Ashley Chandler (00:00)
School stress
can be high really at any time, especially these kind of mid quarter check-ins when there's more
tests that ramp up, there's more projects that ramp up, it's before conferences,
maybe that means that you're seeing at home low motivation, resistance, emotional breakdowns, and you're feeling like a nag. So I invite you to start to reframe what low motivation
as why can't they just do what they need to do
and
how do I get my teen to actually care or lose it less? And you shift into...
what's getting in the way of motivation and them doing what needs to get done.
If
you can relate, this episode is for you.
So I wanna start with actually calling out what motivation is and what it isn't.
Experts talk about executive function skills. What we're essentially talking about is almost like a pyramid of skill. so Motivation is not about strategy. It's not coming from anything outside. Of course, there's external motivators but motivation isn't about more pressure or having consequences or Nagging them enough that they do it that will never
build self-drive which is ultimately the goal as parents. We want our adolescent kids to grow up and be self-driven adults who can do what they need to do and who are able to make their dreams a reality on their own. So what motivation is nervous system regulation
safety inside the relationship.
a
sense of autonomy and competence and specific skills that lead to doing the thing that they need to do.
So the truth is a really simple way to think about this is that stress kills motivation. Now, not all stress is bad. I like to say to my clients that sometimes stress can be a good thing. Like when we put our body under stress and we exercise, technically that's a good thing. We're building muscle. We're building stamina or endurance, right? We want that.
When we learn something new, technically that can be stressful for us because we're stretching, there's a period where we don't understand or we don't know or where we have to challenge ourselves in certain ways in order to get it. That can be stressful, but ultimately learning something new is a good thing, right? So not all stress is bad. What we wanna do is start to recognize inside our own homes.
what is actually causing stress on different kinds of levels, negative kind of, or again, what's called, maybe we don't want to define it as negative, take all this out. It's really, the scientific term is maladaptive.
when whatever is the trigger or the stress is causing a reaction or an experience that takes them out of the moment and into being reactive or distracted or overwhelmed. Okay, so this can look like several different things. And again, working with me privately, I walk you through all of this. I'm going to give you a high level overview here. This can look like biological stress.
sensory stress. This can look like social stress that's underneath the surface. Maybe there's social things going on and because that's happening in the background of their mind or lives, it's hard to focus in the moment on the thing that needs to get done. This can be emotional stress, either the emotions that we are feeling in the moment or not allowing ourselves to feel in the moment. This can be intense anticipation of something like a test
and then we feel overwhelmed and that completely blocks us from even studying. Okay? This can also be other people's stress. Now parents, this is where you can come in in a really tangible way. Oftentimes we are not aware of the energy that we bring to a room. This is why I talk about it so much.
you have to become the master of your own energy. So this means that what can happen is that your teen is absorbing someone else's stress inside the home.
whether it's intentional or unintentional. So this could be a sibling that's having a really hard time, they're crying. Meanwhile, your teen can't focus and do what they need to do. Or this could be your partner comes home and is frustrated about something either directed at the teen or not, and then they can't do what they need to do because it's other people's stress. So you can see the different layers. And the key is not to feel overwhelmed by all of them, but to start to
recognize the different things that take us out of balance, take us out of feeling relaxed. Because in a relaxed place is where we learn. What a lot of people miss is that no one can learn
or really absorb information or receive what you're saying if they are stressed because they're not in their executive, aka boss mind. They do not have access to the part of their brain and nervous system that allows them to fully absorb. They might be in fight, flight, freeze, fawn. They're not present.
So when we reduce stress, we create presence, which leads to learning, which leads to doing the thing.
So a way to think about this is through a common mistake, which is trying to push, push the motivation, just do it here, just do it here, when the system itself needs support.
Motivation isn't something that you put in, it's something that comes out when the environment supports it.
So not all of this is something that is your fault. There's nothing weird or wrong with anyone. We want to become aware of this so you start to make it less personal about them or you, and you start to look at the system as a whole. Teens, you know how when your kids were little or kid was little and you would hear like, my gosh, Johnny's doing so great in first grade and.
he's just such a great kid and meanwhile johnny comes home and he gets in the car and he's like don't talk to me right holds it together all day long and then just whoa at home this i don't care don't talk to me expression feeling experience might actually mean they're overwhelmed they're afraid of failing
They don't know where to begin. They see too many obstacles in front of them or they're burned out. They're tired. They're exhausted. This is why lectures about what they should have, could have, would have done totally backfire. They cannot receive it at that time.
had this one client I was coaching, dad, and he was describing a very common scenario that I hear a lot inside parents and teens homes. We're all around the dining table. Teenager has their stuff spread out on the table. Meanwhile, they just start venting.
about school and this teacher they they played a little bit of the victim this teacher hates me they didn't teach it in a way that like i could even understand just kind of going on and on and on and talking about the whole thing meanwhile what dad does is he doesn't act from
regulation, right? He immediately goes into problem-solving mode, which, not to throw you under the bus, men, but this happens a lot, where men immediately go into like, here's how we're going to solve it, right? How often does that work? I'm so curious. If you said never, you'd be right. When it comes to teens, this will backfire with teenagers because, I'll say it again, they don't want you to be the hero. They actually don't want you to solve it.
so if you really want to ramp up motivation for them in the moment, what you want to do is regulate yourself before you motivate. You always have to regulate before you motivate. You have to check yourself. You are not the hero.
This means that you de-stress yourself. You notice your tone, you notice your timing, you choose a moment they can actually hear you.
And then from that regulated place, they will downshift. Might take a minute. You might need to get space. They may need to get space. But it's only from that regulated self-aware place that then you can motivate and problem solve. And when you reach that place where environment is de-stressed, now we can problem solve from our logical, intuitive, wise place.
And then we can use a few tools that I'll recommend here, which is breaking things up into one assignment, one problem, one action within that problem, one step at a time.
This can also be done through time if we break things up into time. So let's just work for the next five minutes and see what happens. And I'm right here. Just five minutes. Do you need water? Do you want a snack? This gets momentum going for them and for you from a de-stressed, regulated, self-aware place. When we have momentum, then motivation starts to ramp up.
And then remember, you're always moving from boss to guide. So instead of saying, this is what you need to do, ask, turn it into a question. What do you think you need to do next?
And then the whole time you're not saying, you gotta get an A on this.
Better get an A.
You better do well in this project, right? Obviously. How well do you work if someone's pressuring you like that? Not well. And so you really want to focus on their effort. Gosh, I'm just so proud of you. You're putting so much effort into this.
That is ultimately what we're shooting for, right parents? We're not shooting for someone who's perfect and perfectionistic or who gets it right all the time. We're shooting for raising an adult who gets knocked down 10 times, gets up 11, who has a dream, who can see it through. That's what we're shooting for. Not ultimately that they need to get this grade so they can get into this college so they can get into this job. Too prescriptive, we'll always back
fire.
So an invitation, a little gentle invitation to remind you what to stop doing and then start doing, you will stop over-monitoring. You're gonna actually stop nagging and talking so much. You're gonna listen a little bit more. You are going to stop rescuing or solving too quickly.
and you're gonna replace it with your own regulation, you're gonna replace it with check-in, you're gonna replace it with modeling the skills of starting at one step at a time, and then you're gonna be there to guide and support.
So remember, you are actually part of the solution. You and your presence and your regulation and your guidance is part of solving the problem, just not in the way where you have all the control.
If this resonates with you, I encourage you to check out all my resources below, find out ways that you can work with me. I have a private coaching practice, and other free resources and podcast episodes.
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