CHM 154: Raising Teens with Mindfulness

Hi, everyone, Welcome to the Christian Homeschool Mom's Podcast. I'm Dimitria, your host, and today I thought I would try to do something a little bit different for this episode because I wanted to combine my YouTube with my audio podcast. So if you're all on YouTube right now, I invite you to subscribe to my Christian Homeschool Mom's podcast over in Apple podcast. If you're listening in Apple Podcasts, I invite you to head over to Mom's est on YouTube and I'll leave links and show notes and links and the videos as well to both so I can cross promote both of them. But I just want you to let you know that both of these resources that are available, and they're not all one and the same, that there's different opportunities to listen to different types of content on both platforms. So just so you know that there is the content that can help you in your homeschool on both my YouTube channel and my podcast, I wanted to make sure that I did that today and I just wanted to try this way of podcasting again. I used to do it this way once in a while and just thought I would try again. Also, I have been thinking about some topics that I think would be helpful on this channel at mom's est, because I had changed my content to reflect my business and what I'm doing with podcasting and web design and so forth. Of course, the majority of my viewers over the past ten years came because of the homeschool content, and I want to continue helping you in the area of homeschooling. So I thought I would take a little break on the business content and talk more about homeschooling and parenting and things that would help you in your life as a busy mama raising your kids, as a Christian woman, as a Christian mom. So that's what I'm doing on this episode and hopefully on my YouTube channel, and hopefully my channel will start to reflect a little bit more of that in twenty twenty four and beyond. Okay, so I want to share about homeschooling teens, but from the perspective of mindfulness and how mindfulness is important when you are raising your teenager and how to implement mindfulness practices in raising your team. So for those of you who are watching on video, I am looking back and forth on my notes, so no worries. I'm just looking to see what I want to say next. So I don't forget anything. And the first thing I want to share is how important it is to have open dialogue between you and your teen So if you're raising a child that has now entered their teen years thirteen through eighteen, they are on a whole different path than they were when they were littles, and life is different with them. Raising them is a whole different dynamic, and so we really have to as parents be mindful of how they're feeling and help them navigate the world, you know, as they are figuring things out. And so one of the things I've learned as I've raised my now twenty one year old and now sixteen year old is that having open communication with them as they've gotten older has been so important for us. And I haven't been always that great at it, especially with my oldest, because they say, you're oldest, are your guinea pigs. In some ways you are trying out different things with them and we just don't know, and so you try and you live and you learn. So what I've learned with her is how to open the dialogue and how to have a communication where I'm not pointing fingers or doing anything to help to make her feel intimidated. So learning to give my kids a safe space to express themselves is something that I had to learn because growing up we don't always have those experiences, or some of us do, some of us don't, right, But learning how to have effective communication with your team is so important so they can come to you with anything. You want your child to be able to feel like they can come to you and talk to you about anything, ask you any questions, and even let you know what's happening in their world without feeling ashamed of themselves. That they can come to mom, come to debt, so have that open dialogue for them. That's my first thing. As far as mindfulness, as parents, we have to be mindful when we're parenting our kids, but we want to help them in their mindfulness practices too, So we're going to get to that in just a moment. The next thing is to establish consistent routines. So our teens are learning how to develop routines. They're learning how to do life right as a teen in that in between stage. They're not quite adults yet, so they're learning how to develop routines that are going to help them with their everyday life stuff. Right. So education like the stuff they're doing in school routines that help them with their wellness, Like they need to know things that they just don't know, and we have to help them to know that, to learn it and know it. So we as moms and dads, we have to help them be consistent with their routine. So as a homeschool mom, I think one thing that can help with mental wellness is to show them how to work and play. So giving them the idea of structuring their life in such a way they have balance, right, they work and then they play, they take breaks, So they're not one hundred percent all in academic and that's all they do, or they're not all about sports, or they're not all about loafing around the house. There has to be some balance of how they're approaching their life and taking ownership of their schedule. So teaching them that to be mindful of their day means they're going to have a space of time where they're working and they're working really hard and consistent. Then they're going to have a time in their day where they take breaks, and lastly they're going to play right So that as a teenager, could mean that they're on their Xbox or they're playing with a friend, going to a friend's house, just a lot of things that they do for fun. But that's their playtime. But that playtime is not all the time, just because they're homeschooling. So the structure and that's teaching them how to be mindful. Actually, as adults, a lot of us are still learning how to be mindful of our own space, right. We are still learning how to take care of ourselves. Some of us have never learned how to properly care for ourselves, and so we go into adulthood thinking that it's all work, work, work, work, work, right, and a lot of us jump into the world of finding jobs and careers and thinking that that is the way that life goes in order to keep the food on the table and the bills paid. So we get out of balance. And it's easy to get out of balance in our fast paced world. And so what we want to do with our kids is teach them how to have balance. But first we have to find that too, right, we have to be practicing mindfulness and self care for ourselves as women. So if you are a mom who works, and I'm saying this as well as you know, integrating homeschooling, because some of us who homeschool work as well. You can do both. So even if you work outside the home, you work inside the home. So however you consider your lifestyle, we are all working in some capacity. Every woman works. Everybody works, right, and it's just how you look at your work, and we have to find balance in our work so that we're taking care of ourselves. So recently, I personally hadn't made a life change where I've had to make some decisions to focus on my health. That was work that I was committing to outside of my home life. I have work at home as well, and I also have work in my business that I've been building for a while. So there's all areas of work that I've really been involved in and you can't do it all. So you have to take care of yourself. And one of the things that we teach our children as they're watching us as they're growing up is how to find balance, whatever that means for you, whatever. Even if there's such a thing as balance, we really don't know. But how to be mindful is what I want to reiterate here, is how to find our piece of mindfulness in our life. Our kids need to see that. They need to see those examples of us taking care of ourselves, and therefore they're going to feel a lot more compelled to take care of themselves as well as they're watching mom do it and watching dad do it. So when we burn ourselves out, we're giving a bad example to our kids that, you know, this is what we do in life. To make things work, we have to annihilate ourselves. We have to really just put ourselves on the back burner and not give ourselves the space in the room we need to breathe because we need oxygen, and our kids need to see that we're taking the oxygen for ourselves. Teenagers have a lot of unique challenges. Okay, so they have academic pressures, they have social pressures, they have social media pressure. Sometimes that can lead into some negative and toxic behavior or things that they're experiencing online like cyberbullying unfortunately, and they might even have some really high parental expectations. And that's why it's important as a mom that we know how to address our kids in a way that helps them to feel open with sharing with us and feel right. So we're going to now talk about fostering social connections because that's one of the big ones that homeschool moms want to know about or we talk about, because it's important. As our kids get older, they need the social and they It's really funny how when they're younger they need it, but not as much as they do when they're older. And then when they're younger, we have more energy to take them to the social events, and as they get older, we have less energy to take them the social but that's when they need it the most. So that's where I am right now in my life, where my investment to take care of my daughter's social life is the biggest part of what I do for her right now is taking care of her social life because that's something she needs. And I think as homeschool parents we have to be okay with the fact that our kids need social and that it's not a big bad S word that the homeschool community has said it is, and we know it not. We often say that we are response to people who ask about what about the socialization issue is that we laugh it off and say, oh, our kids are so busy and they have so many opportunities and things to do that there's really no need to worry about our social skills, and that's true. There's no need to worry from those on the outside looking in at homeschoolers and thinking how do you even get out of the house and what do you do? Like, there's no need for that kind of concern because homeschoolers have a lot of things that we do for socialization. But I don't want to trivialize the social part because I realized that there are many families who may live remotely and may not have access to resources that are local, and so for that, I want to say that there are other ways to garner that social interaction that your kids need. You can get a hold of that through homeschool co ops that may meetly, and it's the next best thing, right If you can't find something local, you can find something virtual, and there are virtual homeschool pods and homeschool groups. Now we live in an area where there's a lot of things happening for homeschoolers, and I don't have to worry that my daughter won't have anything to do. However, one of the things that was important to us when she was younger, like maybe fourteen thirteen, fourteen fifteen, she was enrolled in an online school, and it was important that we had to find that extra social for her because that's not happening at her online school. So we got to really plugged into our church youth group and that was the thing that just it was the icing on the cake for her. And we're really blessed to be part of a church that offers so many events and activities for the youth. But we also have found, most recently and if you've been listening to my last couple of episodes, that she's really been finding her her groove and finding her tribe of friends at school as she's been going to school part time. So I talked about like some of the reasons why we chose part time school for her and what that means and what it's about in previous episodes of the Christian Homeschool Mom's podcast. So if you're watching on YouTube, you can go back and see some of the archives of what we're doing with that. But that's how we find our social connections. But I'm just saying, if you don't have something like that, then find an online group and a virtual pod or create your own. And so we're going to have a guest in a couple of weeks that we'll be sharing some information about that with us, and I cannot wait to share her with you guys. I'm so excited and that will be coming up really soon and I'll be sure to post that interview on the YouTube channel. But one more thing about social extracurriculars are always a great way to get your kids involved who don't have the socials. So for us, it was Ballet when she was back in doing her online school with connections, and it could be anything that your kids are interested in, you know, get them involved. There's sure to be some community events that you can have your kids involved in where maybe some other homeschoolers attend as well, just because that's kind of a meetup spot for homeschoolers. So ask around see what homeschool groups are available in your area. If you have to travel once or twice a month to get to them, it's worth it, you know, just so you can provide that social for your kids. And lastly, I want to talk about addressing anxiety and stress in our homeschoolers. So for our teenagers, like I said earlier, they can have social anxiety a lot more easily than we can, and sometimes they won't even talk to us about it. And sometimes they may be going through things online that we don't know about, and there could be cyberbullying we don't know about. That's why it's important as parents that we take extra precautions to see what's happening on their end. Check their phones, check their accounts, have their using names and passwords to their accounts, so we know what's going on with them, and just try to stay aware, try to be in the know and establish those boundaries in the beginning that hey, we're going to give you this phone, but it's to be used in a certain way, and we have access to everything you do, so you know, there's no secrets and no hiding. And that's one of the things that my husband and I really made clear to our daughter before we handed a phone over to her. So anxiety and stress, how to address that. There are a couple of things you can do, and as a Christian homeschool mama, of course, I'm going to recommend prayer is the first thing of we want to pray for our kids. They need to hear us praying for them. That auditory hearing mom and dad pray over them is healing to their spirit. Whether you realize it or not, it is helping them so much. So anytime you pray for them and they hear you pray for them, just know that you are doing your child a really big favor and they need to hear it. They need to hear Mom and Dad say you're so important that I'm going to sit here and we're going to pray for you right now, like in the moment, not when I'm in my private space tonight later on when I have time, but right now, because you're important. And so I think that's I think it's a good way to show your child how special they are to not only mom and dad, but to God, that in the moment, in the here and in the now, that their feelings are important and God understands them and wants to help them. So stress management, besides prayer, I think it's really important to show them ways to deal with their stress. And one way it could be through journaling. And if you are a journaling kind of person, then that's probably going to be super easy for you to teach your child how to do journaling. If you are not a journaling person, then just introduce it to them and show them, like, here's some tools that you can use. Here's a journal, here's some mar and cool pins and stickers or whatever you want to give them and say, hey, go for it. Here's a diary. Start writing. And if they're afraid to write in it, then just you maybe share with them some ways. They can do that online and have it password protected. But they need a space where they can write their thoughts and not feel like those thoughts are going to be exposed. They need a safe space to pour out their thoughts so that they can sort out their mixed emotions as teens, and it helps to reduce their stress and anxiety. And another thing is therapy. And I always say that, like, even when you've prayed and they've journaled, and they've gone on their walks and they've taken some nice deep breasts and all that, it's good for them, but it's okay if they need to see a therapist. And I think the stigma that Christians have over therapy has been a long time coming to an end, and we need to recognize the importance of being able to share our thoughts and have someone got its through what we're thinking. And if you want to, if you feel more comfortable with the Christian therapist or something more faith based. Then that's, you know, something you can decide for your family. But therapy is perfectly fine, and that could also mean getting Christian counseling at your church. But a lot of the time it's just having someone who is a third party outside of the intermediate family that would be willing to talk with your child. And depends on how you feel about that as far as privacy issues and all of that. You know what your take is on how much how willing you are to have your child talk to someone else. But again, there are all the other options I listed besides therapy. You also have journaling, You also have family counseling. You also have the other ways that your child can get their socialization in so that they can meet friends and have peers that they can talk to and trust. And as a parent, as a mom, if you can just remember that your child just needs space to be a teenager. They just need space where you understand them and you're not constantly, you know, all over them about everything every minute of the day, just fussing out them all day and they're always doing something wrong every second. And of course we get triggered as moms because they're things that we're trying to teach them, and they're just a lot of the time not getting it, are not being you know, respectful, you know, and so we have to be patient, but we have to be firm and consistent with repercussions if they don't do what they're supposed to. But at the same time, remember that mindfulness means that we also have to be mindful, not just expecting our kids to learn how to cultivate their own sense of mindfulness, but we as moms have to be mindful and that we've got to be patient with ourselves as mothers, that this is our first time some of us, you know, our first trip around, and it is not easy, right And so when you're raising teens, we have to just remember that as our kids are being encouraged to be mindful, that we ourselves have to practice mindfulness to know that giving ourselves grace is the ultimate thing. Right now, life is not going to look perfect, and raising our kids isn't going to look just right all the time. We have to give ourselves the grace that we need to grow into the kind of mom that we're supposed to be for this season. So motherhood is constantly evolving. As we are patient with ourselves, then we can be more patient with our kids and teach them how to be patient with themselves. So that's what I have for you on today's podcasts and video and I hope you enjoyed it. If you did, please subscribe to my YouTube channel hit the like button, and if you're on Apple Podcasts, please leave a review and give all five stars. And I can't wait to share more encouragement for homeschool moms as well as women of faith, and I'll be back later for more. Thank you for watching, thank you for listening, and until next time, Happy homeschooling,