How To Let Go to Help Them Grow: Supporting Your Teen To Thrive, Interview with Dr. Cameron Caswell
Hi friend, Welcome to the show today. I am so glad you’re spending time with me. In today’s episode, we are talking about the tough process of letting go, which I think is one of the most difficult things.
When your kid hits middle school, you’re in this big transition, and I found this so hard. When do I step in? When do I step back? You watch them making decisions that you’re not crazy about, and you want them to be successful and make good decisions. And that is all good, but we often get in the way without meaning to.
Today, my special guest is Dr. Cam Coswell, a Teen Translator. She has a wealth of knowledge and experience on adolescent development and how to build trust, help your kid become more independent and confident, and develop the necessary skills that our kids need as they move toward adulthood.
You are going to love this episode. You’re going to get so much good stuff, and you’re going to feel so much better that you are not alone as we talk about our challenges and struggles as well.
How To Let Go to Help Them Grow: Supporting Your Teen To Thrive, Interview with Dr. Cameron Caswell
Let’s dive in!
How To Let Go to Help Them Grow: Supporting Your Teen To Thrive, Interview with Dr. Cameron Caswell – Moms of Tweens and Teens
What You Will Learn:
- What are some parents’ most common challenges when raising teenagers today?
- What are some of the parents’ biggest mistakes when dealing with their teenagers?
- How can parents avoid or correct these mistakes to foster a better relationship with their teens?
- How can parents encourage their teens to take ownership of their actions and responsibilities?
- What is one piece of advice you would give to parents who are struggling to connect with their teenagers?
- How do you get your teen to take ownership?
Where to find Dr. Cam:
Find more encouragement, wisdom, and resources:
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And here is the episode typed out!
Welcome to the Moms of Tweens and Teens Podcast. If some days you doubt yourself and don’t know what you’re doing. If you’ve ugly cried alone in your bedroom because you felt like you were failing. Well, I just want to let you know you are not alone, and you have come to the right place.
Raising tweens and teens in today’s world is not easy. And I’m on a mission to equip you to love well and to raise emotionally healthy, happy tweens and teens that thrive.
I believe that moms are heroes, and we have the power to transform our families and impact future generations. If you are looking for answers, encouragement, and becoming more of the mom and the woman that you want to be, welcome. I am Sheryl Gould. And I am so glad that you’re here.
SHERYL: Well, welcome Dr Cam to the podcast. I’m so happy that you’re here.
DR. CAM: I’m thrilled to be here. Sheryl, this is gonna be fun.
SHERYL: I have always loved talking to you; you have so much wisdom. We’re going to talk all about how to have these tough conversations with our kids when they’re difficult or when there’s conflict. Well, we’re excited about summer. That has its challenges, too. So, you are considered “The Teen Translator.”
How did you fall into becoming a teen translator?
DR. CAM: It’s one of those paths that go all over the place, but I’d always wanted to do psychology. When I was getting my PhD, I taught a class in adolescent psychology. I had all these parents because I taught an evening class; parents coming to me saying, oh my gosh, what you’re teaching us in this class is completely changing our relationship with our kids.
I’m like, why don’t people know this stuff? This is crazy. And I mean, I had my challenges as a teen as well, and just as people started learning that I knew stuff about teenagers, they started to ask me questions all the time, and I was like, I need to just do this for a living and so that it kind of just fell into that.
It’s weird because I think you get this calling, and your story might be very similar, but I don’t know why. This is just what I kept getting steered towards. I love talking about it; I love working with teenagers, and I love everything about it. I think that’s what I’m supposed to be.
SHERYL: I feel the same way. I mean, part of it came out of my challenges and struggles with my oldest, and I didn’t know what I was doing when she was in middle school and having lots of conflict not wanting to go to school.
I went on my journey, which led to doing similar things, but I love how you talked about things parents didn’t hear correctly. What do you think are some things they weren’t hearing that you were sharing?
DR. CAM: It’s the same thing that people are not hearing now: if we have this idea of what adolescence will be like, and it’s not good, we don’t paint a pretty picture for adolescents.
And I’ve seen people with newborns going, Oh, I’m going to appreciate this now, because once 13 hits, it’s all going, and this is frustrating because the more I start learning about adolescents, it is a different phase.
They do see the world differently. They are learning emotion regulation, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. So they’re not great at it yet, but they’re amazing when we get past that layer. They are so passionate. They’re becoming their selves.
They’re learning and forming their own opinions and are just becoming these incredible beings. What happens, though, is because we expect it to be bad, we misread a lot of their behavior as difficult, we respond to it as though it’s difficult, and then we end up having a relationship opposite of what they’re craving.
We’re craving, and we as parents end up pushing them away and creating a lot of this disconnect, but we blame it on our teens because we were expecting it, and so when we understand that, and when we change the way that we perceive adolescence and we approach it.
It doesn’t have to be this dramatic, chaotic period when you’re disconnected. It just doesn’t, so I keep trying to explain to people that once we understand what they’re going through and how they view the world, we can adapt to help us approach them, and it changes everything.
SHERYL: Woohoo. I know I’m like, Oh, that is so good. I’m just sitting here thinking, gosh, you know our parents; I think there were other challenges in how we were raised.
I’m curious about your thoughts on how this has come about because I don’t think that my mom was as plugged into me as we are with our kids today, and I don’t even know how many expectations were put upon me.
She didn’t see my grades. There just wasn’t the amount of pressure. Now, I don’t know if that was just me. What do you think about that? Do you think that it’s more the way that we’re leaning?
DR. CAM: I very much agree with you. What I see, and it’s interesting to me, is when people I hear this all the time, teenagers today, what’s up with the youth? I’m going, they’re not changed. They’re the same as we were. They’re growing up in a different world and responding differently.
And if we’re going to look at anybody, it’s how they’re being raised or educated or anything else because that’s the environment. And I’m not pointing the blame at anyone. I’m saying the world is very different than it was when we were growing up.
And you’re right: the expectations and pressures, the speed of them, and the consistency of them never let up. These kids are still trying to navigate the same things we had to navigate, but with much more pressure and speaking, they can’t.
They’re not coping well, and we’re not coping well as parents, either. So we’re pushed so far that our ability and patience are at the last straw. We’re comparing ourselves on social media just as much, if not more so, than our kids, which is setting our expectations for ourselves and our kids.
So this pressure rolls down, and I will say being able to see our kids’ grades is probably one of the worst inventions for education ever because it has removed the kids’ ownership and put it on the parents. And that is not teaching kids anything, and it’s creating a lot of conflicts between kids and parents.
SHERYL: I agree. I agree, and so much anxiety and pressure and nagging, and then we’re writing them. I’m so glad my mom couldn’t see my grades.
DR. CAM: It changes constantly, too, and it’s like how much we don’t understand about it. And when my child and I’m not saying my child’s a straight A student, because she’s not, but when my child and she’s 18, as she has taken ownership of her grades, and she’s learned to take ownership by not doing so great in some classes.
When I see her take ownership, she’s so motivated that I don’t have to nag her to do her stuff because she’s doing it for herself and not for me, which changes everything. And now, when she goes off to college, I trust her and know she has the skills, motivation, and everything she needs to succeed there because she’s not dependent on me.
SHERYL: Yeah, she’s not depending on you to motivate her.
DR. CAM: At all. And that doesn’t mean she’s always been motivated. There have been periods where she hasn’t been, and I have not jumped in to do it or push her forward.
It’s more about having conversations about what is not motivating her, why she doesn’t feel motivated, helping her get through that, and looking at what she wants long-term and what she needs to do. And that’s what motivates her.
SHERYL: I love that. So, what do you think the message is that we need to remind ourselves of as moms and caregivers are listening to this?
DR. CAM: Our job is not to mold, fix, or change our kids but to be the best parents for who our kids already are. They are not something that we create. They are their unique person, and we need to separate that.
I think a lot of times, as parents, we put a lot of pressure on ourselves to say our kids are a reflection or an extension of us. They are neither of those things. They are our responsibility, and they’re our responsibility to care for them. It’s our job to ensure they feel loved, cherished, supported, valued, and heard.
We are not there to make them be or do the things we think they need to do. When we get out of their way and let them become fully who they are meant to be, that’s when they shine, and that’s when they become something we could never have imagined for them. My job is to stay out of my daughter’s way and just cheer her on as she explores who she is.
SHERYL: What you’re saying is that it’s so true having my kids. I have three older now, and the word that comes to me is trust, right? And when I was not trusting, especially my oldest, trusting her to do something or whatever, fill in the blank, it became a self-fulfilling prophecy.
That’s the crazy thing about it, yes, and yeah. And when you talk about getting out of the way, you are trusting that she’s going to learn, that she’s going to grow, that it’s inside of her, and that she wants to do well.
DR. CAM: She believes in herself, which is the biggest thing, and she has confidence that she can figure it out. And this is the one thing I see a lack of in a lot of kids these days: there’s a lot of anxiety because they don’t know or believe they’re going to be able to handle whatever comes their way.
They’re not confident in their ability to do that, and so the only way to create that confidence is to trust that they’re going to do their best. Even if they don’t succeed at it, even if they fail miserably, that’s okay because we’re going to get through that. That’s fine.
There will always be things that we don’t succeed at. We have to be okay with that when they’re younger, let them know it’s okay, let them be able to do it on their terms, and then just help them learn how to get through it. It’s amazing when they have that confidence in themselves.
SHERYL: It is, and the sky is not going to fall; it’s not going to be the end of the world; they’re going to be okay.
DR. CAM: That’s what we have to convince ourselves of. Yes, I think our fear greatly gets in our way as parents. Yes, I am not saying that a lot of this fear is not theirs; there’s reason for a lot of this fear. There are things to fear out there, but we end up reigning them in so much because of our fears that we completely stifle their ability.
And I talk to many kids who feel caged; that’s how they describe it. They’re caged in, and all they want is to be free. And so they end up being very rebellious. They end up closing off from us.
They’re counting down the days to get out of the house so they can just be without someone constantly creating, and we do it with the right intent. None of these parents are malicious. They’re all loving and caring and want the best for their kids.
But because of this fear, we wrap them up in bubble wrap a little bit, and they don’t learn to take the bumps. They don’t learn and trust themselves to be able to do it. They feel fragile, and that’s not what we want to send them out feeling.
SHERYL: Yes, and that fear creates our need to control things.
DR. CAM: Oh, big time.
SHERYL: And then they rebel.
DR. CAM: Yeah, who wouldn’t? They’re human beings. Human beings do not like to be controlled. We can’t be controlling them to not push back when we’re controlling. To me, it doesn’t make any sense at all.
How are we expecting them to be humans and develop their sense of identity if we tell them what to do, when, and how to do it all the time and then get mad at them for not doing that?
We’re creating someone who can’t think independently and is learning that compliance is the best way forward. And I don’t want my child by any means not to go out into the world and be compliant.
I want her to be respectful, understand, listen, and be compassionate to others, but I don’t want her to be compliant with them.
SHERYL: Yeah, to have their voice, to know what they like, what they don’t like, to be able to say no, if you’re compliant, a people pleaser, yeah, it’s hard to have your own identity. And kids nowadays look outside of themselves all the time, like scanning. Am I okay? And what you’re talking about is internal confidence, which is very different.
DR. CAM: It is. And I think we’re trying to make our kids accepted in the world. I see this a lot, and a lot of parents vary. I get this so much, and I understand again: We want our kids to be successful, fit in, and be treated well.
But one of the things we don’t often realize is when we’re trying to change them to be acceptable, we’re the ones being the bully and not accepting them. And so the message they’re getting is that they’re not okay the way they are.
And I think as parents, we’ve gotta sit back and go, this is my child. This is the child. This is the child with their strengths and weaknesses, with everything that they are, and this is the child I have and the adult they’re becoming. How do I help them have the most confidence and be the best version of who they already are?
SHERYL: Yes, it is so hard to do, and I’ve been there. I get it. I was so fear-driven with my oldest, and I did not know until I knew better and thought I was doing all the right things. So for the mom listening, she’s like, Oh, I feel you.
I hear you, and it’s like, now I’m grateful that I went through that, even though I would have done it differently because I can hold out that hope. I see it now, and it creates things we don’t want for our kids.
And it’s never too late. It’s never too late to learn to grow and to change. So what, what would be your counsel to a mom who is struggling with fear? What would you say to her?
DR. CAM: The first thing is to say that fear exists because you love and cherish your child. I understand that, and that is wonderful. What I want to think about is, let’s go forward because you’re trying to protect them from what could happen right now.
And a lot of our fear is the worst-case scenario. Most of it will not happen. So, I think we need to separate our fear from reality. It’s not always the worst case.
Our ultimate goal is for our children to be able to protect themselves, and the longer we hold them in and reign them in because of our fear, the more we’re preventing them from learning how to take care of themselves and be safe. We can’t prevent everything from happening. It’s not possible. We don’t even know.
So, suppose we spend our whole lives trying to prevent every possible worst-case scenario. In that case, we are wasting precious time that we could spend connecting with our kids, taking care of ourselves, and making sure that our kids can explore and pull themselves up when they fail because they’re going to fall.
We’re wasting a lot of time worrying, and I don’t want you to waste your child’s entire life. We often have with our kids when most of their legs will not be under our roof. Let’s not waste that time worrying because worrying does nothing. It gives us this false sense of being productive when we are not doing a daily thing. Don’t waste your time doing that; spend that time with your kid.
SHERYL: I love the way that you put that. I am going to grab that quote. I’ve never heard anybody put it that way about when we’re getting in the way, and fear drives us.
Our goal is for them to be able to keep themselves safe. We’re in the way, and I don’t remember exactly how you put it, but they’re learning how to do that if we’re getting in the way. Yeah, that was a wow moment, and that’s how you verbalized that.
DR. CAM: It’s really difficult. But I think when we start switching that view because we can start going, I am protecting my child by allowing them to learn how to protect themselves, and the only way for them to learn is to make mistakes. That’s it. They won’t learn from us telling them any more than we learn from our parents telling us, right?
SHERYL: I’m still learning from my mistakes.
DR. CAM: Yeah, that’s the best way to learn, to deprive our kids of that opportunity. Now, it’s not fair. It’s just not. It’s not easy. I am not at all. Oh, my God. There have been so many times, Sheryl, that I’ve held my breath. Okay, I’m letting my daughter do this. I gotta trust in this experience. I gotta trust. I gotta trust. And it’s terrifying.
SHERYL: It is scary, and it’s such a good discussion, though, because I think this is something we need to hear repeatedly in every phase of being a parent. My oldest is 33. I mean, there’s always – my youngest is 24. There are always new things that crop up.
We’re still the parents. It just looks very different. And that being able to let go and remember these things, I don’t think that we can hear it enough because we’re moms, we love our kids,
DR. CAM: We do, and I think we just have to refocus that energy. That energy and that love are so essential, but we use them in an ineffective way that pushes our kids away.
And I just want people to think right now: How would you feel if your mom or dad called you every day, commenting on how you handled everything, giving you advice on how you should handle everything, and showing you what you didn’t do right?
You’re like, but you don’t have your life figured out. Why do you have the right to tell me the same for us? We don’t have our whole life figured out. We do not know better. Sorry, we don’t. We just don’t.
So let your child figure it out and redirect that energy to support them, love them, cheer them on, be there when they need to be picked up, and just listen and let them be heard and valued. That’s what a parent is supposed to do. Not control.
SHERYL: So, how can we begin? We’ve been doing the whole control thing. And you’re talking about cheering them on, hearing them, and listening. How do we start that you have a book on? I think you have, like, 1000 different phrases to say.
DR. CAM: Yeah, the power. But what do I say, you know? And yes, many things get you started on every topic because it is very difficult. But honestly, the best thing you can do is not say anything. Just listen to what they say; it will go so far in your relationship with them because they want to feel heard and validated.
And when they feel heard and validated—and let me be clear: we are not validating that we agree with their decision, that we agree with how they’re feeling or expressing their feelings, or that we agree with their feelings. We’re validating that they are human, that they have the right to feel, and that we can’t control how they feel.
That is not anything that we can change. They’re going to feel it. So we’re validating that they have value and that their feelings matter. And then we go from there. And so when we hear and listen to them, what can we do? Just get curious and help them figure it out.
And it’s just going so far, so my daughter didn’t do well on a test that she thought she would do well on, right? And so the question just was, well, what do you think? First, I know how hard you work, and I bet it’s disappointing to work that hard.
She’s like, Yeah, what do you think went wrong? What do you think didn’t happen? Or what do you think you could do differently next time? Because, and so it gets to, there’s no judgment. That’s the thing. We struggle to take judgment out. There’s no judgment or criticism.
It’s curiosity. Wow. I wonder what happened because I know now that there were ways she could have studied better. Of course, I knew that that was not for me to say. That’s for her to figure out and for me to help her learn to figure that out. If she wants my opinion and wants ideas on how to figure it out, I am more than willing to do that, and I’ll say I’m here if you want me to help you study or I have some ideas of just doing some flashcards, or whatever it is, if you want to go old school, I’m here.
But how do you what do you think you could do? And she figures it out, and she feels great because she’s motivated to do that because she figured it out.
SHERYL: And if you tell them it doesn’t work, you usually get the pushback.
DR. CAM: Sheryl, this is my philosophy. If you take a good solution for yourself by saying I think you should do this. You have now taken that solution off the table. If you want your child to make a good choice or to make that choice, do not claim it for yourself because now that’s the last thing they want to do. Why? Not because they’re being disrespectful, not because they’re being difficult, but because it is so important for them to think on their own and be independent and come up with ideas so they feel competent. That’s why.
SHERYL: Yeah, it’s like, we rob them of that taking ownership and with that themselves.
DR. CAM: Yeah, if we take it, it’s gone.
SHERYL: Or we are. They tweak it. It might look a little different, but it fits better for them. Our suggestions, a lot of the time, don’t work for them. 100%
DR. CAM: We’re like, that works for us, and often we’re solving for our problem in the situation, not their problem, right? So we’re solving it, and I need to know you’re doing your homework. Or do I need to know this rather than what is getting in their way of doing their homework? We gotta solve that.
SHERYL: I remember hearing the phrase unsolicited advice the first time, which was so good. That was one of my moments: don’t give unsolicited advice. They’re not asking for it. So shout out, yeah.
And I still sometimes come out with something, and they’ll be like, now they know, Mom, you’re giving me unsolicited advice. I’ll be like, okay, oh yeah, you’re right. You’re right. Versus, do you want to know my thoughts? After they share their feelings.p, yeah.
DR. CAM: I think what’s hard is we, as parents, often feel like we have the right to give them advice, or we’re doing it because we want to help. We sincerely want to help, and where our advice-giving is in their best interest. The problem is it’s not received that way.
It’s received as being controlling; even if it’s the best advice ever, it’s received as that, and it’s also received as overstepping their boundaries. So if they say, I don’t want to know, and we don’t respect that, we teach them disrespect of boundaries. They’ve got boundaries that we need to respect, too, and that’s how they learn to respect ours.
SHERYL: We’re modeling that for them. Then, they learn to respect other people’s boundaries and respect themselves if somebody else crosses their boundaries.
DR. CAM: They need to know how to protect their boundaries. And I’ve talked to many kids who, again, not because their parents are malicious, but because they can’t say no at home.
They go out into the real world, and they’ve been put into really bad situations where they do not feel safe or powerful enough to say no in those situations because they didn’t know they could say no.
We have to realize that our kids must learn to have a voice and say no if we want them to. Yeah, they’ve got to be able to say no at home.
SHERYL: Yep. And they have to be able to strengthen that muscle.
DR. CAM: Yes, yeah. It’s our job to teach them how to do it respectfully. They don’t know how and will often say it extraordinarily disrespectfully. But we need to get past that. We want to; we don’t want to shut that down. We want to go there and say, Yeah, you have the right to say no, but let’s tweak and teach you, and let’s try to rephrase how to say that in a way so it’s not through anger.
I hear that you don’t want to do that the way you’re saying. It’s making me feel very disrespected. Doesn’t feel good. What is another way you can say that? Because I want that for you too. But when you say it that way, getting what you want probably won’t happen in a way that might work for you, right?
And now it’s more about them and teaching them to be more effective, rather than me being offended that they said it in a way that made me feel disrespected, even though that might not have been close to what they were trying to do.
SHERYL: And what a gift to give to them. I think my mom didn’t learn this either, and it would have been such a gift to learn how to be able to say things so that when I did go out in the real world, I had exercised that no muscle where I could say no to something at my work. I didn’t know how to do that, and when I was being disrespected at work, I would say no. That isn’t going to work for me.
DR. CAM: Yeah, I didn’t either, and I think that’s a generational thing, too. But some generations, and we know better now, and it’s not about saying, oh, they get to say no to everything and walk all over us. That’s not it.
We still say no. We’re still the parents. We still have guidelines, but it’s giving them a little bit more freedom and giving them the benefit of the doubt that they’re trying to communicate something and they’re just not doing it well rather than trying to be jerks.
When we teach them that the other thing was that I wasn’t allowed to get angry, that is seen as disrespectful, and so now, to this day, when I’m angry, I cry, and I hate it, but it’s what I learned to do. And now when I get really angry, I cry because that was okay.
SHERYL: I am the same way. And I know you’ve seen the anger iceberg. I think there needs to be a sadness iceberg, too, because sadness was safe for me, so I would cry, and then I’m like, You know what? I think I’m angry about this, and that propels me to say, Okay, what do I need here? Yeah, maybe something.
There’s a boundary being crossed that I need to say, no, that’s not okay. And so I’m the same way. I’m very much relating to you, and I like how you said they haven’t learned the skills yet, so they don’t know how to handle conflict responsibly. And we’re still learning in many ways too. And what a what a helpful way to reframe it.
DR. CAM: The other thing that I want parents to realize is that they do not have the skills. However, during adolescence, their brains are primed to learn these skills. So we always hear that the brain is not fully developed until the age of 25, but that does not mean that at the age of 25, they suddenly have all these skills.
That means that they are primed to learn these skills during this time, up to age 25. So if we don’t allow them to learn them then and we wait until they are 25 now, it’s even harder for them to learn them.
So, we need to take advantage of this window of opportunity to teach our kids all of these complex skills that their brains are craving to learn, which I think adds a little urgency to why we need to let them do it now.
SHERYL: Yes, and that’s hopeful. Their brains are all disconnected, and things aren’t together. It’s like, no, they can learn this now. Yeah, it’s fine to learn.
DR. CAM: It’s primed to learn. Our brains are in a growth spurt, the biggest growth spurt our brains will ever go through, except for infancy. It will never grow at that speed.
Now, they do, so they’ve got super brains, but it’s up to us to help them develop those skills, and they’ll be terrible at them at first. It’s the way they learn. It’s like riding a bike; you fall off a lot or learn to walk. You fall a lot. You keep trying until you get it.
SHERYL: We might not do it, or we might. We’re not going to do it perfectly either, but just that our listeners want to learn and are listening is like, Wow, what an amazing job they want to learn, and they’re listening here. In final closing words, I want you to tell them where to find you.
DR. CAM: It’s so easy to find me. My website is https://www.askdrcam.com/counseling, where you can find everything. I’m also on Instagram @askdrcam. I post daily tips and everything else on how to help raise your teens.
And I think the biggest part is remembering that parenting is a skill set, and raising teens is a completely different skill set than raising a young child, so it is okay to ask for help. It is okay not to know how to handle a situation because we haven’t learned it yet.
Just like our kids haven’t learned to do much of this stuff, we’re not necessarily – we’re going to make mistakes. We’re going to learn. But the beautiful thing is, you can learn. You can continuously learn to be better at it. That doesn’t mean you’re horrible now. It means you can be better because it is a skill set like anything else, and you must practice to improve.
SHERYL: Yeah, and you have a membership. Also, we have a membership at Moms of Tweens and Teens, and you also do; I love that because it’s a place where you go to practice to learn these things because it is really difficult to change these patterns we have if we didn’t learn it growing up if we didn’t have it modeled.
And to have a place like your membership, my membership, where you can go, and you have other moms, and you’re working on these things, and they have you to support them, me to support them. So tell them what it’s called, and you can share that information. I know that you are doing a lot there. So tell them about that as well.
DR. CAM: The Thriving Parent Academy, thrivingparent.org, and a group of us are coming together. We have some dads, too, but it is a group we meet regularly. I am there, and we share what the wins are; we share the struggles I have. It’s so fun.
Two moms there are best friends, and they will spend time together. They’ll go on their walks, and they’ll be talking about stuff. They’ll be like, Oh my God, what do you think Doctor Cam would say on this? What do you think they told me?
And then there are things that we still don’t know. We’re going to go ask her. And so they’ll bring it up, and all the other parents are like, Oh my gosh, yes, I have had that same situation. Or here’s what I did, or I’m so glad I’m not the only one.
So, the feeling of being with other parents who are also dealing with the same challenges and realizing you’re not alone in this, and I believe I have heard the same complaints, worries, and concerns over and over and over again, and so what you’re going through right now is, yes, your situation is unique to you and your child.
Still, it is not unique in the grander scheme. It is a very common parent-teen dynamic, and that’s what we help you through. How do you change that dynamic? The beautiful thing is that our power is to change it. When we change how we show up, it will change how they show up.
SHERYL: It’s very true, and it starts with us. Yeah, oh, thank you for having that Academy. We need it. We need each other. We need that support. It makes a huge difference. It does. So, thank you so much for being here today. Dr. Cam, I love talking to you.
DR. CAM: This was great. Thank you, Sheryl.
SHERYL: Well, that’s it for today, friend. And thank you so much for joining me and for being here. It speaks volumes about the kind of mom that you are.
And I also want to thank those who have left a podcast review. I looked at them the other day, and it made my day. I just thank you. I know it takes a couple of minutes or a minute to leave a review, and that’s how we spread the word and how people hear about us.
I just want to say that we were featured in Feedspot. We were among the top 10 parenting tweens podcasts listed there, and I was so excited. Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Also, if you have an episode that spoke to you, forward it to a mom who could benefit from listening. We need to know that we’re not alone. We need to know that we’re doing this together.
We need to have things that we’re going through normalized so we don’t lose our minds, and we can take that big sigh of relief and go, Oh, okay, I’m not the only one that is struggling with this, and this information is so helpful to me, that’s what I hope that you are getting from this podcast.
So thank you for being here, thank you for leaving a review, and thank you for sharing it with your friends. I hope you have a great week. I will see you back here next week.
