Ep 23: The Terror of Teenage Rebellion

Neal Thompson, author of Kickflip Boys, discusses the drama of
raising rebellious and defiant teenagers. He reveals some of the
strategies he found that worked for getting through to his kids
in the end and talks about how he coped with the rebellious
years.


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Full show notes


Are your boundary lines being crossed like hopscotch? Maybe this
problem goes beyond the house, too. Your teen could harbor a
greater rebellion towards authority than you know…


Without knowing how to deal with teenage defiance, these
behaviors can spiral out of control. They might be skipping
classes, dissenting coaches and teachers, and even experimenting
with drugs and alcohol in risky ways.


Whatever the cause of this behavior, the stress can leave you
understandably wondering how to deal with teenage defiance.


This can feel like a lonely situation for a parent. However, the
guest I’m here to speak with today insists you are in fact NOT
alone, and there ARE things you as a parent can do. You can learn
how to deal with teenage defiance!


Neal Thompson is a father of two wonderful and rebellious boys,
and he captures his inspiring story in his book Kickflip Boys: A
Memoir of Freedom, Rebellion, and the Chaos of Fatherhood. Neal
has learned some valuable lessons on how to deal with teenage
defiance in a positive way. A lot of the lessons he credits to
his wife.


It’s easy to think within the constructs of societal roles that
Neal would be the “bad guy” dad, and his wife would be the
“comforting” mom, but it wasn’t really like that for him. He
explains that he and his wife are equal partners, and they each
have a different style of parenting their two boys. Still, it was
his wife who found a lot more success in getting their boys to
open up.


Patience


Here’s a lesson about patience from a skateboarder. Neal loves
skateboarding, and was thrilled when his boys got into
skateboarding, too. His wife was interested because the boys were
interested, but she kept her distance from the skateboarding
community. When the “dark side” of the skateboarding community
showed its edge in the teenage years, Neal didn’t know how to
deal with teenage defiance with patience.


When his boys would push back in rebellion, Neal admits his
tendency was to instantly go to a place of stress and anger. Neal
liked skateboarding culture and was around it all the time, but
when the rebellious side came out, he struggled to stay calm.
Doing nothing didn’t register as an option when he saw his boys
make poor decisions within a culture he loved.


It was easier for Neal’s sons to his wife because she had a
calmer demeanor. She wouldn’t yell and scream like he would. She
knew how to deal with teenage defiance by creating a safe space
and listening. You might be asking, though,


“What is a safe space, and how do you create
it?”
A Safe Space


When figuring out how to deal with teenage defiance, Neal noticed
that his wife could diminish teenage rebellion by creating safe
spaces. Neal explains that to his two boys, being in the car with
mom was like being in a protective bubble.


What they didn’t necessarily know, was that she would use trips
in the car to have conversations. The boys knew a relaxing car
ride with mom and her calm demeanor allowed them to relax. Once
they could relax, they could open up.


What’s interesting about the car is that it provides a shared
objective. When everyone is in the car, the objective is to go
somewhere. Any conversation that happens is a byproduct of the
objective and not “a talk.” This reveals an important point of
teenage defiance.


A defiant teen will get instantly defensive if you sit him or her
down for “a talk.” If the objective is the conversation, and your
teen is naturally defiant, then expect pushback and raised
voices.


In order to create a safe space, it’s important to identify
activities that are comfortable for everyone that don’t
necessitate conversation. This can be going for a walk, going
fishing, or working on the car. Neal and his wife found that if
you can disguise your objective to have a conversation with a
shared activity, you can lessen their reaction when feedback is
provided. This might feel sneaky and deceptive for some parents,
so I asked Neal about that, too.


Trust and Teen Privacy


Parents may be wondering how to deal with teenage defiance when
it becomes such a problem that an invasion of your teen’s privacy
is necessary. Neal explains his perspective on this with excerpts
from his book. He describes a time when he found information
about his boys by stealing their phones and doing “stealthy
parent work.” With the evolution of technology, this is such an
interesting issue, and teens are wondering about it, too.


I asked Neal if he thought his “stealthy parent work” backfired
when his boys found out. He explained that the goal is never to
spy on your kids. That by itself is bad. But you want to keep
them safe. As a first line of defense, stealthy parenting is a
poor tool. Being a stealthy parent runs the risk of damaging
trust in the parent-teen relationship. Neal’s boys were the first
to point out his invasion of their privacy.


However, when the stakes for his boys were as high as intense
drug usage and alcohol, Neal found such deception to be almost
necessary. He knows some parents will disagree. He also admits he
may have crossed a line in some of the book’s stories. He still
believes, though, that stealthy parenting should be a tool kept
available for extreme scenarios.


In this new age of technology, parents have a lot to learn about
how to deal with teenage defiance. What’s important to remember
is that the persona of your teen online doesn’t accurately
represent who they are in real life.


What Does it Mean to be a “Good” Kid


You might be wondering how to deal with teenage defiance at home,
even though everyone around your teen keeps telling you they are
the kindest, most hard-working kid on earth. Are we talking about
the same kid?


Neal shares a story about how he had a fight with his son one
morning. His boy had woken up fairly hungover from a night out,
and Neal was mad about that. When his son left for work bagging
groceries at the grocery store, Neal was still mad. However, when
he stopped by the store later, he was surprised to see that his
son had a genuine smile on his face as he helped customers at the
counter. It was a side of his son he hadn’t seen before.


He realized that just because his son was an extremely rebellious
teenager, didn’t mean his son didn’t care. In fact, he was the
good kid Neal always thought he was, but just hadn’t had the
chance to see.


Neal has some unenviable stories in learning how to deal with
teenage defiance, but the value of his life lessons goes beyond
words. The amount of love he has for his kids really shines, and
he definitely has one or two words of knowledge for every parent
in this episode.


Along with how to deal with teenage defiance, other topics
covered include:


Getting permission to share stories from his family, and the
greater nuances of publicly “airing dirty laundry”

Some clarity on birth orde...