Parent-Teacher Conference: Conversations on parenting teens and adolescents. – Détails, épisodes et analyse

Hi Everyone!

As many of you know, I needed to take a little hiatus for some various reasons, but I'm back and planning on resuming this newsletter. I'm excited to jump back in!

I think I'm going to experiment with different formats. Since I stopped, Substack has really increased its capabilities and what it can do.

So I am going to try making videos that will automatically be uploaded as podcasts. But there will also be a transcript generated for people who prefer to read. Hopefully, that will give a format for every taste and schedule. But let me know what works best for you.

Regardless, I did wanna just do a video and quickly welcome you to 2025.

I have some really phenomenal articles of interest to parents that I'm excited to share with you.

First, however, there’s something really important that I want to share with you.

My children are all now adults (at least legally—I still have a high school senior). From Thanksgiving until now, I have had unusual opportunities to be with them, observe their lives, talk to them, and so forth.

It has really brought home something important to my mind: We are raising our children to be adults, not to be teens.

Lord willing, they will spend far more time as adults than as adolescents. That also means that our relationship with that child will include more years where they are an adult than it includes years when they were teens.

It’s easy to respond to situations and sort of move from crisis to crisis, or situation to situation during the adolescent years. But if we are wise, we will remember that the goal is not to help the kids have a smooth life in middle or high school.

Our purpose is to prepare them to be happy, productive, successful adults.

I’ve been reflecting on this idea and have some thoughts on what I think makes a difference in preparing kids to be successful adults. There are things I did well and things I wish I had done differently to this end.

You should be able to watch and/or listen here or, if you prefer, read a transcript—which is below this.

You can also listen on Apple Podcasts if you prefer:

Happy New Year—and Happy Parenting! You’ve got this.

Sincerely,

Braden

P.S. For those who are interested, I started doing a short, mostly-daily pep talk: short videos/podcasts that just serve to encourage and cheer people on, share some things that have helped me be happier, etc. If you are interested, they are on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@your.internet.grandpa

You can also get them on Substack here:

https://bradenbell.substack.com/s/internetgrandpa

And as a podcast here (although I don’t post them every day; it tends to be more sporadically):

Apple Podcasts:

TRANSCRIPT:

Hi, everybody. Happy New Year. It's Braden. I am excited. I'm planning to start back up again with the Parent Teacher Conference. As many of you know, I need to take a little hiatus for some various reasons, but now I'm back and I'm planning on resuming and I'm excited to jump back in.

0:18

So I wanted to give you that news. I think I'm going to be trying some different formats, even since I stopped. Things that kind of the technical abilities and capabilities of Substack have really increased. So I'm going to probably try doing maybe more videos and less written pieces,

0:37

or maybe it'll end up being a little balance of both. Or we'll see. Maybe everyone will hate the videos and we'll go back. But we'll see how it works. Regardless, I did wanna just do a video and quickly welcome you to 2025. I have some really phenomenal articles I'm excited to share with you that I've read

0:56

over the holidays and have been saving up to share with you. Before I get to all that though, There's one thing I wanted to talk about. Over the holidays, from Thanksgiving up till now, I've had some unusual chances to interact with my own children. My youngest now is 18, and so he's a high school senior, but technically,

1:18

legally, all of my children are now adults. And it has reminded me of something that I've tried to write about before, which... But I think maybe it needs to be emphasized even more to the parents of adolescents, and that is we are raising our children to be adults, not to be teens.

1:35

We are not raising our child to be popular in middle school. We're not raising our child to be successful, like a super successful athlete or student or scholar in high school. Those are great, don't get me wrong. And being a successful athlete or being a successful scholar, whatever,

2:00

that may well help them in the next part of their life. But our goal is not to help life be smooth now. It's to help prepare them to be happy adults because that is... the way they'll spend the bulk of their life so if we succeed in helping them be

2:17

having a pretty smooth adolescence but they don't learn critical adult skills then that's not going to be a very good trade-off for them also we need to always keep in mind that the bulk of our relationship heaven willing will be with them as an adult the years we have with them as an adolescent are

2:34

pivotal and they are important, but they are the minimum, hopefully, of the number of years we'll have with our child. So keeping all those things in mind, there's a few things that have occurred to me that I feel really good about and there's things I wish I would have done differently now.

2:54

Um, and I have raised my five children, um, that, that covers a lot of years. So it's almost like I have two families in a, in a way, um, just kind of depending on the, when the culture, how the culture was happening when they were raised.

3:08

Um, my older kids didn't have smartphones because none of us had smartphones. Um, And so it was a much different world back then, for example. Here's though, I think the number one thing that your child needs, and that is that they need to learn early to take responsibility. Any number of ways I think can help.

3:30

that happened but it's critical that it happened and here's just a few key places I would suggest that this will have a huge impact on your child's life they need to do chores at home I think they should be doing their own chores like I think they

3:45

should be you know cleaning their bed cleaning their room and my wife's been good to have our kids do their own laundry for example I think that's critical. I also think they need to be doing chores that benefit just the family. Like you live in this house, you're going to do this chore.

4:02

And I think they should have a few of those. I think it should be pretty routine. If you think about it, that is a key part of adulthood. It's doing chores to take care of yourself, but also doing chores to help out other people, whether that's in a relationship or whether that's in the office or whatever.

4:22

Second thing that I really think they need to do, and this is an area I think I wish I would have done a little more of, to be honest. I think they need to do more taking care of the details of their own life. So, for example, if your child, I don't know,

4:38

if there's a doctor appointment that needs to be scheduled or if there's, I don't know, a dentist appointment or little things like that, just sort of the minutia, the details of their life. I think they should do that as much as possible. Absolutely. They probably will need some help and some coaching and probably standing next to them.

4:57

Conversely with that, I think there's a couple things you should never do. I really don't think you should ever bail your child out. Like I don't think you should bring their gym clothes or their instrument or their homework or whatever it is that they're missing. Like if your child forgets something at school,

5:13

unless it is a literal crisis, meaning there's no way they can recover from it, no way at all, I really don't think that you should help them out. I think it's important that they learn early that there are consequences when we don't do things. Likewise, I think I would never try to bail them out on an assignment.

5:34

I think I would never argue or pressure a teacher to change a grade, for example. Again, maybe there's some cases that But there's an important lesson that they need to learn. And that is that, you know, reality around us imposes things. And we can't always argue our way or plead our way.

5:53

We don't always get credit just because of how we feel. Like there are people and institutions who will expect that we just do certain things. The sooner they learn that, the better off they'll be. And learning it young, when the consequences are pretty low...

6:10

um and not terribly going to be real invasive or intrusive into their life is a really really healthy thing um i think another thing that i would do and this has kind of happened with my kids automatically for the most part i would make sure

6:27

they have a job as soon as they're able to work and i would honestly i think they should have probably kind of a crummy job i think having a kind of a crummy job where you have to work really hard and your boss Um... hope they're not mean certainly not abusive but having maybe a tough boss who

6:44

expects you to show up and do a certain you know doing an amount of work for what you're paid to do and if it's a little bit of a grubby job i think that's really good i feel like most kids today we just most of us live in a fairly comfortable

7:00

situation many of us i shouldn't say most um where we are insulated from a lot of just the harsher realities that used to happen that people are just used to face we don't mostly have to get our own food or our

7:13

own water we don't have to go and chop wood or haul coal or things like that to have heat and water and things like that and kids just have it pretty well as a society we care a lot about how kids are feeling i think that's good in many ways

7:27

it's a good shift for sure from when like my dad describes what when he was a kid no one cared what they felt or thought then but i think maybe we've gone a little too far It is important though that your child has experiences where someone is going to

7:42

help them understand that sometimes you have to do something and it doesn't really matter how you feel. That's a critical lesson. I think anyone who has a happy marriage or long-term relationships or has a job that they like and been successful at, you're going to understand that there's just times when we have to engage

8:01

regardless of how we feel. So those are kind of the big things that I am thinking about that I feel like probably make a big impact on a child's adult life. I also think that they should know we love them, that we should know we are always in their corner.

8:20

That may not mean that we always become like their, you know, advocate that we're always you know again i mentioned you know i wouldn't be calling teachers all the time to complain or or bosses to ask for different schedules or you know whatever it is like that but they should know that we love

8:35

them that we believe in them i also find i've been very busy for most of my children's lives and i do wish i'd had a little more time to just be be around and be fun and engage with them so i think having fun together is really important

8:52

I think helping your child find something that they love to do and that they're good at. I think that's really important as well. That's an important part of a well-lived life. I also think spending time helping your child working through problems in a way that models how adults in a healthy way

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you know, encounter challenges and then solve them. How do you work through an unpleasant emotion? Or how do you work through conflict with people you like even or that you love or that you don't even like? But how do you work through those? How do you manage those emotions?

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What are the skills that are involved in learning how to work through those kinds of things? i i have um with my older kids i set some rules i think they're pretty good rules but uh i wish i would have spent more time with them maybe explaining the why and

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helping them understand not just kind of laying down the law i did better with that i think with my my last uh my last few um at any rate those are just some things i would encourage you to be thinking about but as the parent of the team just remember You're not raising a teen.

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You're not raising a 7th grader. You're not raising a 9th grader. You're not raising a 16 year old. You are raising an adult who currently happens to be in 9th grade. Or rather you're raising a 9th grader who is very quickly going to be an adult. And so what skills in every situation just think what skill can

10:15

child learn from this or what attribute can they develop that's going to help them as an adult or that will build our relationship for when my child becomes an adult um anyway be thinking about those things i'd love to hear from you on things you

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have learned and you have found um it's always lovely to talk to you happy parenting you've got this!

I took a sabbatical from this newsletter for some various personal reasons, but my life is now in a place where I think I can get back to thinking and reflecting and writing about parenting adolescents.

I wanted to try a new form, though.

I started making what I hope are short, positive TikTok videos each morning as I have a long drive to work (I pinkie swear that I am very careful about this).

That time has allowed me to create some content, but it is very spontaneous, un-edited, and what you see is what you get.

So I thought about trying to do this with my parenting stuff.

I am curious if this format has any appeal, and wanted to experiment.

Let me know what you think and if this would be useful to you.

Also, I have had several encounters lately with my adult children. These encounters have been positive, but have also impressed on me the importance of cultivating the attributes and skills in children and teens that will lead them to have autonomy as adults, as that is the key to happiness, self-actualization, and success.

Warmly,

Braden

Parents, if you have ever felt that your weaknesses and mistakes mighg mess your child up; if you feel that a happy family means attaining some arbitrary and impossible standard of perfection that implies being free of real challenges; if you have a child who argues with you; if you have real and difficult problems in your family, today’s guest has wonderful news for you: it’s okay. And you can still build a happy family, one where each member feels peace and joy.

What if, instead of feeling insecure, you were confident that you have the innate ability to raise your child?

What if you could feel good about what you do and not bad about what you don’t do? What if you could spend less time and focus on your perceived parenting weaknesses?

What if your main goal as a family was to simply create a place where each member feels peace, joy, and has fun--and what if you had some simple techniques to get there?

What if your parenting mistakes—even the big ones—didn't really matter? What if they not only didn’t matter but could even be net positives—and what you had a template to make that happen?

What if being a happy family is not the absence of problems, but rather, a family that encounters problems, small or big, tackles them together, and comes out intact and closer than before?

What if an argumentative child is actually a good sign?

What if you had a clear, simple way to sift through all the parenting advice out there, draw only on what was useful for you, and find the most authentic version of yourself as a parent?

My guest today touches on all these things, and more.

Mina Brandes is a former psychiatrist turned mom. She is now an executive family coach, drawing upon her years of professional and personal experience to help families achieve peace and joy.

Today, she shares some of her techniques and philosophy. I think you will be really empowered and peaceful at the end of this episode.

You can find more about Mina and her work at:

Family at the Top:

https://www.familyatthetop.com

You can contact Mina at: FamilyattheTop@gmail.com

Amy Joyce is the editor of the “On Parenting” section of The Washington Post. In her role, Amy encounters hundreds of parenting pieces a week. She fields questions from regular parents and hears from leading thinkers and writers on parenting.

She is also a parent.

Like all parents, Amy has questions. Unlike most of us, however, she is able to commission a reporter or writer to think about those questions and share their reflections or answers.

That has put her in a unique position, giving her a fascinating perspective on trends, themes, and ideas in parenting.

In light of this, I wanted to ask Amy how she manages to stay current without getting overwhelmed with information. How does she decide what to integrate in her own parenting, and what does she leave at the office? Amy does this on a large scale, but we all have a similar challenge, since we all have to sift through the vast amount of information we have access to.

I was also curious to hear from Amy about shifts, developments, and changes she has observed in parenting over the years—what’s better? what’s harder? what’s just different?—as well as some of the memorable pieces she was written or published and key lessons she has learned as a parent.

Some of Amy’s favorite/memorable pieces:

“Are you raising nice kids? A Harvard psychologist gives 5 ways to raise them to be kind.” Amy Joyce.

“How to raise superpowered tweens in turbulent times.” Phyllis Fagell.

“Seven things to understand about your teen, according to a veteran teacher and father of five.” Braden Bell

“Teens are crumbling under extreme pressure. Parents need to change: ‘Never Enough’ delves into how and why today’s teens are suffering as they are pushed to achieve.” Amy Joyce with Jenny Wallace

“Why I still read aloud to my tween and teen,” Amy Joyce.

Books:

“The Gift of Failure,” by Jessica Lahey

“Middle School Superpowers: Raising Resilient Tweens in Turbulent Times,” by Phyllis Fagell.

Bringing her trademark wit, humor, and empathy, award-winning author Mary Laura Philpott drops by to talk about both the paradox of parenting: it brings us great joy and also brings us significant vulnerability.

Mary Laura discuss her own parenting journey, including how we come to make peace with the fact that our empathize with our own parents, how we can instill kindness, and some unique thoughts on when and when not to reach out to schools or teachers with problems.

As a bonus, she also reads a powerful chapter from her book, I Miss You When I Blink, which is called, “A Letter to the Type-A Person in Distress,” and I think you will want to hear it!

I Miss You When I Blink

Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives

Theatre arts educator Dr. Jim DeVivo stops by for a wide-ranging discussion about the value of the creative arts in education, mentorship, encouraging creativity, helping kids find their voices, dealing with pandemic-era, social-emotional learning loss, and an article in The New York Times that says theatre kids run the world.

During this podcast, we discuss ways that the creative arts help children develop as individuals and enhance their ability to more fully be themselves in every context and in every place.

Show notes:

Grown-Up Theater Kids Run the World: A Supreme Court justice. The governor of New Jersey. Senator Ted Cruz. A prominent MSNBC host. Practically half the tech world. What’s behind this moment of thespian power?

(Madison Malone Kirchner. New York Times, August 20, 2023.)

Navigating friendships and social relationships is one of the most significant parts of a child’s life. During adolescence, social relationships take on enormous, out-sized importance. That also means that when things get challenging, it can be very difficult.

The good news is that there are habits and skills that can be built and research-supported techniques and information that can help.

Today’s podcast is the second half of a discussion with THE expert in friendship. Noted child development expert, Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore comes by to discuss making friends, bullying, unkindness, social problems, anxiety, and much more!

Show notes:

Dr. Friendtastic Podcast

Growing Feelings: A Kids' Guide to Dealing with Emotions about Friends and Other Kids

Growing Friendships: A Kids' Guide to Making and Keeping Friends

Open Door with Dr. Kennedy-Moore

Dr. Kennedy-Moore’s website.

Navigating friendships and social relationships is one of the most significant parts of a child’s life. During adolescence, social relationships take on enormous, out-sized importance. That also means that when things get challenging, it can be very difficult.

The good news is that there are habits and skills that can be built and research-supported techniques and information that can help.

Today’s guest is an expert in friendship. Noted child development expert, Dr. Eileen Kennedy-Moore comes by to discuss making friends, bullying, unkindness, social problems, anxiety, and much more!

Show notes:

Dr. Friendtastic Podcast

Growing Feelings: A Kids' Guide to Dealing with Emotions about Friends and Other Kids

Growing Friendships: A Kids' Guide to Making and Keeping Friends

Open Door with Dr. Kennedy-Moore

Dr. Kennedy-Moore’s website.

Dr. Ross Greene, Collaborative and Proactive Solutions

Eliza Thompson has a Master's of Social Work from Utah State University. She's a certified social worker and is working as a therapist at a private practice, specializing in perinatal mental health. 

Eliza's a self-described self-development junkie. She frequently posts and shares thoughts on her journey and other things she learns on her Instagram account, Elizainprogress. 

Last year, Eliza shared some wonderful insights about motherhood, things that she had learned, sort of letters to a younger self. She posted those on Instagram, where they got a lot of notice and received a lot of positive feedback. I then shared them on my Substack page and they also got a wonderful response there. 

Today Eliza talks about those five lessons she learned, and her own journey from parenting in profound darkness to finding her own parenting path.

Show notes:

Elizainprogress

Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself, by Kristen Neff, Ph.D.

https://self-compassion.org/

Fairplay by Eve Rodsky

Before I introduce this episode, I’d like to ask a favor if I may. This is my first podcast ever and I really enjoyed doing it. Are you, my wonderful readers, interested in more? If so, do you have suggestions or ideas for guests and/or topics?

I’d love your feedback as well. I personally love long conversations on the podcasts I listen to. But maybe you feel differently.

There’s a lot for me to learn yet and I’d love for you to teach me. Send me an email if you like @bradengbell@gmail.com or leave a comment.

As always, this is a reader-supported publication, so if you can like, share, and spread the word, I’d be ever so grateful!

—BB

It isn’t easy to parent, mentor, or teach boys today. In fact, it is not easy to be a boy today. Conflicting voices, changing societal conditions, shifting values and expectations all make the ground on which boys must walk much more complex.

Let me pause there and address the inevitable rejoinder: What about girls? They are struggling too!

Yes. But I’d like to suggest that a good hospital can—and should—treat both heart attacks and car-crash victims at the same time.

We need to move beyond seeing the welfare of our children as a zero-sum, either/or situation.

A number of bleak statistics make a compelling case that boys are in trouble. While acknowledging that girls still face difficulties, advocates for boys make the point that we are, at least, aware of and working on some of the gender-based difficulties girls face, while essentially ignoring or even belittling the gender-based challenges boys face. This is bad for individual boys, but also bad for our society.

This becomes all the more difficult when there is a high-profile tragedy where a boy or man has done something awful. If a young boy puts up his fingers and makes a gun motion as young child, does that mean he’s on the road to becoming a school shooter? If he is curious about and aware of another person’s body, does that mean he will sexually harass people? If he thinks girls have cooties, does that lead to misogyny? Or, are these natural phases of development?

Sincere, well-intentioned parents, teachers, and policymakers often take this very seriously. But in doing this, are we being unduly harsh and missing the forest for the trees?

Unfortunately, discussions about the needs and problems of boys has taken on a political valence and is tainted by the culture war. Sadly, some people’s responses to hearing about the problems of boys are shaped by larger narratives, political leanings, and cultural positions which can result in minimizing, belittling, and ignoring real problems. Equally sad, some people’s advocacy for boys seems far more about scoring political points and using this as a weapon in the culture war.

What is a parent, teacher, grandparent, mentor, concerned citizen to do?

My guest today has some important thoughts on how to help boys thrive and reach their fullest potential in a world that can feel very hostile to them.

Jennifer L. W. Fink is the author of a new book called, “Building Boys Raising Great Guys in a World That Misunderstands Males.” Jennifer also has a wonderful, must-read Substack called the Building Boys Bulletin.

I mentioned that discussion about the struggles and needs of boys often has a political valence, but Jennifer's work cuts through this and she can speak to everyone.

She is not wearing a political jersey, nor is she a demagogue who uses concerns about boys as a cudgel to make political points. She's a mom of four boys who started to be concerned by what she saw and is deeply sympathetic to boys, their parents, and the problems they face.

At the same time, she comes from the more progressive side of the political aisle. In her writing, you will discern genuine concern about boys and their well-being but you will also hear her concerns about gender equity, fighting misogyny, breaking through this kind of traditional notion that men need to be stoic and not have feelings, preventing sexual violence and so on.

But most of all, as much as anyone I know, Jennifer follows the data. She has a background as a nurse, so she sees symptoms and problems and then searches for evidence-based responses.

She reads widely and is engaged in this subject. She is constantly scouring the Internet and reading new research.

For those reasons, I think she's a very important voice, and I'm so happy to have her on my first-ever podcast.

Happy parenting!

Braden