What Makes a Good Parent? A Bonus Episode in Which I Ask My Own Teenager

0:00Hello and welcome to Teenagers Untangled, the audio hug for fearless parents of teens and tweens. I'm Rachel Richards, former BBC correspondent and CNBC Europe World News anchor, mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters. Now I think we've all spent time wondering what makes a good parent and so have the experts, but it's one thing reading and listening to experts about it, getting it right on a day-to-day basis can feel just really tricky. My youngest, Amelia, and I were chatting in the car the other day when she said something that

0:33made me stop and I thought, you know what, it would be really good to unpack her thoughts on the podcast since our last conversation was so well received. So Amelia, thank you so much for joining us. Hi, thank you for having me. My pleasure. Now, do you remember what you said? I have no idea. You said, I hate all this gentle parenting. Oh yeah. What do you mean? I feel like the idea of gentle parenting is a really nice idea, but kids need structure and they need help with

1:05stuff and gentle parenting, I can't see it giving that. Interesting. So it's such an interesting thing and the reason I picked you up on that was because the gentle parenting movement, I think, has been misconstrued and part of that is because of the name gentle parenting. So it sounds like something that I don't think they intend. So whenever I talk to someone about something and they talk about gentle parenting, I always stop them and say, so what do you mean by that? And the people who've

1:36read a lot about it mean high expectations and high levels of support. It's sort of what they call authoritative parenting, but I think a lot of people don't understand it that way. They think of it as being really permissive. Yeah. Yeah. So interestingly, when I've researched it, there's authoritarian parenting, which is really just high expectations with no support and then permissive parenting where there's high support, no expectations. And then there's the thing in the middle. Yeah. I think that it's really hard to find a middle ground, but I think it can be done.

2:08So hard. So hard. And I think on a day-to-day basis, I'm pretty sure I don't balance it perfectly. Oh, yeah. I mean, I really don't think many people, like it's extremely hard. This is what I'm saying. I don't think, you know, nobody's going to get it right 100% of the time. It's very hard. Yeah. Yeah. So if you were to say, you were saying that you don't like this kind of gentle thing and that there needs to be expectations and elaborate a bit more. I mean, because you've got

2:38a lot of friends who you talk to about the way that they're parented, you know, you don't have to name names, but are there specific things that you think are particular issues that you see? You can include me. I won't be offended. Just for the reference, I'm not talking about one of my friends here. She's not my friend, but she has parents who have, like, she and her parents don't get on very well. And I think that her parents then try and make her like them by giving her things

3:11and by letting her do what she wants and basically gentle parenting her and like in the way that most people understand it. And she's just ended up like a spoiled brat. Again, this is not one of my friends I'm talking about right now. But yeah, so I think that it can get, and also she, like her parents don't have any expectations for her because I think they think if they put pressure on her, she's just not going to like them, but she already doesn't. I think it's really an interesting observation that you've made. And I've spoken to your older sisters about this particular phenomenon. And I think it's so hard for parents when their kids

3:44go from adoring them to pushing back and they can easily switch into doing whatever it takes to get their child to listen to them and to be close to them again. It's completely understandable. I think having spoken to your older sisters, they say that the friends that they've seen who've had that sort of relationship with their parents where the parents basically give them whatever they want has really ended up with adults who are very unhappy. And I can think of one particular person who ended up with an alcohol habit, alcoholism, and really struggled to actually work because he just

4:22didn't think the world was going to turn out the way it did and didn't understand the expectations that were set for him in the workplace. So it is, I hear what you're saying and I think it ends up being quite tricky. And I think that there's like, I think you should ask yourself, what do you want to get out of parenting? If you want your children to be very successful in their life, but you don't want to have a relationship with them, like you don't want to be close. I don't think this is many parents,

4:53but then I think this doesn't apply to you. But I think a lot of people get it wrong on the other end of the spectrum as well. And they have their children living in fear of them. So I think that a lot of the time it's either their children walk all over them or their children live in fear of them. And that's a massive issue because you're never going to have a relationship either way. Because if your children are walking all over you and they don't respect you, then I know that sounds very like old fashioned, but you can't have a good healthy relationship with somebody who

5:25doesn't respect you as a person in the same way that if you don't respect your child, that you're not going to have a good relationship with them. You're not going to be treating them well. I think that's absolutely true. And why do you think it ends up like that, where perhaps the parents are very demanding of their kids? Um, well, when they end up demanding, I think that, I think that comes from a place of love for most people, for a lot of people, it doesn't. But I think for most people,

5:55it comes from a place of love and it comes from a place of your child, of you wanting your child to do the best that they can in life. Um, so you have really, really high expectations and really, really high pressure on them. And that just ends up badly. That will never end up well, because what will either happen is they'll be terrified of you and that will be forcing them to do well and forcing them to like having, forcing them to do tons and tons of work. Um, and they will, that's not life. That's not a fun life. Like imagine if you were in that situation

6:26and you were just, you know, terrified of your parents, which I think a lot of people in your generation were to be honest, but I'm thinking, oh yeah, if I get a C on this test, like my parents are going to be so angry at me, that kind of thing. Um, yeah, I mean, yeah. So as I was saying, that's not really life. And I think that that, that comes from the parents wanting their kids to do well, but you know, I, I feel like parents are there to lay the foundations for the rest of the child's life. And if you have a child who's scared of you, once they have the opportunity to not

7:02talk to you, they're going to take it because why would you want to live in fear of somebody? You know, why would you want to be talking to someone who terrifies you? Um, so, you know, do you want to actually know them in the life which you've laid the foundations down for? Well, it's a good point you're making. And I think that the world that we're living in now has changed where it used to be that we'd live cheap by jowl and you would stay in communities and you would sort of have to be forced to continue a relationship with your parent beyond, you know, because you'd be ashamed for leaving your parents and your family very, very important. I think the world we're

7:33living in now has switched and it's much easier for people to shut off their parents, which I think is changing that dynamic and quite, quite tragically in a way, because I do think parents maybe don't see it coming and they are, um, doing what they consider to be the best that they can do. So what would you say would make a kid feel like there are high expectations, but that those high expectations are not too demanding of them and that they can have a good relationship with their

8:05parents? Well, I think that's like, there's a sweet spot here, which is high expectations, low pressure. Um, how do you do that? Which sounds really weird. Sounds really weird. If your child has, if your child wants to do well, they'll put pressure on themselves so they don't need extra stuff from you. Um, and everybody wants to do well, like name one person who just sits there and they're like, oh, I don't want to be successful. But there were parents who, they're parents who say that their kids seem to completely lack motivation. They can't seem to get them interested in anything. I think we're going to be talking about this later, but there is something else going on and

8:39you need to be, instead of trying to make them get motivated for the work. Oh, I mean, we did a whole episode on motivation. Um, but I think you should also be trying to figure out what's going on behind the scenes. And when you say that, what do you, so what, what, what might be happening in your opinion? Well, I mean, if your child just doesn't want to do anything, then they're probably depressed. This is a bonus episode. If you'd like to listen to the rest of our conversation, just click the link in the notes and that will take you to my sub stack, which is my free community.

9:10I've stored it there because I'd rather have these more personal discussions on that platform. It doesn't cost you anything. Come over and say hi if you'd like to. There's a lot more of my own writing there. And you'll also find episodes notes too. You'll still get all of the usual episodes here every week. So no problem if you don't want to have a good one. Bye bye.

9:40Bye bye.