‘Lazy’ to Motivated: Parenting Revision, Homework & Exams. Hear a Teen On What Really Helps

Introduction

0:00Hello and welcome to Teenagers Untangled, the audio hug for everyone supporting anyone going through the tween and teen years. I'm Rachel Richards, mother of two teenagers and two older boneless daughters. Speaking of teenagers, I have one with me today. Amelia, my daughter. Hello, Amelia. I am studying hard for her A-level progression exams. In the UK, those are the ones that are used by universities to decide whether to offer a place or not. So no pressure.

0:30Given how many listeners are in the thick of exam season, all readying themselves for the future, I thought it would be great to get Amelia in to talk through what helps and what doesn't. Please be kind to me, Amelia. And as a parent, the constant question on my mind is, am I doing enough or too much? And in our talk, we're going to be covering the difference between emotional support and pressure, how to motivate a teenager, how to give practical help that doesn't feel like you're trying to micromanage your teen. And in particular, Amelia has dyslexia and ADHD and her sister doesn't.

1:03So I'm hoping this advice will be helpful for those of you who've had a less straightforward

Secondary School Experience

1:08path through the educational maze. Amelia, when you went up to secondary school, I think we had some battles over you not wanting to do your homework, didn't we? Do you remember that? Yes. That was tricky. What was going on there, do you think? With me not wanting to do my homework. In fact, you saying that you didn't have any.

1:28When you first went to secondary school, I was saying to you, so, you know, when are you going to do your homework? And you say, oh, I didn't get any. And I would say, wait, what? Yes. Sorry, I don't remember that. That's okay. It's nice to blank. It just obviously wasn't that important to me. Yeah. I think probably what was going on is I couldn't be asked. But interestingly, why? Why do you think you just couldn't be asked? I think it was growing up, academics was never really shown to me to be very important.

2:00I was kind of... Do you think that's because you were dyslexic? Yeah. So I think I was kind of told that I was the more creative person and my sister was the academic person. And like, it was never really stressed to me that it was something which I had to do. So when I was going through my entry exams for my senior school, I remember when my sister went through them, she was revising, she was doing all that stuff. And it just never even crossed my mind to do that.

School System

2:24But you were both at the same school. Do you think it came from your parents? Do you think it came from the school or from all of us? Well, I think that first of all, so my, the school that I went to had different classes. They had a scholarship class, which is what my sister was in. So I think that's one of the reasons why she was very, like why she was a lot more on it than I was. And then we had the like normal classes and then there were two normal classes. So there was the normal normal class and then there was the bad normal class. And I was in the bad normal class. You saw it that way. Well, I mean, there were only...

2:55And this is the problem, isn't it? Presumably they do that just because they want kids to all be... Well, I was in the kind of extra help class. It was more like, these are students who we don't think are going to go on to have very academic futures. So we should stress other things. So I think, well, I mean, there were very, very few people in my class and all of them were a bit special. Including me, including me. You're very special. But for example, there was one boy who was incredibly good at acting and he was, he had

3:27really bad ADHD and he was also quite good at academics, but it was just never really his thing. So he spent a lot more time doing that kind of stuff than being told to do like homework and just stuff like that. So I think that's probably where it stemmed from, as well as I think my parents, you guys, I think you might have subconsciously stressed me a bit more that it wasn't really my route to go down. And then also when I was growing up, one of the most amazing things you did was that you stressed that effort was a lot more

4:00important than the grades that I got. I think that's a very, very good idea. Kind of backfired with me though. This is the difficult thing, isn't it? Because what we judged effort by was our class, our teachers gave out effort grades and grade grades. So what I would do is I'd try extremely hard in class. Looking back, it's so embarrassing because I remember in history, I would literally be jumping up my seat to answer questions. And I know I didn't do very well in tests. So what I would do is I'd work very hard in my lessons and then outside of lessons, I'd be like, okay, well, no one's judging my effort

4:33here. So interesting. So interesting. Yeah. So there's no real reason for me to be working now. But yeah, I think that's probably where that came from. I wanted to be honest about this because I want listeners to know that it's easy to get it wrong or to sort of lose, you know, miss the right track. Because I think children can be completely different. This is my first time doing this with you two kids and we all make mistakes or we don't even, we're sort of thinking, oh, this is the right thing to do. And then it's

5:04not quite right for that child. No, I completely agree. I completely agree. I think that it was a very, very good idea to stress effort over grades because most people aren't A-star students and trying to force them to be A-star students won't do anything except kill their spirit. So in general, I think that that's an amazing thing that you did because no matter how hard I worked, I don't think I would achieve A-stars on anything.

5:27And the thing is, you are smart. You're very smart and you're actually quite capable. So what's changed? Because I've been looking at your studying lately and it's incredible. The way

Taking a Year Out

5:40that things have shifted, the listeners know that you took a year out when you were 16 because school wasn't working for you at all and it was multiple factors. Do you think that that's had any impact particularly on where you're at now? Well, I think at my old school, I definitely wouldn't have been working this hard or like this at all. Why? I was in not a very good state of mind and, you know, I wasn't really looking towards the future. It was more just like trying to escape the now. So that can have a massive effect

6:13on your ability to actually be able to work, caring about work as well. So I definitely, if I had stayed at that, I probably would have failed my A-levels, I'm going to be honest. We agreed with you that it was a good thing to take a break for a year or it wasn't even at that time, we didn't know it was going to be a break from academics. We said, fine, you know, let's just let the pressure cooker off and you figure things out for a year. So we didn't even know that you were going to go back to anything academic. It was going to be something else, wasn't it?

6:43So yeah, the original plan was that academics weren't working out for me and there were a lot of factors towards that. It wasn't that I wasn't academic and I was just like, I don't think that this is a very good idea for me to stay doing academics because I don't think that I'll do very well in them. So that meant that I decided to leave and I was going to go to a media college in London called Access Creative College. If anybody, I'm not, I'm not sponsored by them or anything, but if anybody's thinking about going into a creative industry when they're older, definitely check out that. which looked amazing. And I was like, okay, well, this is perfect. And I was also looking at

7:20internships and apprenticeships that you can go into when you're 16. And my friend who's just left college recently, she's now got an apprenticeship at a nursery, which was absolutely the right decision for her because academics weren't working out for her either. And I think that it's a really great decision to do that. If your kids want to, if your kids want to take a year out, definitely do that. And you know, they hard bake it into the education system in Ireland. That is normal that they give kids a year out at that age. Yes. Isn't that incredible?

7:51That's amazing. Yeah. How amazing is that? Because actually I think that's smart. But anyway, let's go back to you. So I think that if I had gone straight from GCSEs to the college I'm at now, I think that I would probably be about the same place that I am now because I really wanted to do well. I really wanted to work. And I, you know, I wanted that future. I remember over that summer, I was like, this year is going to be different this year. I'm going to completely, I'm going to work so hard. I'm going to

8:22do really well in my A-levels. And then obviously I left school. So that really didn't work out very well. But, you know, I wanted to do all that stuff. I just didn't have the resources to be able to actually put that into action. And I think we need to really pause there. You actually wanted to do well. And I think this is one of the most important messages that all the experts try to get across is that I think parents think, oh, they're not motivated. They're not doing anything. I need to push them. They don't want to do anything. And actually, I think all kids want to do well.

8:52All kids want to do well. Absolutely. But there's something going wrong there. If your kid isn't working, I can promise you it's not because they don't care. There is other, there's always other stuff happening. So maybe instead of trying to investigate what's going on academically and trying to push them to do well in their academics, you should take a step back and try and delve a little bit deeper into what's happening behind the scenes. I love that. Yeah. Because there is always something going on there. Yeah. And maybe they should do what I did and take a year out and then try and, you know, regroup and then try again.

Motivation and Control

9:24Yeah. And because it's been formative and it's interesting. So coming back to what's happening now in terms of studying and doing your homework, I think there are key things that parents can do wrong. Nagging, over-controlling, fear-based pressure, harassing with others. What are your thoughts about those? So starting off with nagging, nagging, do not nag your child. Do not nag them at all.

9:55Give them reasons why they should want to work well. And I don't, when I say that, I don't mean reasons like money and stuff like that, because that like money is a nice idea. It would be great to have money when you, you know, you get, if you get an A in your A levels, but that is not enough to carry you through A levels. Like what, let's say you get 200 pounds. It's an insane amount for an A level, but you get 200 pounds if you get an A in your A levels. That's not going to carry you through two years of working to an A standard. That's not going to work. So when I say

10:31motivate them, I mean, give them reasons to why they should want to work outside of, like in the real world. So find their why. Yes, exactly. So let's say your child, whatever subjects your child has chosen for A levels, or if they haven't chosen a subject and they're thinking about them, you know, think about why they've chosen that subject. Think about what they want to achieve out of their A levels and then give them reasons to work towards that. So for example, with me, I'd really love to go to uni. I'm pretty motivated, at least at the moment for that.

11:04The way that you can motivate me to want to work harder for that is by taking me around unis, showing me how amazing university life could be, showing me what can happen after uni and how amazing life could be. Also, this could be quite controversial, but showing me what could happen if it doesn't work out. I think that's not controversial. I think that's brilliant. Explain. And not in a fear-based way, like not in your life is going to be completely ruined, more just like, okay, so let's just go through what do you think your steps will be after,

11:37if you do badly, whatever the grade your child is working at. Like, what do you think you would do if you got this in your A levels? When they talk you through it, that, first of all, that might change your mind because you might be, you might think, oh yeah, they have an amazing, they have a really good plan. They thought this out. You know, A levels aren't going to work out for them, but what they've come up with for after A levels is a really good idea. So I'm going to step back and let them do their own thing. Or you can look at that and be like, okay, so they don't have a plan.

12:09I can fill in the gaps. I can give them the information because I think the one thing we parents have that our kids don't have is the depth of understanding of how life can pan out. We don't know. No one knows for sure, but we can give information and we can help them see over the hill. So rather than try and push them and direct them, what we can do is say, what do you want? What, what are you expecting? What, what does this look like? And then help them see what that might look like in a positive way, as well as if they don't really have a plan saying that actually

12:40without these options, here's what life might pan out like, and actually showing like, let's say you leave now with no A levels or with no academics. So what kind of jobs could you get and giving you an option? And I think your working really helped, didn't it? Because you've been working in a year out and you're still working now. And what did that do for you? I've been able to see how people's lives have turned out and how my life could turn out if I didn't do as well as I would want to. Yeah. There are some incredibly smart people at my job at the moment. There are some incredibly talented people who were working with me and they are amazing at it, but it's not for me. It's not

13:16something that I would want to do with the rest of my life and they love it. And I'm, but it's just not something which I would, you know, exactly. And I think that's, and you could not have imagined that had you not been out at work and you get to meet people from different backgrounds and you get to think, actually, this looked really interesting to me, but now I can see it, it would bore me or this. Actually, I've seen this person doing this and that, then they might inspire you. So I do think having some connection with the workplace can be really incredibly helpful, can't it? Even if you're just volunteering.

13:48Also, so one of the amazing things that my college does, I go to this incredible state college near where we live and what they do is they make every student complete work experience in the field which they would like to go to. My work experience was amazing because I ended up going to a hospital and I got to see patients and I got to see how people actually worked in the environment which I'd like to end up in. And I was just dumbfounded and that spurred me on even more to want to do well in my studies. Interesting.

14:20Because the three things which I remember is not fear as in, if you do badly, this will happen to you or I will do this to you. Fear as in, what do you think that your life could turn out to be like if these grades happen? And when you're talking to your child about this, don't do it in an accusatory way. Don't do it in an aggressive way. Do it in a questioning way. You want to actually find out what they would like to turn out. And help them own it. Help them see it.

14:51Exactly. The second thing is motivation for what they would like to achieve in their life. So, you know, taking me around unis, me going to get that work experience in the hospital, those were all incredible things and those were very, very motivating. And then maybe we could talk a bit about control. Because I was having lunch chatting with some other mums the other day and one of them mentioned this new AI app where you can see exactly what your kids are, all their homework assignments are, and you can check all their grades

15:26and you can sort of coordinate it all. And I could feel myself getting really stressed listening to this. And I know that this is something a lot of parents feel that they want to have. My question to you is to what extent do you think parents should be really overseeing the homework and controlling what they do when they do it, checking up on whether they're doing the work? Well, I think it depends on which way they're doing it. So, for example, I've just had Easter break and I had a bunch of homework assignments. I have done every single one of them, but I've completely

15:59forgotten to upload them. And I have got emails that have been sent because at my school, we don't get detentions and stuff. We get record systems. So I've got two records for not doing my homework. If you saw that, you might immediately think, oh my God, my child is just completely neglecting her studies, you know, all this stuff. But I have, I have a hundred percent done it. So, well, but this is a really, really important point because when I interviewed the man about ADHD, he did actually say one of the things we can do as parents is just, I think, navigating school

16:34portals, managing homework. So in other words, not trying to sit over you and make sure you do it, but making sure that it's been uploaded when it needs to be uploaded, that sort of stuff we could be doing more of. Do you think I should be checking in on you and saying, hey, did you manage to upload your homework at the end of the day? Just as a reminder. Well, I think that I could get very annoying very quickly. This is the problem, isn't it? Because you really push back very hard whenever I try and move in. And I think each child has to be, you know, related to individually, don't they? So in other

17:07words, I think it can really help for a parent to say, would you like me to do this? Yeah, absolutely. And I think just helping your child be more structured. And about control, I think it really depends on what type of control. You cannot get angry at the grades of your child in school. You can't get angry at them not doing their homework. That sounds very bad of me to say, but your relationship will not be good if your child is living in fear of you.

17:37I can promise you that. But presumably the penalty will come from the school anyway. Exactly. So it's really, this sounds weird for me to say as well, but it's not your job to be checking up on them 24-7. I would say check in with them every now and then to make sure that stuff is happening. It can be really interesting to see how your child is doing. Right. Do it from a position of interest in how they're getting on and what their interest. Okay. And if your child isn't doing their homework, maybe instead of your first thought being,

18:10they just don't care about their studies, it should always be, what is going on here? It's never a simple answer. There's always stuff going on under the surface. I cannot stress this enough. Always try and figure out what else is happening, which is meaning that they're not doing their homework. I love that. I think that's so right. It could be relational with their friends or with their teacher. It could also just be procedural where they're not sure how to access certain things. There are lots and lots of things that can fall down. And we should never jump to, my kid's lazy, they don't care, any of that stuff. I completely agree.

18:40Trust them. Trust that they want to do well. I love that. And I think that absolutely is what all the experts say too. And if it's repeated and they're just never doing it, there is something going on. There is something going on, probably with their mental health, which you need to check up on, that isn't related to school. And again, I can't stress this enough, when you're checking up on their mental health, don't do it in, I've just had a fear response that my child has got bad mental health. Don't be emotional about it. You need to take a step back and think about, you know, if that was you, what would you want your parent to say? What would you

19:14want your parent to do? If you're just interested in your child's life, just ask questions. You know, try and figure out what's going on in a way that's not accusatory or stressed out or, you know, mean. Don't make your child think that, you know, there's going to be consequences for them telling you stuff like this. And also don't make your child think that you will get upset over them having bad mental health. 100%. They shouldn't have to manage your emotions because the problem is we can overreact, we can panic and that will just load on the pressure. So we need to stay calm, don't we?

19:45We need to have these conversations where we have managed to calm ourselves first and that we can think, okay, if I'm going to go and scream or get upset, I'm going to do it somewhere else. And again, everybody gets this stuff wrong. If you have done that, don't feel bad about that. My mum has done that countless times and it's never really had a negative effect to be honest. You know, it's been a bit like, oh, what's going on here? Like I've done something wrong and I feel really bad about it. You know, it's never, it's never the best way to approach it, but it's never the end of the world. So don't beat yourself up over mistakes

20:16that have happened. Yeah. And you've been amazing at coming back to me and having conversations with me when I've done things wrong or when, when we've had a rupture, we, you know, you're brilliant at getting those conversations going. It's never that you've done something wrong. Never look at it like I've done something wrong by saying this thing to my child. You should look at it from a perspective as this is my first time parenting. Yeah. No matter how many children you have, it's always your first time parenting. And I might not be the grade eight parent, but nobody is. And, you know, there's always a reason

20:50that that's happened. Yes. And I think if you come at it in good faith that you love your child and that you're just trying to do your best and you are able to have conversations and able to apologise when it goes wrong, I think that relationship can flourish from those, even when we do things that don't work out. I think I'll just hand it over to you, Amelia. You're brilliant at this. What about things like just getting started? I do wonder whether sometimes we can build it up to being something too big because sometimes these assignments can feel massive and weighty

21:23and kids can think, I just don't even want to start because it looks too much. I think parents, one of the best things we can do is I think motivation comes from action. So once you've already started, my yoga teacher used to say, just stand on the mat. Don't worry about how much you're going to do. Don't build it up to, I've got to get an A. Get on the mat. Get started. Absolutely. So today, for example, I've, you know, I've got exams in two days. I, you know, and they're very stressful exams because they're my progression exams, as my mum's already said. But I was sitting in my bedroom this entire afternoon thinking, oh my God, I have so much to

21:57do and I got nothing done because I was so stressed out over the fact that I had so much to do. So the best way to get somebody to do something when they're in a spiral like that is so we've got a specific, we've got a little room which everybody goes in to do their work. If I just sit in that room, that will immediately get myself in the right head space to be able to do that work. It's just, you just need to take it step by step, always step by step. Yeah. I think just lowering the bar just to get started, be in the place, you know, have the light that you always switch on when you're going to study. You know, you've seen lots

22:28of things. You've been doing this amazing thing where you film yourself. Some of the things that you've been using to really help yourself, because I kept saying, right, I'm going to take your phone away. So I'm, yeah, so I've got multiple apps on my phone to try and actually keep me off my phone when I'm studying. To be honest, none of them have really worked for me. I know a lot of them have worked very well for other people. But what happens is I just say, I just end the floor recession and then, you know, it kills the tree that I spent 45 minutes

22:58growing. But, you know, I can go on my phone. But what I've done is I've now got, this is going to sound really weird, but my friends and I, we have a little TikTok account. It's only got my closest friends on it because it's very embarrassing to be posting that kind of stuff up with random people. So yeah, I film myself revising and studying and then I make a little montage of my day and then I post it to that. And then everyone's like, Amelia, how the hell did you manage to do this stuff? I'm so impressed. Just stuff like that. And then it's like, it makes me feel really good

23:29about what I've done in the day. And it also keeps me off my phone when I'm working. And at the end of the day, I can actually look back on myself working and think to myself, wow, I've done so much stuff. And you have, you've been working so hard. It's been incredible. For people who are panicking going, oh my goodness, this is, this sounds awful because she's got no control over her phone use. And I would say that it's always better to take away the phone always. And with your sister, Phoebe, that was what I was having to do. She was using Flora, but, and she's very disciplined, but she was much happier when I took away her phone. It's child specific. You know,

24:04you're older now. I think if you were 13, I'd be taking away your phone. But I think- Well, at 13, you shouldn't be working as hard as I'm working. Yeah, no, absolutely. And also, but I think what I want to say is that you're at a stage now where I'm very mindful that you are going to do really well in your exams and go away to university, which means you're then going to have to manage these things on your own. And I think one of the jobs of a parent is to look ahead to the future and think, rather than trying to hyper-manage everything, I need to allow you to figure out things,

24:36ways to help yourself, right? Because, you know, Phoebe's away at university and she doesn't have someone taking her phone away. So you can't rely on this once a child's going away. So you have to gradually allow your child to have their own systems in place, don't you think? I agree. I agree. It's really important. So what about, you know, being an ally? How can a parent perform as an ally rather than a manager? Am I an ally or a manager? It depends on the day. I would say that you're definitely more of an ally than a manager.

25:06So I think the main thing is that your child can't be scared of you. If you've got a bad relationship, it's probably surrounding the fact that they're scared of you or that when they're around you, they feel attacked. This is not me saying that you're a bad parent because of that. If you have a bad relationship with your child and I'm not blaming you, it's everybody's first time parenting. No one's got it figured out. So being a manager, for example, would be taking my phone away from me when I'm trying to do work without asking me first. Not trying to figure out what my needs are, but putting yourself in your position and thinking

25:39what your needs would be in my position when, if you were me, that would be more of a manager because two people are never the same. You never had the same needs. So if you, if you look at your child who's trying to work or trying to do anything really, and you're like, oh, if I was in that position, I would want my parent to do this, or I would need my phone to be taken away, or I would need, you know, strict rules on how much I have to revise a day. There's just that kind of stuff. I think that that would never work because everybody's

26:09different. Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. I've got four. I didn't spend all my time with my bonus daughters, your older sisters, when they were going through this, but I had some of my time with them when they were studying and you are all very different. And I think that the most important thing is tuning into what your child was and ask them, ask them, you know, is this working? Try it out. If it doesn't work, try something different. The main aim is like, are you studying? Do you feel motivated? Are you happy? One thing you have said to me is actually knowing where your meals are so that you can plan around them is very important, right? Any other little tips? What about sleep times, things like that?

26:43Well, I would say take your kid's phone away from them when they're sleeping. Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, that's kind of a bit contradictory to what I just said about, you know, phone use. It's different. But I think, yeah, overnight it's quite important to have their phone away and take your phone away from yourself when you're sleeping as well. That's our deal, isn't it? Yeah. If my mum's taking my phone, she has to put her phone outside as well because her sleep is just as important as my sleep. Just as important. So why would that mean that she would get to keep her phone and I wouldn't? So, you know, lead by example, the worst phrase you can say is, do as I say, not as I do.

27:17What do you mean? And I do think that one of the other things that's really important at home is that you are getting enough stress at school. And I think that we don't want a really stressy household because it can kill motivation, can't it? And it's just decompressing, giving an environment where you feel completely safe and not that, you know, you're going to have to protect yourself from stressy parents. What about parents checking up on grades all the time? I mean, I've never really done this, but I know that there are parents who will say to their

27:50kids, I expect an A from you. What have you got? You know, when you're coming home with a grade and it's not a grade you were hoping for, if a parent then says, well, what's your grade and then makes you feel shameful about it? Well, this goes back to what I was saying about the whole living in fear situation. You won't, we will never have a good relationship with your teenager if your teenager is in fear of you. You, like that, it's just, it's impossible. Checking up on grades, I think it's a good idea to want to, you know, it's nice to know where your child's at. It's nice to, and also for them

28:22to share it with you. So for example, with you, my mum, I tell you, any grade I get, I will tell you, because it's also, it's nice for me, if I get a bad grade, it's like, it's a stress release, you know? I don't want to think, okay, if I'm going to tell you this grade, I'm going to get shouted at or anything like that, or that you, even that you're going to be disappointed in me. Like, for example, I don't, I don't really tell my dad the grades that I get, because I know that he would get disappointed in me, or he would start comparing me to my sister. That's just, that just makes people feel bad, I think. And, you know, I don't want to get bad grades. Nobody

28:56wants to get bad grades, but it happens. It will always happen, other than to Phoebe, who's my sister. Darling, she failed a driving test. Three times. Best day of my life. No, I'm joking. I love you so much. Yeah, checking off on grades. You want your, you want your child to want to share that with you. Yeah, I love that. Instead of you having to find it out through means, you know, of looking at their, their portal, or looking at the whole AI thing, which collects everything into one place. You want them to want to tell you, instead of them having to tell you, or them being

29:26scared of you knowing. You're a mentor. Sit side by side with them. Look out at the world. What's it doing? How are you coping with it? What? Your job as a parent, from my perspective, is to help your child understand the world and, you know, live through life the way that they want to live it. You cannot help somebody who doesn't want help. You can't control somebody who doesn't want to be controlled. And you don't want to be controlled. Exactly. Yeah. And, you know, there are a lot of things which have happened in the past, which you see as helping me, but I see as controlling me. And it will never help me. All it will do is make me feel bad. And we've kind of,

30:03we've got to that understanding. That has taken a very long time. So if you are still in that place where you don't find that. Hold the faith. Yeah, exactly. Hold the faith. And if your child is pushing back at you, fighting you, that, you know. Maybe. Because you have been the kid that's taught me the most. In a really positive way. Yeah, we were talking about this. We were talking

Parenting Advice

30:22about this the other day. We were in the car and my mum goes, oh, I'm really glad I had you, Amelia, because otherwise I would have thought that I was the perfect mother. And I was sent a challenger. Yeah. You stopped me being smug. But it's great. I'm really happy because I just, I adore you. And I think you're, you're brilliant teaching me how to parent you. And that's actually quite a thing in itself. So, you know, don't underestimate the power of that. It's amazing. Are there any other tips you'd like to give to parents who are listening at the moment, who are in the house with their kids, there's lots of stress about the exams and

30:54what should they, is there anything else you'd like to tell them? Um, well, okay. So, first of all, if you're feeling stress over your teenager's exam, something's going wrong here. You shouldn't be stressed because of, because you're scared of what grade they will get. That should not be happening. I think that if that's happening, you should probably take a seat and think, okay, why is this happening? Why am I getting stressed? This isn't, that happens to a lot of people. I do think that you should unpack that a little bit and try to think why it matters to you so much. And then maybe you should share it with your teenager

31:27on why it matters to you so much. So then they could be more understanding to why you're stressed over their exams. And then I would also just like to reiterate, because there are a lot of teenagers who aren't working and who aren't, and their parents are looking at them and they're like, oh, you're just not doing any work. You know, you must be lazy and stuff like that. But never the case. Everybody wants to do well. Nobody looks at, for example, I know this is a bit extreme, but nobody looks at a homeless person and is like, oh, I want to be them. You're absolutely right. And I think they just get stuck. Exactly. They get stuck for some reason.

31:59Always. There's always a deeper meaning. And if that's happening, I really think that you should be unpacking that and not coming from a perspective of why aren't you doing work, coming from a perspective of what's going on in your life, which is going wrong. And then that will lead you to the answer of why they're not working hard. And then you can resolve that. I want to stress that so, so deeply because that is something which a lot of parents miss out when they're looking at their child and they're just not doing any work. They're immediate responses. They just don't care. They're just lazy. No, there's always more that's happening.

32:32Darling, that's so beautiful. It really is. It's so beautiful. And actually, that's what Ned Johnson said. That's what David Yeager said. So I think that's the perfect thing to end this conversation on. And Amelia, thank you so much for sparing a bit of time this afternoon to have this conversation and to help other parents and other teenagers. If you found this useful, please make sure you send it to at least one other parent right now or another teenager, because I think teenagers might benefit from hearing this too, because it may give them a chance to open up the conversation with their parent if they feel that they haven't had that chance. You can find me on

33:04www.teenagersuntangled.com. You can email me at teenagersuntangled at gmail.com. And I'm on Substack and I do a more extended sort of think pieces. And I also give the top tips from every episode. So if you want to kind of list of the top things, you can find them there. And that's teenagersuntangled.substack.com. That's it for now. Amelia's going to say one more thing. Um, I just wanted to add this in because I think this is very important. If you're listening to this podcast, you are already trying. So don't look at anything that you've done as

33:39bad because it's all a learning curve and it's your first time living too. Nobody gets this all right. So I just want to stress that again. So that's the difference between shame and guilt. So guilt is where you think I've done something wrong. I can fix it. This is what I'll do. Shame is where you just carry this weight around with you. You just feel terrible about yourself and it doesn't motivate you to do anything. It just makes you feel terrible. I love that. It's a beautiful sentiment, Amelia, and I totally agree with you. Thank you. That's it for Teenagers Untangled for this week. Bye-bye, Amelia. Bye. A big hug from me. Bye-bye.

34:24Bye-bye.

34:54Transcription by CastingWords