Plan P

Perspectives on Social Media

Social Media
We talk with parents A LOT about social media.  How do you navigate this social media world?  How do you navigate your relationship with your children’s relationship with social media?  It’s a lot!
Social Media is…..social! We all want to belong and feel significant, at every age, and this is an even more intense yearning during adolescence.  There are so many more places to connect and belong on social media, and understanding what is real can get scary for parents.   How can you be there for your child in real life, reassuring them that they belong, no matter what.
Find “your people” provides the affirmation which teens crave. And, it can get slippery when that craving leads to unhealthy communities. Our goal as parents is to help our children find and understand who they are in a world which offers so many options and places to feel part of a community. It’s vital to our relationship with our children that they understand that you appreciate and value their perspective. Their perspective is going to be different because they are a different generation.
Social Media, technology-these are not going away. Just Say No…didn’t work in the 90’s and doesn’t work today. How do we get information in?   Valuing others’ points of views.  Adolescents understand risk, so you can ask questions about that. Cost/Benefit analysis is not their string suit, but their brains are developing.  Conversation builds understanding. Building understanding is more effective in relationship building. Let them reason things out with you.  For themselves.  Without jumping in.
The Practice: Practice your ABC’s Appreciate the kid/s. Remind them that they Belong. It takes a great
Positive Discipline
The Emotional Lives of Teens Lisa Damour

Radical Candor: Not Pulling Punches

In this episode we discuss Kim Scott’s book Radical Candor. Her book will not be found in the family section, because it’s a business book, but stay with us here, radical candor is basically being honest. Doesn’t sound radical, but being honest isn’t always easy. Caring is easy, as parents we care.  What Scott talks about is challenging ourselves to get outside our comfort zone or care, and also challenging the individual we love to be honest. Adolescents aren’t stupid, they are also not notoriously honest. Often, we humans, be it in a business or family setting, tip into caring to the point that we are dishonest. This is not a healthy relationship, and no one is well served.
In previous episodes we’ve mentioned the Positive Discipline principle of being Kind and Firm, Caring and Challenging is just pretty much a grown-up version of the same principle. Challenging is not questioning; challenging is a way, perhaps one of the best, to show that you care.
 
Practice: Identify your fears. This will allow you to lead with honest care AKA Radical Candor.
Radical Candor the book
Ted Talk: Kim Scott on How to Lead with Radical Candor
 
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Join our parenting community & stay connected here
Have a question that you would like Sarah & Quinn to answer? Email us at connect@planp.us
 
 
Visit planp.us to learn more and get access to resources to build healthy relationships with your pre-teens, teens and young adult children!
 

Resiliency isn't pushing past pain

Resilience support
How good are you at moving on after being disappointed or hurt or making a mistake? Resilience is not always easy. It is learned.  When our children were younger, they built resilience when they were learning to ride a bike and they fell.  Some kids got right back on, some kids cried and wanted to be held while they cried. We met them where they were, trusting that they would learn.   The adolescent years are different, and the same.  Allowing our children to explore their feelings can be hard for parents, we don’t want our children to feel painful feelings, but to push them down or aside does not make them go away.  During adolescence our job is as it was then- to give them space, let them wobble, and be there if they want to cry and be held, believing that they can get back up and feel their feelings and move forward with their new learned skill.
 
Practice: Play Lo/Hi with your kid. Ask what was the low point of your day?  What was the high point?  Give them space to share without interrupting or trying to make them feel “better”.
 
Reference: Laziness Does Not Exist
 
CONNECT WITH US
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Join our parenting community & stay connected here
Have a question that you would like Sarah & Quinn to answer? Email us at connect@planp.us
 
 
Visit planp.us to learn more and get access to resources to build healthy relationships with your pre-teens, teens and young adult children!
 
 

Practice doesn't make Perfect

Everyone knows that practice makes perfect, right?  Yeahhhh. And, no! What if you could get away from the pressure of that illusion that perfection is possible? How does this notion of perfection impact our beloved preteen, teen and young adult children, because everywhere you  look, they are feeling the pressure. How can we as individuals get away from that terrible weighty notion that we are striving for perfection?
Join us as we ponder and discuss what practice IS if it is not about aiming for perfection.
Just what is this practice thing that we talk about every single week? Here’s a question, what and how are you practicing?  If you’re not clear, join the crowd! We’re starting a Workshop Wednesdays Virtual Support Group. It can help to let others hear you practice-just like when one practices the piano! Listen and hear other parents and learn to practice listening with objectivity and compassion! Parenting adolescents is hard and can be scary. Being seen and heard with other parents can feel scary and we are happy to extend to all of our listeners an invitation to change that by registering.
They will be adults in your life longer than they were children. Please join us as you practice parenting in this new parental role of being a parent of an adult, who is now and will forever be, your child.
ITC
CRAFT
Positive Discipline
 
Don’t forget to sign up to join us for our very first ever FREE Virtual Workshop and Support Group
 
The Plan P Playlist on Spotify. It is, appropriately, a crazy mix.
CONNECT WITH US
Follow Plan P on Instagram, Facebook & TikTok @planpisfor
Join our parenting community & stay connected here
Have a question that you would like Sarah & Quinn to answer? Email us at connect@planp.us
 

Personal Care

Personal Care
Taking care of yourself when parenting preteens, teens and young adults can be challenging.  We talk honestly about how hard it can be to take care of yourself from the very beginning of the parenting journey, and just when you think you might catch a break-and take a bath or read a book, get a mani-pedi or a massage….” just kidding” say the adolescent years.
In this episode we talk about not just the importance of self-care, because that can feel like pressure, but we explore all the trillions of ways a parent can take care of themselves, and how modeling that? Modeling taking care of you?  That is vital to being in any healthy relationship, especially as a parent at any age. Taking back taking care of the self allows your children freedom. You can practice self-care, and they do not have to take care of you because they know that you are capable of doing it for yourself!
There is no right or wrong way to take care of yourself. Taking the time to pause and consider who that self is? Who are you? What are your likes and dislikes? This is a good place to begin. No pressure, just a personal care pause.
 
The Practice:
Identify and make a list of five things which make you feel good, things which make you feel like you have given yourself a gift, large or small.
 
Sign up NOW to join us for our FREE Virtual Workshop and Support Group
 
CONNECT WITH US
Follow Plan P on Instagram, Facebook & TikTok @planpisfor
Join our parenting community & stay connected here
Have a question that you would like Sarah & Quinn to answer? Email us at connect@planp.us
 
 
Visit planp.us to learn more and get access to resources to build healthy relationships with your pre-teens, teens and young adult children!
 
 

Prepare Party Plan Conversations

Planning Party Planning
The luck of the Irish? Yeahhh, St. Patrick’s Day, as the parent of a teen? Doesn’t always make parents feel so lucky. The kids are growing up and the wearing of the green is oft accompanied by the drinking of the green beer, the green jello shots and well, goodness knows what else they’ve figured out to dye green besides the Chicago River. Everyone loves this holiday? No, not really. In the episode we want to remind you that luck is what you make of things, and, lucky you, this year is full of new opportunities to do things differently!
Rather than panicking or plotting or patronizing, we discuss ways in which you can work with your child to plan their party or discuss their partying in a non-confrontational concerned parent fashion. We hear you, that sounds insane, why would a parent help their child plan to party? Well, because you want to be in partnership with them, and listening to them? If they are planning to attend a party? Opening the door to a “party planning conversation” beats having a door slammed in your face.  
The Practice:
Preparing for a conversation-without over preparing or panicking or preparing for battle! Prepare by preparing your perspective and practicing some open ended in advance.
 
References:
 Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain by Daniel Seigel
The Emotional Lives of Teenagers by Lisa Damour
Magic 8 Meditation can be found @planpisfor on IG wherever you see a video of clouds, and on the here of our website.
 
The PlanP Playlist addition: Get Lucky by Daft Punk “Like the legend of the Phoenix All ends with beginnings.”
Sign up NOW to join us for our FREE Virtual Workshop and Support Group
 
CONNECT WITH US
Follow Plan P on Instagram, Facebook & TikTok @planpisfor
Join our parenting community & stay connected here
Have a question that you would like Sarah & Quinn to answer? Email us at connect@planp.us
 
 
Visit planp.us to learn more and get access to resources to build healthy relationships with your pre-teens, teens and young adult children!

Paradoxes

Paradoxes
 
Tap into the wisdom of Socrates, the Tao, Rumi and Erykah among others, as we help parents understand how to accept and apply the paradoxes presented by these wise people to parenting teens!  If we know that we know nothing about anything, then what could we possibly teach our children?
Ah, the wisdom of the ages is here to help and we are here to help you understand how to embrace it, and embrace your kids who are squirming away.  Want to understand how knowing this not-knowing can help parents hear their adolescent children?  In this episode you will be guided in how to identify and acknowledge the paradoxes, and then how to not just live with them, but love them. Listen to this episode and learn how to use the paradoxes, the seeming contradictions presented in life going back many thousands of years,  to start building healthy balanced relationships with your children in today’s world.
 
The Practice: Consider the other possible truths. Our truth may not be the same as our children’s truth in any situation. Consider this and ask them theirs. Then, you know, pause and pause. It may not make sense to you. That is ok.  It’s their truth - for today.
 
Resources:
Lisa Damour: The Emotional Lives of Teenagers
Stephen Mitchell: Tao Te Ching: A New English Version
Don’t forget to sign up to join us for our very first ever FREE Virtual Workshop and Support Group
The Plan P Playlist on Spotify. It is, appropriately, a crazy mix.
 
CONNECT WITH US
Follow Plan P on Instagram, Facebook & TikTok @planpisfor
Join our parenting community & stay connected here
Have a question that you would like Sarah & Quinn to answer? Email us at connect@planp.us
 
Visit planp.us to learn more and get access to resources to build healthy relationships with your pre-teens, teens and young adult children!
 
Connect here : www.planp.us  .

The Power of the Pollyanna Perspective

The Power of Pollyanna Perspective
There is much power to be found in positivity WHEN used properly!  Pollyana can get a bad rap. We understand why.  The ability to genuinely understand how to use, and not abuse or misuse, positivity is complicated. The reason we talk about it in this episode is because it can change interpersonal relationships for the better, which is what parents of adolescents want.
In this episode we’ll teach you some tricks on how to stay honest, and how to stay off the negative train. We want to be clear; positivity is NOT denial. Denial is a dangerous place for us to be as parents, and it does not build honest relationships with our children. Unhappiness exists. In the current world of facades in many forms it is important that parents are clear with themselves when they communicate with their children, understanding what we DO want, not what we do not want is the key to change.
This Week’s Practice: Positive communication! How?  Use positive rather than negative language.  Say do, not don’t; can, not can’t, will, not won’t-you get the picture, yes? Sounds simple.  A reminder, simple isn’t easy, and the truth is that we KNOW that we CAN change our thinking.
 
Resources
Brad Reedy: The Journey of the Heroic Parent
CRAFT
Positive Discipline
 
Don’t forget to sign up to join us for our very first ever FREE Virtual Workshop and Support Group
 
The Plan P Playlist on Spotify. It is, appropriately, a crazy mix.
CONNECT WITH US
Follow Plan P on Instagram, Facebook & TikTok @planpisfor
Join our parenting community & stay connected here
Have a question that you would like Sarah & Quinn to answer? Email us at connect@planp.us
 
Visit planp.us to learn more and get access to resources to build healthy relationships with your pre-teens, teens and young adult children!

Positive Discipline Perspectives

Understanding how to find balance while transitioning from boss of a child, to staying on as the trusted consultant to a young adult deserves a transition team!  Sarah and Quin have got you!  Parenting adolescents is for many the hardest part of the parenting journey.  Staying positive can feel like a challenge but knowing that you have something positive to practice can make a huge difference.
On this week’s episode Quinn and Sarah talk about the huge value of understanding the principles of Positive Disciple Parenting-helping parents shift their view and seeing mistakes as opportunities to learn, and building strength in understanding what it means to master firm and kind parenting. Sound impossible?  It’s not.
 
 
This Week’s PRACTICE:
Practice ADAPTing (Always Doing Another Positive Try). This acknowledges that mistakes are opportunities to learn and continue to pick yourself up, dust yourself off and try again. 
 
Check out the Upcoming (Free) Workshop Wednesdays Ongoing Parent Support Group which starts March 13th (😊Lucky 13) at 6pm PST here
 
Books Mentioned: Positive Discipline by Jane Nelson
See the If at First You Don’t Succeed You’re in Good Company poster in our basement.
CONNECT WITH US
Follow Plan P on Instagram, Facebook & TikTok @planpisfor
Join our parenting community & stay connected here
Have a question that you would like Sarah & Quinn to answer? Email us at connect@planp.us
 
Visit planp.us to learn more and get access to resources to build healthy relationships with your pre-teens, teens and young adult children!
 

Ponder your Part

Pondering our part is parenting pertinent and also entirely possible.  Accountability is the tune this week on the podcast and is a central tenant of secure parenting. Listen to Sarah and Quinn as they discuss listening and understanding where your part begins and ends. How do you find a place to hear different points of view, which your adolescent children are sure to offer!
Learning how to slowly become accountable to ourselves, learning how to model this in our behaviors is how we learn to be account table-through doing.  Being accountable is freeing and in this episode you will learn how to bring awareness to your behaviors.  How do you model accountability? Are you being accountable?
Parents want their children to count on them. How do you get there?  Our children learn from what we do, not what we say. Being consistent in our actions can be exhausting but it builds trust.  If our behavior doesn’t change, can we count on ourselves? If we own your mistakes, hold ourselves accountable, then they are much more likely to come to you when they make mistakes.
 
CONNECT WITH US
Follow Plan P on Instagram, Facebook & TikTok @planpisfor
Join our parenting community & stay connected here
Have a question that you would like Sarah & Quinn to answer? Email us at connect@planp.us
 
Visit planp.us to learn more and get access to resources to build healthy relationships with your pre-teens, teens and young adult children!