of created some weirdness in me that I was interested in figuring out. The more I got into it, the more I think I understood about other people and it could be helpful. And then I have always been drawn to being of service to help people feel better, to help people do better, to help people connect with what matters. And so, there’s just a natural fit. The more I was doing that, the more I was helping my own self through that sort of compassionate and sympathetic inquiry, and the more helpful I could be to others. So, it was a nice feedback loop.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, beautiful, yeah.
Brooks Witter: And really working with adolescents and young adults, and working with the parents of that, those people has been a real draw for me because it’s just such a rich time in lights in terms of really holding the questions of who am I? What’s important? What’s out there for me? And how can I contribute?
Jeff Jones: Yeah, exactly, beautiful questions. Who am I? What’s out there for me? And how do I contribute to the world?
Brooks Witter: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: And what’s my next step here? And yeah, this stage of, you know, boy to man, girl to woman, that young adult stage, or teen is challenging for the individual and it’s incredibly challenging for parents. And I think it’s great that you have the opportunity to work with both.
Brooks Witter: Ehmm.
Jeff Jones: You know, the parents and the individual, the teen or young adult. I mean that’s, so from that standpoint, like what have you seen as far as some of, are there two or three common misconceptions, or challenges, and some ways that you’ve seen people manage them well, or some ideas, or suggestions that you might have for some of the top two or three challenges that are out there?
Brooks Witter: Yeah. You know, one of the things that I think is surprising for parents in this work, so they’re parenting a struggling teen or young adults. Sometimes that teen is acting out and they’re, you know, maybe defiant, maybe somewhat aggressive or prickly. You know, often what happens is parents, you know, kind of get punished for engaging with the kid. Like they reach out, they try to help and the kids just: “Back off, let me do it. I’ll figure it out. What’s wrong with you?”
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: You know, and the parents feel really frustrated, that their attempts to help are met with such a, sort of disdain, or sort of an allergic reaction by the kids. And I think the parents can kind of get a mindset that: “My kid wants nothing to do with me, that they would be happy if I just stepped away and totally backed off.” And really what I say to parents is, so often this kid is actually needing connection, they actually need you more in some ways, it’s just a matter of working with the parents to get creative, and try to identify how can you actually make that happen? How can you actually come in and create a different type of relationship? One, where that kid actually gets a sense of connection, of being met, of being seen, where the parent is actually a real powerful agent providing you know, the nutrients that the kid is really longing for, that they’re deficient.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: Where much of the negative behaviors is, sort of, out of a connection deficiency.
Jeff Jones: Sure. So it sounds like the number one challenge out there is that, at some point teens push their parents away and they may have behavior that pushes them away, acting out, being aggressive, something like that. And the parents are really getting the message: “Hey, just the more space they give their child, the better.” But really, what you’re saying is, the child is longing for connection while they’re kind of pushing their parents away. So, the parenting challenge sounds like one, don’t take it personal, and then you know, another find unique creative ways to connect, to do something, you know, whether it’s a project or what. Yeah, that’s so, it’s like parenting is a whole different deal than when I grew up.
Brooks Witter: Oh yeah, oh yeah, for sure, for sure.
Jeff Jones: Oh, my gosh, wow.
Brooks Witter: It’s a very different adolescent developmental world than when you grew up too.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: And so, our parenting needs to shift in order to meet the shifting context of the world that the kids are growing up in.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. Our environment is totally different than it was, say back in the 70’s, or something. And so the environment is shapes how we think about things, and the family environment shapes the child’s brain, and the child has access to the family, and their peer group, and whatever they do outside of that. But yeah, so do you have some ideas, or what have you seen, like creative things that parents have done to when they’re being pushed away, and you know, they could be curse stat, or whatever. I mean, it all kinds of pushing away strategies. What have you seen at, or what parents can do to create connection?
Brooks Witter: Yeah, you know, you can get as creative as you want. And in my view, it comes down to some pretty simple things that aren’t terribly creative. But it starts with recognizing that, you know, as the adolescent is pushing away the parent, that’s a developmental necessity. They need to push away from something to figure out more of who am I in myself? And also, what can I do in this world? You know, and I go out on my own? And navigate this world without my parent guiding every step, and checking in with me all the time? Can I have more self directed time where I’m on my own, and I’m making my choices?
“It starts with recognizing that as the adolescent… need to push away from something to figure out more…” –Brooks Witter Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: They can see that that’s coming, right, that developmentally, that’s going to be required of them. So that pushing off is a necessary part of the adolescent phase. And so, with parents, you know, I’m coaching parents all the time, like you are no longer raising a kid. You are now working to grow an adult, and that’s a very different thing.
“You are no longer raising a kid; you are now working to grow an adult. And that's a very different thing.” –Brooks Witter Share on XJeff Jones: Wow.
Brooks Witter: It requires a different view, a different paradigm, that you’re no longer trying to control their behavior so much. You’re more trying to help them learn from their own experience, so that when the time comes for them to step out into the world, leave the home, or go to college, or get a job, and sort of make their way that they are equipped with that learning, that they can self assess, they can learn from their challenges, they can accept failure as a part of experimentation, they can have a sense of what’s important to them, and take steps towards that. So, that all said, what remains the same, from the kid through the adolescent into the young adult is still that, looking to the parent for a basic reflection of: “Am I okay? Am I worthy of love? Do you accept me?”
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: Right? And it’s so much easier to accept a tantruming an entitled three-year-old than it is to accept a tantruming an entitled 13 year old, much less a tantruming an entitled 23 year old.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: And yet the need remains the same from the parent is, am I worthy of love? Am I acceptable? My behaviors may not be acceptable, but am I okay? Am I worthy?
Jeff Jones: Right, yeah., yeah.
Brooks Witter: Right? So, really working with parents try to work to set the limits of what’s, you know, what’s appropriate? What’s acceptable behavior? What’s unacceptable behavior? In terms of, you know, from their own values and some basic human decency, you know, trying to work to help the kids have a communications skills that are prosocial, and you know, that are effective.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: And that means, you know, not tolerating abusive talk, and you know, gross disrespect, you’re going to have some disrespect. I mean it’s adolescence, but you know, setting some boundaries, but then within those boundaries, really allowing that adolescent to discover who they are, and the parent needs to reflect and get curious about who this person is becoming in their own right. And for a lot of parents, that may mean really accepting and giving up the vision that you had of your kid in order to accept the person that they are, that they are becoming.
“The parent needs to reflect and get curious about who this person is becoming in their own right. And for a lot of parents that may mean, really accepting, and giving up the vision that you had of your kid, in order to accept the person that… Share on XJeff Jones: Right, wow. So, I mean, one of the things that I’m hearing over and over a number of different ways is that, parents really need to change the way they think about their child.
Brooks Witter: Yeah. I think it’s really, is a paradigm shift when you hold in mind that: “Okay, what’s the ultimate goal here?” You know, in raising a kid, you’re, you’re really, you know, just let’s keep them safe, let’s introduce them to a bunch of different stuff, let’s, you know, help them connect. Let’s help them, you know, figure out what do you do with a tantrum and how do you play nicely with people and, and you’re, sort of steering them into situations. You have a lot of control over their time and who they spend time with, what activities they do. You’re able to steer their choices a lot as a kid, but as an adolescent, and they develop more autonomy, and they’re spending a lot more time out on their own, whether it’s out of the house, or it’s sort of out on the world wide web, connecting with others, they’re making a lot more of their choices on their own. And so, they’re discovering, and they’re experimenting with these choices. And as a parent of an adolescent as opposed to a kid, your goal is to help them leave the house, and to help them figure out how to do that effectively. And so, the shift and paradigm is really looking at like, okay, what’s the end goal here? Is to help my kids so that they can launch as an adult. And that means I need to like, stop trying to control a lot of parts of their life that as a parent, I used to have control of more. I need to let my kid take the reins, take the wheel of his life, and start to learn how to steer their own ship. And you know, they may go in areas that you don’t want them to, and you know, sometimes that requires real intervention. If it’s a safety and stability issue, like an addiction.
“As a parent of an adolescent, as opposed to a kid, your goal is to help them… so that they can launch as an adult.” –Brooks Witter Share on XJeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: You know, real dangerous risks, high risk choices. Other times you need to really allow your kid to steer themselves into situations that you may not like, but the kid needs to learn their own lessons. And then be there to help them do the process, engage in the analysis that’s more adult like, well, how’d that work out for you? What was the outcome? Did you anticipate that? What might you do in the next time you do that?
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: We are helping them to learn how to learn from their experience.
Jeff Jones: Right, right, right. Well, so let me ask you a question. One of the things that you mentioned was the kind of child that is acting out, and defiance, you know, perhaps a little aggressive and they’re, you know, they’re individuating, it’s a part of their developmental stage. But what about the child who has a whole different set of behaviors, and it’s more like contracting, and closing down, and not really able like, has no interest in connecting with other people, and you know, they may be more sad, or depressed, or you know. Then from a parenting standpoint, can you talk a little bit about that?
Brooks Witter: Yeah, yeah. You know, it’s really important to try to work to better understand, what’s the function of this behavior? You know, what’s the function of, whether it’s isolation, withdrawal, you know, is this a protective set of behaviors that are arising out of fear of others? Is this sense of one, the low self esteem? Poor self concept? Trying to get a sense, and connect with your kids so you have a better understanding of what’s happening in their inner world in such a way that you can reflect on your kid, and understanding of them where they can sit back and be like: “Oh yeah, yeah that sounds right. That’s what’s happening for me. You get it, you get it.”
Jeff Jones: Hmm.
Brooks Witter: And in that moment, you know, this is not a panacea, and there’s no magic bullet, or any sort of mental health, or addiction, or behavioral issues. I really see parental engagement with kids who are really struggling, as really working to shift a pattern towards understanding and connection, which can provide a sense of safety for the person who’s struggling. Like, if they can be seen in their struggle, and accepted, and they receive curious empathic engagement that can be such a palliative to their sense of isolation, and their sense of despair that: “Nobody will get me. Nobody understands it. Not even my parents.”
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: “They are just trying to fix me.”
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: “Cause they don’t like how I am.” You know, if the message is more often than not: “What’s wrong with you? And let’s fix that.” Well the kid’s gonna then interpret and internalize this message: “I’m a problem, how I am as a problem?”
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: And it maybe that it’s quite problematic in a sense that they’re disconnected from their own wellbeing, or disconnected from a sense of their capacity, a sense of their genius, or their creativity. And we want to help them connect with that.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: And that is supported through compassionate inquiry, through first seeking to understand what is happening? How does this make sense?
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah. This is great, thanks very much Brooks, this is wonderful. And I, you know, one of the questions that seemed obvious to me is, specifically for parents who, you know, they may have been doing what they consider the best with what they know, they probably are, really.
Brooks Witter: Ehmm.
Jeff Jones: But they’re doing the best with what they know, and they have reached out to professionals, and for help, and those professionals have done what they’re trying to do a lot of times with our system. They look at the behavior and diagnose it
Brooks Witter: Ehmm.
Jeff Jones: And you know, it’s like diagnosing the problem that you have. So it reinforces, kind of the message you’re trying to give to parents to connect with them. Not so much as I need to connect with you because you are the problem, kind of thing. I’m connecting with you because you’re my child, I love you and I want to connect with you. It’s a very different message once they go out into, you know, the mental health system, or it’s like, I want you, you the child, go out and see a therapist. And, so it’s, there’s a major kind of lot of, I don’t know if I want to call it a conflict of interest, but a challenge, and around diagnosis. And so, you know, maybe some of the parents who are listening to this, their child has already been diagnosed with this, that, or the other. So can you talk a little bit about, how a parent can, like from their own thinking, and how they could speak to their child?
Brooks Witter: So, a piece about diagnosis, you know, a diagnosis can be helpful. Of course, to the extent that it provides some course that could be effective in moving the individual towards greater wellbeing. But to the extent that it’s not helpful in doing that, well then it’s just not helpful. And let’s look at figuring out what is helpful. You know, like you were mentioning, one of the problems with diagnosis is that it sees this thing as the problem, and oftentimes this thing is experienced by the person suffering as me.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: You know, it’s my experience, and like I’m depressed, and withdrawn, and everybody is telling me that that’s just not okay. What’s wrong with me? You know, and people keep relating to this person as a problem, and we don’t want to be a problem. We don’t want to be problems for other people to solve.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: We want to have an inter subjective experience of being seen and seeing others. And that promotes connection.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: And that’s a basic need for human beings. So, a lot of times parents, you know, driven by that parental instinct of wanting their kids to be happy, to be thriving, to be healthy. And they see their kids engaging in patterns of behavior that keep digging a hole that keep where the kid gets kind of further and further disconnected from a sense of vitality, and a sense of thriving, and a sense of themselves as somebody that’s strong and capable. And so, the parents can feel more and more desperate to solve that problem.
“We don't want to be a problem. We don't want to be problems for other people to solve. We want to have an intersubjective experience of being seen, and seeing others and that promotes connection. And that's a basic need for human beings.”… Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: And in that desperation, more and more of the messages implicitly are: “What’s wrong with you? What the heck is wrong with you?” And instead, what I want to coach for parents to do is spend more time really asking: “What’s right? What’s going well? What are your qualities? What are your strengths? How can I reflect to you that positive feedback of your basic worth?
Jeff Jones: Yeah. So, I mean Brooks, one of the things that I’m hearing, and it could be like a strategy for parents in their own thinking process, but for parents to kind of create their own, you know, whether it’s a challenge or whatever, but just always be looking for what did they do well here? Like where is their genius? And to continue to be curious, and asking questions about, you know, their genius, their like, what they are really good? What they understand? And in some ways, when I’m listening to what you’re saying, I almost get this sense is, like if the parents have a good connection with their child regardless of the diagnosis, regardless of, you know, whatever they get into, the child’s going to be able to handle it better. Even if it’s just being compliant with taking a medication, the child’s going to be able to handle it better when they have a good connection with a caretaker, a parent, you know, trusted adult, or grandparents, or something like that.
Brooks Witter: Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Jones: So, I mean the whole thing here is like, the value of human connection is part of the solution. Like, the whole solution doesn’t come in a bottle, uphill model, or something, you know?
“The value of human connection is part of the solution.” –Jeff Jones Share on XBrooks Witter: Oh, not at all, not at all, exactly, exactly. We are dealing with conditions of human suffering that very often come down to a basic human need for connection, and for that sense of safety that comes when you just feel acceptable when you are acceptable.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. So, Brooks, another thing that I want to ask about is, the Internet and some of the messages on the Internet, and specifically for children who are children, or young adults, or whatever, who they are more prone to do their connecting online than in person, and they get a lot of, you know, messages. There’s a ton of stuff out there for them to get. And it’s just like, you know, parents can control some stuff, with controls they put on their child’s computer, but they can’t control a lot of stuff. And you know, some of the stuff that’s like, I, oh gosh, it was a couple of weeks ago, or something like that, where within a 10 day, or two weeks period there was several school shootings. And it’s just like, it’s sad, t’s just impacts me, you know? And I’m just like: “Wow, what’s going on here?” What’s the larger, I mean the larger picture that, you know, “How can parents understand this?” And like talk to their kids about it, or you know, and yeah. So, it’s a huge question and I’m not expecting, or you know, maybe I am unrealistically expecting you to have, like the silver bullet answer.
Brooks Witter: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: But it’s like, this is real. This is reality. We have a huge amount of suffering in our world. And like, if I don’t know any of those people, it’s going to be easy for me to hear that on the radio, or see on TV, and then forget about it for an hour, or something like that, and so it’s, I don’t know. So, can you speak the larger picture of human suffering and from the standpoint of, it seems like teens and young adults are incredibly vulnerable to a huge amount of human suffering that, at my age when I was a young adult, I didn’t have that in my world.
Brooks Witter: Right, right, yeah. You know, when we were growing up it was really, you know, the kids world, they’re sort of the kids world and the adult world. And there were bridges between those through, mostly through socially sanctioned environments, you know, school, Church, boy scouts, girl scouts, and there were, you know, the mentors were the adults and they reached down into the kid’s world. But then the kids were kind of hanging out with themselves in roughly similar age peer groups. And we’re interacting in towns or neighborhoods where people generally kind of knew each other, that was their main social–
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: –world. What we have now is kids have access to a portal where there’s no differentiation between the adult world and kids’ worlds. And the kids can go on and get information, and are actually pushed information through a lot of websites, and a lot of apps where they just push information that’s really, you know, adult information. Like I would, as a kid, I would occasionally watch the news, but now it’s just like all over and being blasted. And so kids are just sort of taking that in without sort of the context of learning and without an adult guide that’s helping them to understand and contextualize that information in such a way. It’s indiscriminate, and information is just dumped in your lap. So, you know, this requires a helpful adults to help the kid learn how to process this information. And that really doesn’t happen, in less there is time that is tolerated and can be spent between the kid and a helpful mentor and adult, you know.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: And I think parents are ideally situated, but oftentimes, you know, we’re busy, we only have so much time. And for a parent, that period of adolescent can be so challenging because, adolescents can be really kind of, grumpy, or dismissive, or you know, unpleasant in one form or another.
Jeff Jones: Unpleasant, yeah.
Brooks Witter: And, so if, you know, if we don’t like that, and we lose sight of our values as a parent for the still leaning in, even when it’s unpleasant so that we can be there to help our kids process the world that they’re living into.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: You know, we can miss those opportunities and grow further and further distance, and then the kid has left more and more to their own devices to make sense of a very complex world with the not yet fully developed capacity for abstract thinking, perspective taking, and they just make what they make of it.
Jeff Jones: Sure, yeah.
Brooks Witter: You know, another thing to add to that is, you know, the growing rise of anxiety amongst adolescents, this is the most anxious generation that we’ve ever seen and it makes sense to me, it makes a lot of sense to me. They are being inundated with images and messages of violence.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: Terrorism, they’re being inundated with statements about global problems of economic collapse, doomsday scenarios of global warming, these are problems that are so immense. And the picture that it paints is incredibly bleak when you just take the headlines.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: So, they are looking up into a world that is full of problems that are kind of, they seem terminal. These problems seem terminal.
Jeff Jones: Yes. And that’s the way they’re put out in the media.
Brooks Witter: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: Absolutely.
Brooks Witter: And they look up at the leaders who are extensively elected to help us address these problems, and they see a level of discourse that is so competitive, and so rancorous, and so politicized, and petty.
Jeff Jones: Right, yeah.
Brooks Witter: That it’s much more political than pragmatic, and that doesn’t give a sense of confidence that there’s an adult in the room who’s really helping us out. So the kids look up and be like: “Really? Do I want to step into this world? Is this what being an adult is? These people are buffoons that I see on TV who are supposed to be the adults of our country.”
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: “They’re not solving the problems. They’re making it worse.”
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: And so, so there’s very few models that kids have of adults that are in the public image because so much of the media plays to clickbait than plays to very primitive impulses.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: Of our human mind.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: So it’s a real difficult time to grow up because you have all those images of violence. Yet the reality of the fact Jeff, I did some research recently and violent crimes against youth under 18 since 1993 is down over 60%.
Jeff Jones: Wow.
Brooks Witter: That’s a stamp the reality is, the over 60% decrease in violent crimes against youth.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: And yet you wouldn’t know it based on what the media plays out. Yes, we have school shootings, and school shootings in the way that they’re happening now, it didn’t happen in the early 90’s.
Jeff Jones: That sounds like, I saw something within the last week or so, was that alignment with what you said: “There’s a big discrepancy between what we hear in the media and the actual statistics because a lot of statistics have improved with stuff. But when we look at just the media, that’s not the message we get, the message gets worse.”
Brooks Witter: Yep.
Jeff Jones: So there’s, Oh my God, there’s just a huge amount of challenges. So from this question, I was asking way out here, almost like an impossible question. Like, so let’s go in to, like a family system. Like what can, like I, the idea of like family meetings, or you know, for talking and having meals to get, I mean, some basic stuff like that. And I know when that suggested, often times, depending on how it’s suggested or when, you know, the young adult is gonna laugh and go, that’s like, I don’t want to do that actually, I’m not gonna do that or something.
Brooks Witter: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: So, like in a particular family–
Brooks Witter: Yeah, yeah.
Jeff Jones: –that you think of.
Brooks Witter: So family time, so having one on one time is crucial, that’s the building block. And one on one time, when I’m coaching families is, can you spend 10 minutes with your care without asking questions about, sort of like, how they’re doing without probing anything.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: And without providing any critical feedback, we are simply interested in what they’re doing.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: You’re working to get interested in who they are, and in providing positive reflections.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: And if you can’t do that, if you can’t do that as a parent, you’ve got work to do. You’ve got to figure out how to rekindle similar care for the human being who’s suffering. And the cloak of that suffering is, whatever unpleasantness that you’re at, the parent may be struggling. But underneath that cloak, there’s a human being that is in need of care. And if the parent can’t spend 10 minutes refraining from criticism and scrutiny, then the parent has a lot of work to do.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: Because the kid is not going to want to sit at a table and have a meal with inquisitors.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: Like I tell them, you want to be a mentor, not a tormentor, okay?
“You want to be a mentor, not a tormentor.” –Brooks Witter Share on XJeff Jones: (laughs).
Brooks Witter: And oftentimes your best efforts at helping are experienced as tormenting.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, wow.
Brooks Witter: And so, it’s not so much about the parental intention, it’s about assessing impact. You know, you could be intending to help all you want, but if the impact is not helpful, then you have to change your tactics. And so, spending one on one time as a building block, and then from there, if the parent can be successful at connecting with genuine interest and care for their kid, and find ways to express that in very simple, very basic ways.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: If it’s genuine care, the kid will experience it as caring.
Jeff Jones: Right?
Brooks Witter: Right, and if not, then you get curious and be like: “Okay, what do they need? And how do they experience care?” And so–
Jeff Jones: How do they experience care?
Brooks Witter: Yeah. You know, like in the, you know, there’s different love languages, you’re familiar with those, right? So it may be that you express through words of praise, but really the kid just wants a hug, or at least want their back scratched, or something like that, or you know, a gift might be their experience of care.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah, wow. Helpful.
Brooks Witter: And then build from that, you know, family time, family meetings, sitting around the table, having dinner, unstructured, if you can keep the conversation just human and chill. Really again, coming from that place of like, I’m genuinely interested in who this person is, you know, what do they like about that game? Rather than expressing your thoughts and opinions about video games and how that’s just the sort of demise of our country, or the demises of our, you know, this generation, you know, get curious like: Oh, what do you like about Call of Duty? What’s cool about that? Tell me (laughs).”
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Brooks Witter: Well you don’t ask, that’d be like: “What’s cool about THAT?” You know, the tone will give you away whether or not you’re scrutinizing are curious.
Jeff Jones: Sure, yeah, wow. Brooks, thank you so much. So can you talk a little bit about this online resource that you’ve created?
Brooks Witter: Yeah, so a Wise Roots Parenting really sort of skills, tools, frameworks to help parents do what it is we’re talking about and you know, really shift their approach in their kid. If their kid is struggling, and they’re sort of struggling at that adolescent young adult transition for one reason or another, figuring out how to be helpful as a parent, there’s a lot that goes into that. Like we’re saying, you know there’s a real paradigm shift if what you’re doing when they were kids isn’t working anymore. Well, change it up because you have some agency, you have some power. So we created this tool to provide parents, really the sort of, best practices in parenting for successful young adult launch. And the courses, it’s organized around four courses of our introduction, which has seven guiding principles for parents, and then understanding your kid, which is a social and neural development so you can better understand what’s going on. Like how does this make sense? What does the adolescent and young adult developmental phase need? What are the tasks that they’re learning? And how do I distinguish between sort of normal behaviors, which is broad range, and behaviors that may be compromising safety and stability, in which case parents need to shift their intervention. So understanding your kid and then nurturing your relationship, which is different tools and strategies for interventions that build connection–
Jeff Jones: Aha.
Brooks Witter: –and promote safety. And then beyond that, a lot of times our communication struggles. If we’re emotionally dysregulated and we’re coming from a place of, more from fear than from care, our kids are going to pick that up and they’re going to experience it. You know, that we’re coming to them as they’re a problem and they need to change in order to make us feel better, blah, blah, blah, and that’s, more often than not blow up in your face. And so, in order to have better communication skills, oftentimes you need to grow yourself and develop the emotional regulation tools. So that you can work to open and accept the feelings that you have as a parent of hopelessness, helplessness, uncertainty, anxiety, dread, fear, all of that stuff so that you can identify and open to that, so that you can shift and come from a place of care more than fear. You may still have fear, but if you’re able to work with that fear in an effective way, then you come to your kid and more from that genuine care, which is much more likely to yield positive influence.
“If you're able to work with that fear in an effective way, then you come to your kid in more from that genuine care, which is much more likely to yield positive influence.” –Brooks Witter Share on XJeff Jones: Sure, yeah, beautiful. So you have this laid out in four, like four different modules and kind of what I’m hearing is, to walk parents through a certain path, a pathway for them to, you know, start making changes themselves to where they will have a better connection with their child, and keep a better connection with their child. And so, is this something that a parent would do unilaterally? Is this something a parent would do that has a therapist, or does this include coaching? Is this, like for the stage in know before there’s, you know, a treatment center involved, can you talk a little bit about like, how other resources could–
Brooks Witter: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, so there’s 60 plus videos that are best practices in parenting and so, their didactic, you know, one way. So you stream the videos, and parents get information and there’s some worksheets that, you know, help parents bring those concepts and theories and apply them into their own lives.
“It's scary when your kids are going off the rails and you don't know what to do, and you're frustrated and feel kind of hopeless or helpless. That's when you need to take care of yourself so that the steps that you do take are informed by your… Share on XJeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: So, that’s the main subscription is, you get access to streaming these videos, and all the PDFs and written stuff that’s on there, but it’s just education. And if parents want to go further and work with one of our coaches to really kind of help them apply this stuff to their own unique situations, they can contract one of our coaches, we have people that we work with.
Jeff Jones: Aha.
Brooks Witter: And oftentimes, you know, this will be a resource that therapist may provide for, you know, they may refer parents to, you know, a lot of therapists who are working with the team, will see like, boy, you know, if the parents get a bit more flexible, this could really be helpful for the kid to change the whole system. So they might refer the parent, you know: “Hey, you might want to think about getting a subscription to Wise Roots, and get some of those skills on board.” You know, particularly the communication course, you know, I want you to take a look at the Drama Triangle, and see how you maybe fitting into that, and looking at the different ways to flip that Drama Triangle, so that might be a way that people access it. You know, this is not therapy cause it’s one way communication.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Brooks Witter: And in the coaching is really about practical application.
Jeff Jones: Sure.
Brooks Witter: So, it’s really an adjunct to treatment and it’s an educational sort of infusion of concepts, and frameworks, and skills that can support that work.
Jeff Jones: Great, beautiful. And so, how would people learn more about it? Can you give your website, or how you want people to reach out, or contact you?
Brooks Witter: Yeah, so really the best way to do it would be to go online, and go to www.wiserootsparenting.com, and if you’re a parent out there, there’s a link in the navigation bar that says for parents, if you are a treatment professional and you have a family that you think could benefit from this, there’s a link that says for professionals. And so go wherever you can, whichever makes sense, and there’s more information there and feel free to reach out to me, or there’s an email there that’ll it’ll get to me if you want to reach out to me directly at the brooks@wiserootsparenting.
Jeff Jones: Great. Well, thank you very much Brooks. And before we close, is there any like, last takeaway message, or something that I didn’t ask about, or that you wanted to communicate?
Brooks Witter: Hmm. My big message to parents is, take care of yourself, put on your own mask first, you know. So, it’s scary when your kids are kind of going off the rails and you don’t know what to do, and you’re frustrated, and feel kind of hopeless or helpless, that’s when you need to take care of yourself. So the steps that you do take are informed by your best thinking and you know, take time, whether it’s three breaths or whether it’s, you know, taking a weekend to decompress, whatever it is that you can do, find a way back to yourself, so that you can bring your best self to this work.
Jeff Jones: Great, wow. Thank you very much, Brooks, I appreciate it.
Brooks Witter: Yeah, it’s been a pleasure.Thanks, Jeff.