TPP 425: How Can I “De-Motivate” My Teen From Engaging in Risky Behaviors?
episode
Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
20 min
2 speakers
8 chapters
transcribed 8 hours ago
Transcript
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
What is the listener’s question about a 17‑year‑old with ADHD who is vaping?
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I'm Debbie Reber, and welcome to Tilt Parenting, a podcast featuring interviews and conversations aimed at inspiring, informing, and supporting parents raising differently wired kids. And this is a Parent Lean-In episode, a bite-sized show where I answer a single listener question, sometimes on my own, sometimes with a coach from the Differently Wired Club, and sometimes with an author or expert who's become one of my go-to resources. Think one relatable Parent question followed by practical strategies or reframes that can support you in your parenting world. To submit a question for a future parent lean-in show, go to tiltparenting.com slash lean in. That's tiltparenting.com slash L-E-A-N-I-N. And with that, here's today's episode.
Hey everyone, joining me for today's Parent Lin episode. I have educator and friend of the pod, Zach Morris of Alive at Learn. And Zach specializes in working with parents and young adults who are navigating the complex dynamics of neurodivergent experience. He is uniquely equipped to serve families with profiles of autism, especially PDA, families who are navigating trauma, and families who are needing to heal and repair relationships. He is also a parent coach in my Differently Wired Club. So hello, Zach, and thank you for being here.
Hi Debbie, thanks for having me as always.
Of course. Let's get into it. And I'm just gonna say as a preface before I read this, Ned Johnson, Ned, if you're listening to this, my listeners love you as much as I do. So you come up in a lot of questions, which means people are really thinking about what you're putting out there. So thank you for that. So let's get to it. The listener wrote in, thanks to you and Ned Johnson, we have been much more aware of how we can support motivation. And refrain from demotivating our team. These are for behaviors or actions we would like to see them take. What about behaviors or actions or motivations that we are not okay with, like vaping? So the context for this is a 17-year-old ADHD and executive function challenges.
And I just love this question so much. I think it is so good and it's tricky. 17 is an interesting age because you're almost 18 and vaping is it's not super safe, but it's not drugs, but it could, you know, there there's a lot going on here.
Why is trust and connection more important than strict control for a teen who vapes?
So I had lots of thoughts and I and I'll start with this one. First of all, going back to the age of seventeen, at seventeen, we really can't prevent our kids from doing something that we don't want them to do. I mean we can try. And maybe actually we can prevent them with extreme measures, but the ways in which we're gonna prevent them from doing something that they wanna do are not gonna necessarily be ways that build connection and trust, which is really the most important thing when you are parenting a seventeen year old, especially a 17 year old who has ADHD, which means the impulse control is gonna be not as strong. The desire to take risks is gonna be higher. So that trust and connection is so important.
And there are two things I was uh researching uh Jess Leahy's work. In getting ready for this question. And she wrote a wonderful book, The Addiction Inoculation. I'll have a link in the show notes to our conversation about that and to her book. But two things she says is that number one, kids who are more controlled by their parents lie to their parents more. Makes sense. I was like, Yep, that was me. Like my very controlling parents and I lied about everything when I was seventeen. Well, everything that I wasn't supposed to be doing, which was a lot of things that I was doing. The second thing that Jess said is that monitoring kids too much can undermine their trust.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the listener’s question about a 17‑year‑old with ADHD who is vaping?
0:00–2:57
2
Why is trust and connection more important than strict control for a teen who vapes?
2:57–5:48
3
How do Jess Leahy’s findings on control and monitoring affect teen honesty?
5:48–8:13
4
What risks of vaping should parents explain to a neurodivergent teen?
8:13–11:14
5
How does the legality of vaping shape the parent‑child conversation?
11:14–13:47
6
What communication strategies (e.g., non‑violent communication) help keep dialogue open?
13:47–16:25
7
How can parents uncover the underlying need behind a teen’s vaping habit?
16:25–18:46
8
What practical objectives should parents set when addressing risky teen behavior?
18:46–20:46
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from Full-Tilt Parenting: Strategies, Insights, and Connection for Parents Raising Neurodivergent Children
TPP 266a: A Conversation with Poet and Advocate LeDerick Horne
TPP 522: A Whole Child Approach to ADHD with Phil Boucher, M.D.
TPP 091a: A Conversation With Steve Silberman About His Book “Neurotribes”
TPP 521: A Conversation with Dr. Peter Gray About Restoring Childhood
TPP 253a: Advocate and Author Jonathan Mooney on Why Normal Sucks
TPP 520: Dr. Özgür Bolat on Why Rewards Backfire and the Real Science of Motivating Kids