Well, when your child becomes a teen, you can't talk to them the same way.

You can't use the same silly voices, and suddenly, it feels like there's a new language needed.

How do you make that adjustment as you communicate?

Well, I'm John Fuller, along with Dr. Danny Werta,

who heads up the focus on the Family Parenting Department,

and we're going to get right into a conversation that

focused President Jim Daly had with Dr. Ken Wilgis. He's a professional counselor, and

he has some great insights.

Let's get back into it. One of the problems you address is how many parents will

discipline their teenagers the same way they did when they were children,

kind of what I've been talking about. You know I'm gonna go out at the same way at 15 as I did when they were 8.

And that's just a lack of probably energy and focus

and thinking it through,

because you need to mature your relationship with the age of your child and so often

I'll see a mom talking to her teenager like an eight-year-old.

I'm going, uh-oh, that's got to be really demeaning to the poor kid.

Yeah, it is.

And if there's anything worse than a teenager that doesn't push back

against being demeaned like that, it's sometimes more and more teenagers

that don't push back again about being talked down to like that.

That can be almost their spirit broken enough that they don't even try anymore.

So yeah, it's not good.

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