3 Common Thinking Mistakes Parents Make with Teens—and What to Do Instead

I think of thinking traps as kind of patterns of thoughts that can prevent us from seeing things in sort of a balanced way or a more realistic, reasonable way.

Mental filter is when we tend to focus on one negative thing, and we kind of filter out anything that might be positive or neutral.

Percentage of times that we get very, very anxious about something, maybe in an interaction with our teen or about our teen or about ourselves, that may just be that we're kind of thinking in an unbalanced way and we're stuck in one of these traps.

Welcome back to the Parenting Pair Podcast. I'm Dr. Suzanne Allen.

And I'm Dr. Annalise Caron.

Have you ever gotten stuck thinking about one little thing and then all of a sudden it spirals into worries about your kid's future or worries about what the neighbor or the teachers are thinking about you.

Oh, if anyone listened to last week's podcast, I really laid out one of those where my thinking spiraled into all different directions that were very catastrophic or felt that in the moment and kind of very black and white very quickly.

Yes. So, if this is not just us, and this is you too, then we've got a topic for you today. We're gonna be talking about thinking mistakes or thinking traps, and how, when those come up, how we can shift our thinking a little bit to help us be more clear, more calm, more centered in our interactions with our teens. Yeah.

And so I think that highlights what exactly is a thinking trap, right? Because people might think, What does that mean exactly?

And I think of thinking traps as kind of patterns of thoughts that can prevent us from seeing things in sort of a balanced way or a more realistic, reasonable way. And these thinking traps we can sort of get stuck in and they tend to lead our thinking oftentimes to more unpleasant or more negative thoughts about a situation.

Yep. Yep. Is that right? Exactly. And when we get stuck in these traps, it can be really hard.

We get very narrow focused. I think a lot of times about it's a narrow focus versus that kind of multifaceted that there might be multiple ways to look at

a situation and those traps get us stuck in kind of looking at something one way. And if that one way is kind of negative or stressful or problematic, then it can feel much worse than maybe the situation actually is.

Mhmm. And, you know, how we think about things impacts how we feel about it and often kind of the behavior of the things that we do about it. So it's important to be aware of. And like today, we're going be talking about how to expand those thoughts. So we often say, you know, trust your gut, listen to your thinking, trust yourself, and we do stand by that.

We want to encourage parents and our kids and teens to pay attention to their own thinking and and trust in themselves. And at the same time, it's also not so bad to have a little bit of like a helpful kind of skepticism sometimes with our thoughts of like, is Is this really true or is this really helpful or is this just one way to look at it? Right. And I think a time to queue into that would be if you're noticing that you're highly emotional about something. And oftentimes we have good reason to be upset or emotional, but there's a percentage of times that we get very, very anxious about something, maybe in an interaction with our teen or about our teen or about ourselves, that may just be that we're kind of thinking in an unbalanced way and we're stuck in one of these traps.

Mhmm.

Have you ever had that happen?

Yes. So I I have this example and it's kind of a silly one, but it's one that fourteen years later stands out to me because I I think I had the time and space because I was alone to really recognize like, woah, what am I doing here? So I used to work across the street from a Target that stayed open very late, and I worked very late running groups. And I actually had taught thinking traps and errors that night in the group, and then went over to Target, which is a dream to shop in at like 11:00 at night because there's no one there.

Mhmm.

I went to the checkout line and I think there were two and there happened to be someone in front of me. And that person was struggling with coupons or something and it was taking an excessive amount of time. And as I was standing there, I kept thinking to myself, like, I always do this. I always pick the wrong line.

I can't believe this. Like, did it again. Always?

Uh-huh. And then I think because there was no one else in this target, and I had a moment, I thought to myself, wait a minute. I just taught these thinking traps. Like, how many times have I been in this target late at night? Multiple times a week for many, many years.

And how many times have I come to the checkout line and how many times has this happened to me where I've been stuck behind someone that took an excessive amount of time? I would

say out of the hundreds, maybe this was the second time that happened. Right. But in the moment, it felt really frustrating. And probably what increased that frustration was the thought, Why does this always happen to me? I always choose the wrong line.

Mhmm. Right? Yeah. And as a result of that frustration, I'm texting my husband, now I'm going to be extra late. I can't believe this.

And then meanwhile, I have to tell you, once I caught this and kind of laughed to myself, I actually wound up picking up, like, an Us Weekly or a People magazine, and I was like, know what? Embrace the moment. And I stood there and read some celebrity gossip and enjoyed myself for

the extra few minutes while this person figured it out. So this this is a great example because it really highlights the benefit of catching the thinking trap, catching, you know, that sort of all what you did there was all or nothing thinking. I'm always in this line. And when you catch it, then you could pivot. So we don't have to give some of these more unbalanced or thinking trap kind of thoughts so much attention.

So let's jump right to it. We want to highlight three thinking traps that are very common in parent, tween, and teen relationships. Right? What's the first one?

Let's start

with the shoulds. Yes. Oh, the shoulds are a good one, right? Yep. The shoulds are like, He should do this.

I should do that. He should be in bed right now. They shouldn't have. They shouldn't have. Yeah.

Right? Here's the thing with the shoulds. The shoulds are very all or nothing. Because if your teen should have taken the garbage out and didn't, should have gotten to school on time or didn't, If it should, it's one or the other. So if they didn't do it, they've kind of failed.

And so it leads to this kind of, you know, automatic problem and more intense upset. And High so pressure situation and often a feeling of injustice. Right. Right. I do all of this for you and you just should do this one thing and then you don't.

And that creates, even just saying that to me, I feel a little more anxious, you know, but we as parents tend to go to that a lot. Right? And it often comes from a good place. He should do this because we know that it could help him or her to do that thing. Yeah.

Right? So a lot of the thing where the shoulds come up, it's with good intention, but that should is actually a trap and will make us and our teens more anxious, more upset. So my kind of intervention or way of shifting away from the shoulds is to just as a teaching point, there really are few real, real deep shoulds in life. Know? Like, I tell clients of mine, you know, don't kill your neighbor.

Okay. That's like a should. I'm willing to get behind that one. But that's We're not going to correct you or have you catch that

should in session if Hold you say that to

on to that should. Okay? Killing your neighbor, killing your friend, killing anyone, you know, just that one's a should. Yeah. But if we can switch our language for many of the other things that we feel are Schutz to I would like it better if, it would be nicer if, my very strong preference would be, that sort of softens it a little bit.

So yeah, I would like it better if you get to bed on time. My strong preference would be that you didn't make that choice and get arrested. That is my strong preference. Right? But when it's a should, then we've failed and then it just increases the intensity.

My strong preference leads me to be able to think, Okay, well what do we do now? As opposed to just being in that heightened emotion.

Yeah. I also interject sometimes the one for clients I encourage using, I wish. Yes. Because there's something about that word that has a little bit of like, I don't know, hopefulness or compassion to it. Like I really wish that hadn't happened.

Or I wish that I had said something when this person, you know, made that disparaging statement. Like I really wish that I had done that. But that subtle shift in language,

the I wish, the I would like it better if I prefer, It just leads to less judgment. It feels less criticizing. It's also softer on yourself because a lot of the shoulds parents give themselves. I should have helped him. I should have been better in that situation.

I should have known and done something differently. Right? It's very easy to look backwards and see something that maybe in the moment just wasn't clear. So I agree. I think it just softens it.

And so it doesn't change that like you like something or you agree with it or you're okay with it. It just softens the language you're using either towards another person and yourself. And when you can soften that a little bit, it tends to open up more possibilities of how you manage that and whether that's acceptance and learning to live with something that may be taught. Yep. Or it's helping keep you better focused in the moment to then think more clearly about what to do now that that thing that you didn't prefer or you wished hadn't happened did.

Yeah.

Wonderful.

Yeah. All right. So those are the shoulds.

Those are the shoulds.

Up next, mental filter. Mental filter is when we tend to focus on one negative thing and we kind of filter out anything that might be positive or neutral. So any other information, details, any things that that may trend neutral or positive, nope. We zone right in on the negative.

And for mental filter, when I talk with clients about this and think about it myself, I have two visuals. The first one I'll just mention, but not really focus on, is and this is reaching back, so I don't even know that these are there. But when I was a kid and I was in a sandbox, we would have like a sifter, you know, and you'd put the sand in the sifter and you'd kind of shake it and the little grains of sand would go out, but the bigger pebbles would stay in the sifter. Right? And it was fun to look at and fun to play with.

And I think my kids played with sifters, not as much as I did as a kid. But what rose to the top and stays when you use a sifter are those bigger pebbles. And that would be like when you're filtering out kind of the more broad perspective, the good things that happen between you and your teen, and you just focus on the problem. You kind of hyper focus there. So that's one visual, if that helps people, about how this thinking trap works.

But the one that really resonates for me or how I think about it, it links to when my son was young, he was in scouting, he still is, but he would have a flashlight that you could kind of push a lever and it would go really bright and small in the circle, you know, kind of in the how do I say that, Suzanne? The flashing out of the light?

Yeah, kind of right in your immediate path.

In the immediate path. Illuminates the immediate path. It just sort of it's very bright and very, you know, kind of directed, sort of a straight line. But then you could pull the lever back and that light would sort of expand out. So it would get dimmer.

It wouldn't be as intensely focused on that one area, but it would be broader so it would be a bigger kind of range of light. Right? And so when we think about mental the mental filter, I like to think if you over focus on your teen's problem areas or if you over focus on your own problem areas, which often happens if we're feeling, you know, if we have a lot of vulnerabilities and we're tired or we're feeling anxious, we tend to kind of our thinking goes to those things, and that's not entirely balanced. Right? So that's when the flashlight is really directed and you're putting a spotlight on the negative things.

But if you can kind of pull that lever back for yourself and remind yourself that there are many facets to your teen, not maybe just this one problem. Yep. Right? Or many ways to look at a situation, not this only one way that you're looking, that can go a long way. Right?

And I also just want to say we come by this honestly because, you know, if we think, you know, tens of thousands of years ago, kind of evolutionarily speaking, looking out for danger and looking for the problems kept us safe.

Right? That's the important stuff. You better watch out. That's the stuff you want to watch out for, and it's also the stuff you want to have stick.

Right. Right. And so that because you want to protect yourself and you want to protect your community or your tribe. Right? Or if you're out hunting and gathering, want to get away from, you know, the tiger sort of situation.

And so this is really hardwired and does to do, but when we're more emotional or have more vulnerability factors, we tend to do it more to focus on sort of filter out the positive or more balanced viewpoints or the good things about the day and just focus on the one small thing. So just trying to take a moment and kind of expand that light.

Yeah. And I, as you were talking, was, I was imagining this and also thinking about often parents that I've worked with and I'm sure you have as well that have really struggled through something significant with their child. So a very significant depressive episode, suicidality, you know, a car accident, some sort of trauma or something like that, that that, you know, is so impactful and often for long periods of time after that it may, there may be things that kind of trigger those memories or make it hard for them to kind of, you know, step back and broaden that flashlight or see. Yeah. There may have been reasons for a while to be very narrowly focused on certain risk factors or concerns or other things.

And so, you know, I say that just because, you know, for each family kind of, you know, they have to kind of figure out for themselves kind of when is the time to zoom in and when is that time to step back a little bit and widen the lens and look more broadly. But just being aware of the mental filter and how impactful that can be over time for your own mental health as a parent and also in your interaction with your teen. Because I do hear from a lot of teens, you know, sometimes when things are getting better or maybe they're really struggling in one area, but you know, they did okay in this or they had a good moment or a good day that they often find that sometimes interactions with their parents, their parent is still kind of looking for the bottom to drop or the thing to fall apart and that can feel so difficult and invalidating for them when they're trying to build up some of the positive or be able to see other aspects of their life besides some of the struggles.

And that's so important, I think, to keep in mind, right? That, you know, if parents have been through those more significant, very difficult times, it's understandable that your filter would go there. And in general, it doesn't mean that you're not tending to something if you're keeping a bigger picture in mind. Right? So you can That's

balanced. That's going away from that either or. Like you're either paying attention or you're stepping back. It's like, no, you can actually do both.

And you may be going through some very hard things, but just because one or a few things are very, very hard doesn't mean that everything is awful. And you're right, that sensitivity, because I hear that so often from teenagers, this feeling of like getting inadvertently, I think parents are meaning well, but getting the message from their parents because you're focused on wherever the problem is that they don't they want kids just want their parents to like believe in them and see when they're really making efforts or see when the things go well or see more than what might be perceived to some as their faults. And I think working to just bring to mind this mental filter and trying to bring in that bigger picture is soothing to you as a parent to remind yourself of that, but also can be really helpful in your interactions with your teen. So mental What's the third trap, Suzanne?

Number three, jumping to conclusions.

Oh, I never do that.

No, I always stay focused on the present moment and don't let my mind wander off into all those areas. Yeah. So jumping to conclusions is often when we kind of start with one piece of information, we, you know, get on the fast paced train down into the future and kind of make a lot of assumptions, judgments about what this means or what's going to happen next. And it usually shows up kind of in what we call mind reading, where we kind of make guesses. If anyone listened to last week's episode

Thank you, Suzanne for

About the same meet. Well, let me bring that one up.

That I did a lot of jumping to conclusions in a story I told about myself last week. And it did have to do with being concerned about what was going to happen in the future, being concerned about other people's judgments or how it would be impacting them. And I went off into a whole spiral that was really not at all staying in the present of what the issue was at the time. Nope. It was kind

of a grand story filled with mind reading and fortune telling.

Yes. Yes. Also different types of jumping to conclusions. Yes.

Yes.

So yeah. So and I think this teenagers, this age in life is ripe for parents to worry about what is coming and to jump to conclusions about teenage behavior because it coincides with a time when teenagers are naturally leading towards more autonomy, seeking more independence both emotionally, cognitively and behaviorally. So we don't know as much when they're tweens and teens as we did when they were younger about it. Which is appropriate.

But also Totally makes us feel more uncertain.

And uncertainty is is like the the, you know, the field with lots of seeds on it, kind of ripe for growth. And that uncertainty can lead to kind of filling in the blanks that we have with these kind of jumping to conclusion situations. So for instance, you know, a very classic one would be if a teenager goes out and tries drinking, right, depending upon someone's history or someone's anxiety or worries about this, the parent might jump to, Oh no, they're going have a substance problem. Or, Oh no, they're going to get arrested. You know?

And so they jump to those conclusions when actually it may just be that they dabbled and tried drinking to see what it felt like because that's what was going on. And that it doesn't have those long term implications.

Right? Yep. So being aware of that, being aware of, you know, kind of that story that you jump to or where your mind kind of goes can help, right, once you catch that, trying to slow that down and bringing yourself back to the moment.

Right. Back to the present. So if that teenager comes home and they've been drinking and that's obvious to you, probably and it depends sort of how that teenager is presenting themselves or, you know, experienced in that moment. But in that moment, it might be just making sure they have a glass of water and say we're gonna talk tomorrow. That might be the whole thing.

So we don't have to go to in the future what this will mean because they it's like, what's the most effective, you know, decision in this moment? Right? And then we can deal later with whatever discussions we may or may not want to have with our teen about that issue. Right? So it is true really kind of trying to, you know, if you're kind of time traveling into the future, you're probably going to be less effective in your problem solving than if you say, what are the facts right now and what's my best step right now?

And that might be pouring a glass of water and helping your kid, you know, get to bed or whatever it is. Yep. Yeah.

Okay. So I think that brings us to our what now. It sure does. And the what now is a question that I would love for people to ask themselves throughout the week. And it applies to actually, so it's a great kind of intervention question to help with these thinking traps.

And the question I would encourage parents to ask themselves is, what else could be true?

Mhmm. I like that question because it really does apply to all three traps that we spoke about today. It applies to the shoulds. Right? What else could be true?

Is it as bad as we think? Right? Can we manage this situation? What else can be true? Like, if it goes not in the way I think it should, might it still be okay on the other side?

Right? What if

it's Because we don't always have all the information. Sometimes I think, oh, my child should have emailed the teacher or my teen should have handled it this way. And then I find out that actually this teacher hates when students email them and you have to talk to them in person, you know?

And so my should actually Might have been really ineffective.

Yep.

Yeah. So what else can be true? Right? And the second one was the So, mental you know, that's again broadening that scope. What's another way to look at this?

What else could be true in this situation than just this one sort of problem or negative that my brain has decided to hyper focus on. Right? And then we have jumping to conclusions. Right? We're out here.

Oh, no. He's gonna have a substance use problem. He's going to be looked poorly by other parents. This is terrible. He's going to drive drunk.

Right? All of those kind of thoughts jumping to conclusions in the future. Right? What else could be true? What's another way to look at this?

And that then leads you to problem solve like, what can I do as a parent to, you know, be a supportive and helpful parent in this moment?

And I even think that what else could be true, you know, with the jumping to conclusions, I think this one comes up a lot. You know, sometimes it's in relation to a problem, right? A teen coming home after they've been drinking, or, you know, some sort of incident, right? But very often our teens are asking for or pushing for varying degrees of independence to be able to, you know, drive to a concert with their friends or stay over, you know, with a friend who's now in college. Right?

And I know as these questions come up in my household, I very quickly go to kind of my protective mom stance of, well, a there's lot of drunk drivers in town at night, so if they're driving out late, if they're driving a far distance and they get tired. Right? Like,

you know,

college they, someone might, you know, approach them with something they're not ready to handle. And some of those things may be true, so I want to listen to that and kind of what are my red flags going up But I also like to ask myself that question, like, what else could be true? Wow. Like, if they drive to this concert, they could have an amazing experience. They could feel like a totally capable person who's able to take care of themselves and do this.

They go stay with this friend at college. Like, what else could be true? Like, wow, this could open up their eyes to going away from home or to this type of a college experience. Like, you know, who knows who they're going to meet, right? But sometimes we go so towards what's going to go wrong and what is bad and what could happen that we forget to kind of ask what else could be true.

Like what could open up here? What opportunity, what experience could my teen have?

Which is highlighting. Know, all of these questions are nuanced, you know, but what you're highlighting there is the drive for autonomy that teens have and within reason our job is really to help support them in gaining that. So it's not there are times that you're going to say no or that there's a limit and we need that and kids need that. But I do think making sure that we're not being hijacked by some of these thinking traps before we kind of lay down all or nothing you should or you shouldn't or it's all bad can be

really helpful. Yeah. So if you feel like this has been helpful in any way to you in shifting some of your thinking or even just thinking about your thinking, we would love for you to share it with another parent because the odds are they may struggle with

this as well. And certainly, if you have any feedback about this episode, any ideas or questions that you'd like us to address in future episodes, don't hesitate to email us at hello@theparentingpair.com or DM us DM us on Instagram at the parenting pair. We really love hearing from you. So have a great week. And now a quick word from our lawyers.

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