Hey @Crizzy Welcome to ReachOut Parents!   Just to answer your first question - YES your son is normal. And like so many normal 14-year-olds, he's struggling with the transition from child into adult.  I think the suggestion Tom-RO made is a great one, family counselling can be really helpful when things are difficult. The only addition I would add is that if your 14-year-old is anything like my 14-year-old, he may not agree to go. But, if you want to try something straight away to start improving things right now, you can have a look at the ReachOut Coaching service. It's completely free, delivered by trained professionals over the phone and at times that work with your schedule.  It's super practical and you have the coach to talk things through if something isn't working or you're not sure about it. Your son isn't involved but he gets to benefit immediately from the changes you make which might have an effect on his willingness later to attend family counselling at Relationships Australia. Click here to check it out. And let us know what you think. ... View more

For some reason your girls @Lily17 and @taokat's daughter always make me laugh. The line about you not drowning, very funny. Everything else aside, ya gotta love a funny kid.   Do you write for enjoyment @Lily17? You have a lovely turn of phrase. Have you ever considered getting your experience with the two Ts and the chickens down on paper? I'd read it.   ... View more

Thanks so much for tonight @Emily_May Good night everyone! Talk soon. ... View more

 Ok, I'm going to attempt a wrap-up and then hand it to @Emily_May   We started with the wonderful words: Mindfulness is such an incredible way of connecting more to what matters, rather than being swept away by thoughts and emotions and applies so well to building relationships with teenagers. I'm looking forward to sharing some insights with you.    We talked about how parenting is largely modelling the behaviour we both want to be and see. That lengthy explanations of mindfulness won't get them as close to understanding as just living it in front of them.   We learnt that being without judging, staying in the moment and not getting swept away by the tide of feeling are all ways of being mindful.   We also learnt that no matter how big the issue, what our young people really need is us, present, calm and loving.    We got some great tips for follow up reading and a beautiful metaphor of being on the calm ocean floor watching the waves crash above.   How's that? ... View more

Am I right in remembering you don't like Smiling Minds @taziness I'm keen to find others too as I'm sure there must be others like yourself.     ... View more

That's wonderful @Emily_May Thank you for that. I think that will be very helpful for a lot of parents.   Ok, last questions people. @taokat @LovingThruBlue @taziness @motherbear ... View more

That makes perfect sense, thank you @Emily_May To take it just one step further, in that kind of scenario, would practising mindfulness mean we engage with the young person without thinking what tomorrow might bring and staying only in the moment?   I'm thinking in terms of safety plans etc. A lot of the standard approaches seem steeped in history or future. ... View more

I like the walking meditation approach @taziness I started practising mindfulness when driving. Turned the music off and started being aware of my current actions.   it was actually eye opening to realise how much driving I had done with very little of my brain actually focusing on the action. ... View more

So @Emily_May what about parents who are supporting young people managing really scary things like thoughts of suicide or non-suicidal self injury, how and when can they use mindfulness? ... View more

That's a great tip @Emily_May it sounds weird but I know that I often forget to bring it back to their experiences rather than my own. ... View more

That makes a lot of sense @taokat My eldest is down with it but my middle daughter, the 14 year old, gives the eye roll of death at anything even remotely 'touchy feely'.   So much of parenting seems to be modelling. Would you agree @Emily_May? ... View more

@Emily_May Have you come across any great analogies that encapsulate mindfulness for you that can be used to explain it? ... View more

Aaand I'm back...sorry, laptop swap!!   Great questions so far. And thanks for your last one @taokat I wanted to ask how @Emily_May explains mindfulness to young people. ... View more

I'm hoping we have @taziness, @taokat and @motherbear here tonight as I know you guys were keen!.   Ok, so I'd like to welcome Emily May to the ReachOut Parents' Forum.  Emily May Grad Dip (Psych) (Hons); AMAPS; Family Dispute Resolution Practitioner; BA Comms (Social Inquiry). I can personally attest to Emily's skills in working with young people as we worked together many years ago.   She is incredibly skilled in many areas, and mindfulness as a practice is one of them. I'm going to give her a chance to say hi first before we launch into questions. ... View more

Hey, guys, we're good to get started. Apparently, our moderating team are struggling to log in tonight so if anyone is having the same issue, and can read but not post, please email me your questions at forums@reachout.com and I'll post them for you! ... View more

Hey @Indo_Mum Welcome to ReachOut Parents. It can be so hard to know what to do when your teenager seems to be withdrawing from everything. Do you give them some space in case what they need is a time-out or do you try and motivate them to stay involved? There's a couple of strategies you can use. A great place to start is to try and open up a conversation with him to see if he can explain what's going on. Tell him what you've noticed, in regards to him withdrawing and that it's concerning to you. Ask him what's going on.  There's a chance he may not know why exactly he's stopped feeling like doing, which is ok, we all have times when we feel bad but don't really know why. You could ask him then what he needs from you, and how he'd like you to support him. If he's not sure about that either, that's a good opportunity to suggest he try talking to someone.   You could have a look at this page here, which talks about depression and teenagers. You might find some of the descriptions fit what's happening with your son.   We're having a talk tonight on mindfulness and how you can use it in your parenting. Join us by clicking here. It's about to start, at 8 PM.   Hope that helps. ... View more

Just come back here at 8PM AEST tonight @motherbear This is where the talk will be. See you then! ... View more

That's wonderful @chickieDo I'm so glad to hear it.   Have you ever tried Family Drug Support? They are an organisation centred on supporting families with a loved one, usually a son or daughter, with substance abuse issues. They have a phone line that can be accessed 24 hours a day, across Australia, where you can speak to a trained volunteer who has lived experience in coping with a loved ones' addiction issues.  Their approach is very compassionate towards the person struggling with their substance abuse without asking the family to sacrifice their own needs or to enable in any way. In fact, a big part of wat they do is help people develop strategies to implement boundaries and to uphold them. They are also very handy for anything that happens outside of 'office hours'.  This is their number 1300 368 186, you can click here for their website or click here for their new online support.   Let me know what you think. ... View more

Hey @back2schoolmom I'm so sorry to hear what's happened.  I honestly think you did the best thing you can in the situation. Safety is ALWAYS the most important thing of all.   At this stage, I'm worried about you and your stress levels. Do you have any support? Do you have someone who can be with you?   Would you like to talk through some approaches for when she returns? ... View more

Yes @taziness Spot on, the Mindfulness Wednesday Wrap is tomorrow night. I highly recommend it. The special guest is an ex-colleague of mine who is one of the best practitioners of mindfulness when working with adolescents that I have experienced.   @Lily17  I get the feeling from your story that the teachers are not picking up on the issues because your T1 is well behaved in class, is that accurate? My experience is that 'naughty' kids get noticed because they have to be 'managed' and sometimes, fingers crossed, a good teacher and good school will unpack the behaviour to look at what's underneath. But even in good schools, they seem to be too stretched to notice kids who may be struggling but aren't bringing attention to themselves.   I had a similar situation as @Big_Crab with my eldest where she had a seemingly magical transformation between Yr 10 and Yr 11, going from failing to topping classes, but it was prefaced by her asking to be moved to another school.  Without her input, I would have been at a loss. When you discuss this topic at home with your teenagers, what sorts of things do they say? Are there any clues there for you? ... View more

It sounds like you are all suffering @chickieDo Are you getting any support? Do you have someone you can talk to about what's happening? It's a huge weight to carry. ... View more

Hey @Lily17 have you tried Googling Rainbow Families in your State? There is a focus on younger kids, playgroups etc, but they would be a great place to start when looking for services that support parents in the LGBTIQ community raising kids who are also or are questioning. I'm sorry I don't have anything more specific,  it seems that groups of this nature are smaller than the ones supporting young LBBTIQ people so they're state-based rather than nationwide.   I didn't fully understand the wedding story. Did your teenager 'marry' a friend?  If it helps, my two teens have been a part of and around very similar things in their respective friend groups.  But I also may have missed your point.  Your reply sounds like things are possibly not great with you. Or maybe I'm misreading.  How are things with you?     ... View more

Heu @chickieDo That's such a hard situation for you to be in. There are times when it feels like the only and best thing you can do is not have your young person in the house anymore, but it's never, ever an easy decision to arrive at. I hope you're doing ok. It sounds like your daughter's area of concern is around substance addiction, does that sound right to you? Or is it the other way around, does she have a mental health illness first and the drug use is the way she medicates herself? The main reason I ask is that psych hospitals aren't always ideal if addiction is the primary issue and so she may get better support at a drug treatment centre or rehab. And of course, as I'm sure you know, if the issue is a mental health one then that needs addressing if she hopes to stop using substances. What's your take on it? Do you know what's driving the behaviour? ... View more

Hi @Oceanentity Thank you so much for sharing your situation with us. I'm so sorry things are so hard at the moment. It's such a hard situation to be in when you feel like you have to implement certain boundaries and restrictions but you know it means full-on conflict if you do or full-on fear and concern about their safety if you don't. I know, for me, when I was in a very similar situation with my then 13-year-old daughter I had to make a decision to completely change my approach. It was that moment of "ok, this is absolutely not working for anyone and I can see this is going to get worse. Let's stop and take stock." I needed to work out what I was trying to achieve and what my daughter was trying to achieve. Then I had to work out how we could meet in the middle. I also needed help finding some strategies that worked.   Have you seen our coaching service? It's completely free, delivered over the phone by trained professionals and is amazing at helping you come up with strategies and solutions that make a difference straight away. If you click here you can check it out.    Let us know what you think.     ... View more

That's wonderful that you're approaching this as a family and with lots of support from professionals.    It's funny but my experience with young people is that it's not uncommon at all for them to have conflicting 'existences' happening all at once. Young people who interact with the world in a very adult way and yet will still have activities that come from their childhood or they will seem to have two different personalities depending on where they are and who they're interacting with. Don't forget that adolescence is the period of experimentation and young people are trying to work out who they are and what they're about.   The important thing is to try not to position her into defending her 'pot' friends. If you appear to clearly prefer one version of her over the other then there's the risk that she will be too busy defending it to develop her own judgements about its deficits. Try and keep your concerns health based and your judgements centred around pot itself rather than the people she's doing it with. For example, rather than "I hate your friends" try "I hate how pot increases anxiety and depression in young people, especially young women." rather than "I don't want you hanging with those people." try "I'm worried that you guys aren't looking out for each other if you're encouraging each other to smoke. I'm worried you're all increasing your chances of mental health difficulties." That way she doesn't need to rush in to defend her friends or who they are as people, she now needs to defend her position on pot and if you stick to facts it will be hard for her to do that.   I hope that's helpful.  It might help reduce the level of conflict between now and when the program starts. ... View more

Hello @back2schoolmom Welcome to ReachOut Parents! Thank you so much for taking the time to share your story with us. It's one I think a lot of us can relate to. I'm so sorry you guys are having such a tough time.    It's so heartbreaking, that feeling that you're losing them. Trying to implement boundaries you know they need and then fearing that it's those boundaries that are driving them away. I think that it 's often the fear of what might happen that makes things worse. It makes us react rather than respond because we feel like so much is riding on every decision we make.   One thing I know is that young people need boundaries and without them, they feel unsafe and confused and will start trying to find them by pushing parents until the boundary arrives. But they also need to be age appropriate, skills and maturity appropriate, somewhat aligned with their peers and developed through consultation with all parties in a respectful and caring space. Boundaries need to say 'I care' not 'You're untrustworthy.' Which I really struggle with, especially when I feel at my wit's end and I'm frightened that I'm doing it all wrong.  Do you find it similar to that or is your experience something else?   There are a number of parents who have been through similar situations and I'm sure they're happy to share with you what worked.  @Jay-9, @workingdad2 and @mamimu in particular.    How important is the dancing and cheer-squad to your daughter? Would discussing with her the health impacts of cannabis have an impact, do you think? Because I am very happy to provide you with some health information regarding cannabis you could share with her. ... View more

That's awesome news @Red21  I'm so glad you're both feeling good about the options.   Can I ask, and by all means tell me to mind my business,  do you guys talk about pronouns and whether she / her / daughter is the preferred descriptor?   The only reason I ask is I'd love to support you both by using the preferred pronoun.   ... View more

I think that's a great approach @Schooner  to be working towards a balance between school and life and trying to make sure he gets physical activity as well as schoolwork without too much of either so he's not exhausted. I hear what you're saying about the impact of doing poorly and being in a class where he is surrounded by kids who aren't as interested in learning. I am definitely not a believer in endlessly stacking a kids schedule with stuff so I'm wondering if there's some space in his school schedule for maths tutoring. For example, can he drop something to free up the time or stop doing school sport if he's doing extracurricular stuff with you? I hate to sound overly ideal but I've learned that sometimes schools can come up with amazing flexible options but only if asked. I know @LovingThruBlue  @Maggiemay @taokat @hippychick and @Red21 have all had different experiences with schools and will hopefully be able to offer some support and suggestions. ... View more