Hi there! Welcome to our bonus newsletter edition! We’ve gathered a selection of resources for you to dive deeper into topics we’ve covered in this month’s newsletters.
This month’s theme was going through conflict with your teen, whether it be with their friends, siblings or yourself. Through these weeks, we discussed 3 mindset shifts for when you’re fighting with your teen, 4 ways you can guide your teen through conflict with their friends, and how you can model healthy conflict communication for your teen in your own relationship.
🤓 Things we’re reading:
As any parent of siblings knows that it’s challenging to maintain harmony and a strong connection when competition and different personalities are present. In this book, Peaceful Parent, Happy Siblings: How to Stop the Fighting and Raise Friends for Life, Dr. Markham presents simple yet powerful ways to cut through the bickering and foster a loving, supportive bond between siblings, while giving each teen the vital connection that they need. You’ll discover hands-on, research-based advice on teaching your teen healthy emotional self-management and conflict resolution skills—so that they can work things out with each other, get their own needs met and respect the needs of others
Your tween daughter is scrolling through Instagram discovers that she’s been left out of a friend’s party. She’s understandably upset and comes to you for advice, what would you say? This NY Times article tells us how the opporunity is to coach them through managing it on their own and to go against your instinct of wanting to solve the problem for them.
👂🏼 Who we’re listening to:
In this episode of *The Messy Bun Podcast,* two moms of teen girls discuss strategies to teach yours about conflict. They advise you to get into the right mindset by not making it personal and to ask yourself these questions before approaching the other person: “What do I want for myself?”, “What do I want for others?”, and “What do I want for this relationship?”
On the podcast Talking to Teens, listen to Lianna Tsangarides, a clinical social worker who specializes in conflict resolution for teens and young adults, discuss how the tension at home is due to the significant inner conflicts that teens are struggling to deal with themselves. As a specialist for patients with a history of addiction, trauma and depression, Lianna shares how conflict resolution for teens is possible when parents understand more about their teen’s inner conflict.
👀 What we’re watching:
On this episode of Middle Ground “Can Teens and Parents Understand Each Other?”, Jubilee invites 3 teens and 3 parents, all strangers to one another, into conversation to discuss things like feelings stress from parents, being honest with one another, attitudes towards social media, and what listening to one another really means. This conversation will inspire you to ask some difficult but eye-opening questions that will bring your relationship to another level.
If you aren’t ready to have this conversation with your teen yet, in this TED Talk, you can listen to another teen’s perspective first about how she believes teens should be parented. Lucy Androski is 13 years old and just completed her 7th-grade year at Okoboji Middle School, shares her unique view on what she wishes parents knew to connect with her and her peers better.
🙏🏼 To share with your teen:
Sometimes it isn’t the message but the messenger that gets the point across to your teen. A teen content writer Jackie Menjivar share her guide to dealing with family tension at every stage of your relationship. Whether your teen isn’t comfortable or ready for confrontation, or is ready to talk to you about the issue, she provides several scripts on ways to confront and cope with the drama to move towards resolution.
Send this video over to your teen if you know they’re struggling with managing friendships with the added stresses of social media and texting. They all love to chat and socialize with their friends, but when there’s constant connection, it can be difficult to establish boundaries. In this video, they’ll hear other teens' thoughts and feelings about having and maintaining friendships in the digital age. Use this video to start a conversation about any friendship difficulties they’ve been dealing with!
❤️ As seen on Instagram
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