Parenting teenagers untangled. 🏆 The audio hug for parents of teens and tweens. - 87: Where’s my village? The stress of parenting in the ‘sandwich generation’.

87: Where’s my village? The stress of parenting in the ‘sandwich generation’.

04/24/24 • 34 min

Parenting teenagers untangled. 🏆 The audio hug for parents of teens and tweens.

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My aunt and uncle provide a huge amount of free childcare so that their son and daughter-in-law can work, but many say that's not been their experience. The Boomers have become notorious as a generation who are known to have reaped the rewards of the post-war boom but who appear to be more interested in travelling and enjoying themselves than supporting the next generation in their child-rearing struggles.
Having a living parent who's 65 or older whilst raising a child under 18 is Pew Research's definition of someone in the Sandwich Generation. Being a Sandwich Generation parent in an ailing economy, means being pulled in many directions at the same time.
Pew says 'not only do many provide care and financial support to their parents and their children, but nearly four-in-ten (38%) say both their grown children and their parents rely on them for emotional support.'

In this episode we talk about the trials of the Sandwich Generation, and it's rather more nuanced than the headlines make it sound. We discuss how important it is for us all to build community, to have open discussions about our needs and expectations, and to live in the season of our life.

GENERATION: PEW RESEARCH DEFINITION

Gen Z – 1997 – 2012
Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996
Gen X were born between 1965 and 1980
Boomers can be broken into two segments (Beresford research) – the first is 1946 and 1954 and the second is 1955-1964
And the Silent Generation who were born between 1928 and 1945

RESOURCES USED:
https://www.pewresearch.org/social-trends/2013/01/30/the-sandwich-generation/#:~:text=A%20Profile%20of%20the%20Sandwich,are%20pulled%20in%20many%20directions.
https://www.newsweek.com/who-are-sandwich-generation-children-caring-parents-1778400
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sandwichgeneration.asp#:~:text=The%20sandwich%20generation%2C%20in%20the,%2C%20adult%20children%2C%20and%20grandchildren.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandwich_generation#Development_of_the_concept_and_definition
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210128-why-the-sandwich-generation-is-so-stressed-out

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I don't have medical training so please seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping.
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www.amindful-life.co.uk

What do you think of this episode? Do you have any topics you'd like me to cover?

GENERATION: PEW RESEARCH DEFINITION

Gen Z – 1997 – 2012
Millennials were born between 1981 and 1996
Gen X were born between 1965 and 1980
Boomers can be broken into two segments (Beresford research) – the first is 1946 and 1954 and the second is 1955-1964
And the Silent Generation who were born between 1928 and 1945

Support the show

Thank you so much for your support.

Previous Episode

86: Perfectionism: Help your teen, and yourself, overcome the need to be perfect.

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Nobody likes making mistakes, but some of us find it much harder than others. Whilst most of us look on with admiration at the kid who's prepared to keep working until they do things perfectly, underlying that drive can be a painful belief that they're never going to be good enough. The knock-on effect can be a lifetime of anguish and all sorts of issues with starting and finishing projects.
So when our listener asked us to talk about how to help her daughter who's showing signs of being a perfectionist, we bumped it up our schedule.
In essence, we parents need to strive to avoid black and white thinking and find the middle path; a growth mindset that welcomes mistakes as an opportunity to learn, and the resilience to use those mistakes to try again.
Some signs:

Frequent catastrophic reactions
Refusal to try new things
Being very self-critical and self-conscious

BOOKS:

The Perfectionism Workbook for Teens by Anne Marie Dobosz
Perfectionism: What's Bad about Being Too Good? by Miriam Adderholdt-Elliott, Miriam Elliott, & Jan Goldberg (Monarch Books)
When Perfect Isn't Good Enough: Strategies for Coping with Perfectionism by Martin M. Antony & Richard P. Swinson (New Harbinger Publications)
When Good Enough Isn't Good Enough: The Real Deal on Perfectionism by Thomas S., Ph.D. Greenspon (Free Spirit Publishing)

A lot of the research for this episode was drawn from an article by Amy Morin, the speaker who made 'The secret to becoming mentally strong. '

SOURCES:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/amymorin/2017/06/25/9-signs-youre-a-perfectionist-and-thats-not-a-good-thing/
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/young-adult/Pages/What-Fuels-Perfectionism.asp
https://www.verywellfamily.com/what-to-do-when-your-child-is-a-perfectionist-4147432
ANXIETY PDF:
//www.anxietycanada.com/sites/default/files/OvercomingPerfectionism.pdf

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Next Episode

88: School: Angry kids, bad behaviour, and school avoidance. What can parents and teachers do?

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Nearly one in five teachers in England has been hit by a pupil this year, according to a BBC survey.
But it's not just in England. Stricter school discipline is making a comeback to Australian classrooms in a bid to help teachers stamp out disruptive behaviour. France is bringing back school uniforms to tackle the issue, and in America, more than 70% of 1,000 educators said in a recent national survey that students are misbehaving more now than they did before the pandemic in 2019.

Meanwhile, teachers are leaving the profession faster than they're joining in the UK, and school avoidance rates are at an all-time high. It's a complex issue that Simon Currigan talks about a lot on his podcast, School Behaviour Secrets.
In this conversation he gives us his version of what's happening, gives us a top tip on how to deal with a teen when they've lost control, the importance of asking why... at least five times, and gives us a framework for understanding school avoidance.
NOTES TO SUPPORT THE PODCAST:
SEND - Special Educational Needs and Disability
SEMH - Social Emotional Mental Health needs; part of SEND
EMOTION COACHING:

Empathise with their position - connection before correction.
Boundaries based on values.
Problem-solving - get them to engage in coming up with solutions.

The Toyota Five
RAIDED framework for understanding school avoidance:

Relationship problem
Anxiety
Identity - what do people like me do in a situation like this?
Direction - where they are focusing so it can be a desire to be out of school because of what's happening at home.
Environment - is the school too overstimulating or do they have sensory needs?
Dislocation - do they feel unwelcome in the school community, as if they don't belong.

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Thank you so much for your support.

Parenting teenagers untangled. 🏆 The audio hug for parents of teens and tweens. - 87: Where’s my village? The stress of parenting in the ‘sandwich generation’.

Transcript

Rachel Richards00:00:02.459

Hello, and welcome to teenagers untangled the audio hub for parents going through the teen years. I'm Rachel Richards, journalist, parenting coach, a mother of two teenagers and two bonus daughters.

Susie Asli00:00:12.240

Hi there. I'm Susie Asli and mindfulness coach, mindful therapist and musician and mother of three teenagers, two of them.

Rachel Richards00:00:20.940

Right,