Nudging Your Teen Towards Greater Independence (Part 2 of 3)
By: Elizabeth Flynn-Dastoor
Tags: Growing Up, Teens, Parenting, Growth Mindset, Development And Growth

Nudging Your Teen Towards Greater Independence (Part 2 of 3)

In my last post, I started the discussion of fostering independence by highlighting the fact that every teen will be in a different place on their developmental timeline, and that family context matters. Meaning that I can’t, in good conscience, give you easy(-looking), cookie-cutter instructions.

So I’m giving you the more nuanced, gonna-have-to-work-at-it solution. (Trust me, with the parenting day I’ve been having – and it’s only 10:00am – I really wish that we could have easy, surefire parenting “hacks.” Le sigh.)

The process that I’m walking you through is meant to help you step back and examine your family’s default mode, and use that as a starting point for making meaningful and sustainable changes towards greater independence for your teen. We’re on the second step in this 3-step process:

Observe like a scientist Strategize like a coach Tweak like an inventor

Show me the data!

(That’s my favourite thing to say when people make sciencey claims.)

If you’ve been following along, then you might have a few days worth of observations recorded. You can go straight to Step 2 without doing Step 1, but I encourage you to record your observations for at least a week before you start devising your strategies. With your kids’ activities, your activities, various jobs, volunteering, etc., not every day is going to look the same so getting a week’s worth of notes will give you a more complete picture.

I know it seems like a lot to ask, and it seems like a pain in the butt (at least, that’s how I’d feel). Your observations are important because they will help you make decisions about the best way to move forward. Knowing – or rather, understanding – the status quo means that your strategies for change are much more likely to be successful.

I learned this the hard way, when I was an inexperienced teaching assistant (TA) during my Master’s program. I was responsible for grading research reports for a lab course, which required APA Style formatting. (Briefly, APA Style defines nearly everything about how a research report should be written: margins, font, citations… even when to spell out a number and when to use the numeral.)

The first time that I TA’ed that course, I fell prey to the expert blind spot, and I was arrogantly appalled at the quality of some assignments. I graded ruthlessly. No one came to my office hours (open-door help sessions), and I figured that it was a sign of their lack of engagement.

I found out that some of the students were calling me the “APA Nazi.” Setting aside the fact that the nickname was, arguably, an inappropriate attempt at humour, it explained a lot about why students weren’t coming to my office hours. I hadn’t made myself approachable.

But the biggest moment of reckoning came after the course was over. You see, I had assumed that, as Psychology majors, the students would all have had some introduction and practice with APA Style. I was complaining to someone about how terrible some of the assignments were (did I mention that I was a tad arrogant, at the time?). They explained that, not only was there no real teaching of APA in the Intro Psych course, but the course I’d TA’ed was open to students from 2nd through 4th years – a huge range of academic experience and development.

I was mortified. Humbled. Contrite. I had failed those students as a TA because I tried to steer their academic development when didn’t have a good understanding of the status quo.

The next time that I TA’ed that same course, I met with the instructor ahead of time and asked for some time in the lab sessions to teach mini-lessons on APA Style. Guess what? Students produced better assignments and they came to my office hours for support

What I want to illustrate with this story is that a good understanding of how things actually are is crucial to figuring out where the starting point needs to be. By taking observations, you may notice things about your teen’s behaviour that hadn’t before. Plus, meeting people where they are, setting reasonable expectations, and remembering that we’ve forgotten what it was like to not know that thing (e.g., doing laundry), makes people feel safe to make mistakes and ask for help. I can only imagine how badly it would go if you used my first approach to TA’ing with your teen! Asking a teenager to learn mundane household tasks and take on some more responsibility, without just-right instructions and supportive guidance, is bound to end with yelling or tears (or both).

So, now that you have your observation notes ready, let’s talk about how you can use that information to figure out the best way to nudge your teen towards greater independence.

Strategize like a coach

There are two key aspects to strategically nudging your teen towards greater independence. The first is looking at your data, and there are two ways that you can use your observations for making changes in your family: Look for patterns, and look for opportunities.

In many cases, you will see that the patterns are opportunities. Going back to the laundry example, maybe you see a pattern that, when your teen arrives home from school, they drop their bag, grab a snack, and relax with their phone or a video game for a while. You can piggyback on that sequence by suggesting that before grabbing a snack and settling into some downtime, they could put a load of laundry in the washer; then, after some downtime, that load of laundry will be ready to get moved over to the dryer.

This is a good example of when there’s a particular task or skill that you want your teen to learn, so you find a way to fit it in. Other times, you might see opportunities to nudge your teen in the direction of a skill that you hadn’t considered before. For example, by taking a step back and looking at your observation notes, you might see that on Tuesdays, when you’re at work later for the weekly team meeting, getting supper on the table before heading out to evening activities is always a stressful rush. This is a perfect opportunity for your teen to help out with meal prep and/or cooking!

After you’ve identified the patterns and opportunities that you can build upon, the second part of strategizing is to figure out what is the next step towards change. Then the step after that, and the step after that. If your teen has never taken on any cooking before, you’re not going to ask for duck à l’orange and leave them to it. (But, if you do, please share footage of the attempt!)

After that first time I TA’ed the lab course, I had to get strategic. There were certain skills that I wanted students to demonstrate by the end of the course, but I had to start with where they were. I reflected on my experience, on the patterns in the assignments, and on the feedback I’d received. Those data gave me the starting point, and I mapped out a strategy to help students build up the skills they needed.

For the first assignment, I taught the basics: document formatting and expected information to include in an APA Style report. For each following assignment, I taught another aspect of APA Style so that, by the end of the course, students had practised and built up their APA Style skills. By guiding students in increments, they didn’t get overwhelmed.

Photo by Jeffrey F Lin on Unsplash

I call this step “Strategize like a coach” because a coach – whether you’re talking about an athletic coach or a life/success coach – stewards other people’s development, but can’t do the work for them. The coach tells the player/client what they see or hear, then brings awareness around how the status quo is different from the desired outcome, and guides the process or behavioural change that will lead to that desired outcome.

In my last post, I warned you against telling your teen that you were recording observations, because that would likely change their behaviour. Now that you want to change their behaviour, it’s time to include them in the process:

Ask for their input about what tasks or responsibilities they’d like to take on.

Ask what would make them feel more independent.

Explain why you’re making changes – whether it’s to prepare them for adulthood, to give you a break from household responsibilities, etc.

It’s not easy, but it’s worth it

Part of encouraging independence – no matter what the task or skill – is communicating that you believe they can do it. I’m not talking about the fluffy, feel-good stuff of the self-esteem movement. Rather, like the lessons my parents taught me, you’re making sure that your teen knows that you expect them to make mistakes and hit roadblocks, but that you know they can work it out when it gets hard.

You will likely get the opportunity to model the process of working through mistakes and roadblocks. Just like so many other aspects of parenting, there’s some figuring out as you go along.

You might get resistance to some of the changes you’re asking for, and you can be ready to parent through that. Remind your teen (and yourself) why you’re making changes. Think about how you can tap into what motivates them. Want to play on the school basketball team? Awesome! You’ll have to take the city bus home after practice, because I need to take your little brother to dance class.

Or, your teen might get really frustrated with a particular task, and you can provide support without taking it out of their hands. Maybe they need you in the kitchen with them while they’re following a recipe, even if you’re not directly involved and they never even ask a question. Maybe they need the steps for a task to be written out, so they can refer back to them.

Making changes to family dynamics can be unsettling for everyone, including other kids in the family. So, as I said in my last post, this process is going to look a bit different for each family. There’s no right starting point, no right path, no right speed.

It takes some observation of the process, and some adjustments along the way – that’s Step 3: Tweak like an inventor.

I’d love to hear from you about how your nudging process is going! Fill me in and let me know what your questions are by sending an email or connecting with me on social media. My Facebook community is a place to discuss and troubleshoot, so I hope we can chat about your experiences there!