Navigating the Tween & Teen Years: Mindfulness and Connection

welcome to the Where Parents Talk podcast. We help grow better parents through science, evidence and the lived experience of other parents.

Learn how to better navigate the mental and physical health of your tween teen or young adult through proven expert advice. Here's your host, Lianne Castelino.

Welcome to Where Parents Talk. My name is Lianne Castelino. Our guest today is a conscious living coach, certified mindfulness teacher and habits coach.

Kristen Manieri specializes in helping individuals cultivate intentional and connected lives. She's also an author, a podcaster, and a mother of two. She joins us today from Victoria, bc. Thank you so much for being here.

Thanks for having me.

Kristen, I wonder if we could start with a bit of your background. What led you down the path of focusing in the areas of mindfulness, connection and personal growth?

Well, I think I've been a bit of a self help junkie for probably, gosh, more than two decades now.

And as I kind of went further and further down that rabbit hole, I realized that everything that I want to be, everything that I want to create, the thing that is upstream from that is mindfulness, presence, awareness, consciousness. It's my ability to actually notice and observe myself.

So whether I wanted to apply that to parenting or to business or just general enjoying my life, I just don't think those things. Like, I just don't think we can reach our potential without developing the skill of actually paying attention. I just don't think it's possible.

So what was the tipping point then that led you to that realization that mindfulness is at the root and at the core of what you needed to be focused on?

I guess I got tired of things making sense in hindsight or looking back and thinking I wish I'd said that differently or I wish I done that differently. You know, my, my life just felt like there was just so many moments of, I guess maybe just regrets, might even be too strong of a word.

But just in general, looking back and wishing I had done something 10 minutes ago or 10 days ago differently. And that just led me to realize I'm just not present, like I'm not yielding, wielding myself.

I'm just sort of reacting to the world around me and I'm just sort of like whatever comes out of my mouth and my personality and what I'm thinking the other person wants me to say or do or how I'm feeling physiologically. Maybe I've had too much caffeine or too much sugar and blah. Like that produces a way of being.

I was just tired of not being kind of in Control of myself, like, not managing myself. And when I started to learn about mindfulness and I realized, oh, that's how you do it.

That's how people manage themselves, are in charge of themselves.

And we meet people like that, and it's almost a little disconcerting when someone is so steady and so centered and so aware of what they're saying and who they're being. And not in a calculating or manipulating way, but they're just. There's such power in it when we're around people like that. And I wanted that.

I wanted to stop, you know, just making the gaffes and mistakes. And I. I just wanted to be more powerful in my life. And so that was really what. What led me to it.

How would you go about characterizing the kind of impact that. That mindfulness has had on your life?

Well, that the ability to. To increase the space between what happens and how I respond to it is like, that's actually where we live our lives.

So whether it's savoring something, right? I mean, how many times do we eat a meal? Probably 99% of the food we put in our mouths, we don't really pay attention to it.

And some of those meals aren't really worth paying attention to anyways. Right. If I'm just stuffing some toast in my mouth in the morning, like, on my way out the door, I don't really need to savor that.

Someone could argue with that. But.

But there are certain moments in my life where maybe I've flown across the world to do something, or I've made a reservation or I've cooked something, and I. And I'm so mindless in it. And so I think that when we can create this space of like, oh, I'm here, I'm here. What.

What's accessible is savoring appreciation, actually being in it. Like, I'm here. I'm enjoying this thing. And. And that is the same in our relationships. Like, I can savor my relationships.

I can appreciate the people I share my life with. And it's also where I access my discerning.

I know we're going to talk a lot about teens, and I think that what mindfulness does is it gives us this little space to go, maybe I shouldn't say that, or I shouldn't react like that, or maybe I should choose my tone and my words very carefully right now, or maybe I need to circle back on this in three days when it's a little cooler or we get a chance to be more directed rather than just constantly reacting to our teens, which I have no judgment of, that they're very volatile right now. There's a lot that they do and say that we don't like, or we wish that was different, or we're worried who.

Who are they going to be, you know, if they can't pick their socks up, all the, like, who, like, how are they ever going to live on? Like, we can go there so fast, and it gets so explosive.

But when I can, I can just create these little microseconds of awareness of pause, where I'm like, okay, and I can access the wiser part of me. I just do better. I do better. The relationships feel better, I feel better.

I just feel more at the helm of myself in those relationships rather than this constant sort of, like, pinging off of each other all the time.

So in what ways then, Kristen, has mindfulness helped you in parenting?

I would say the first thing that I really experience now in terms of how mindfulness has helped me is that I think there's a lot of grief that parents go through when we transition from little kids or even elementary school kids into tweens and teens, and they start to individuate. And that's a nice way of saying they start to push us away, right? Yeah.

And it's not a small thing, you know, like, it can hurt. It's like, there's some real grief. I.

I often joke, like, I wish that I had gotten, like, a memo in the mail that said, hey, by the way, the next time you hold your daughter's hand will be the last time. You don't. You don't know.

You're not aware that these things, you know, them coming into bed and snuggling you, or them letting you come into their bed and snuggle them, or just the ways that a relationship evolves into teenhood where some things are lost. And it's hard. It can be really, really difficult and very confronting.

But mindfulness, I think just being able to be aware of what I'm amidst, like, being able to step back and be like, huh, what's happening? Where are they developmentally? What are.

What are some of the signs they're giving me that I'm not picking up on because I just want to keep this relationship going the way that it's always been. I think that that's a tool that has allowed me to just be less reactive emotionally, like hurt, offended, just taking it personally. It's.

It allowed me to see that 99.9% of the things my kids do have nothing to do with me. And that wasn't the case before.

You know, we sort of orbited around each other for many, many, many years and now they're off creating their own, you know, atmospheres. And if I'm not careful, I might be upset by that or hurt by that or angered by that.

And the truth is it's all part of the process of them launching and becoming, becoming adults. And I actually want that. But I have to be aware that that's what I'm amidst.

And I think mindfulness gives me access to that wiser internal guidance system about raising teens.

You describe it as sort of a period of grief. You know, many parents look at it as a prolonged period of disconnection in some cases.

What do you see as some of the biggest challenges in maintaining strong relationships in those tween and teen years as they're going through, you know, adolescent development?

Well, definitely that individuating is not smooth or graceful. Right? It, you know, it, it's, it doesn't just happen. Like one minute they're sort of very connected and then next minute they're adults.

Like there's this probably eight or ten year process, maybe even longer of pushes and pulls and it's not, it's just not very graceful and it can be really difficult. So I think for us finding some key rituals of connection, that one of the easiest ways to do them is that they're already there.

Like for example, my kids go to school in a different district, so I drive them to school or my husband drives them to school. School. And if I'm not careful, I might look at that like a aggravation. But I'm mindful that this is a beautiful place. We intersect every day.

And so I'm careful about not getting too frustrated if we're late out the door because I know how that's going to spoil the next 25 minutes.

I'll circle back and say, hey, it's really getting on my nerves, like you know, later that night that we're always leaving five minutes late, 10 minutes late. It's really feels like you're disrespecting my time. But, but in the moment I'm like, okay, this is gold.

This 25 minutes in the car, you know, everybody's got their phones away. That's part of the we, that's one something we really strive for. But we talk, we've got, we have good conversations.

So I think as kids begin to individuate, we have to get really ninja about, okay, where can I find that connection?

Is it Dinner is it when I have to drive them to dance or if, you know, if they, if they bid for my connection like him, hey, can we go to McDonald's for dinner? My knee jerk reaction would be God, no. Right? I don't want to eat that and I don't want you eating that.

But being able to see past that and be like, no, it's, this is an opportunity, like I can seize on this. This is a moment of connection and how can I. So it really forces us to be, again, I'll use that word, ninja.

Like really vigilant, like I'm scanning for opportunities and I'm doing that while I'm trying to live my own life, while I'm trying to, you know, be in a good marriage, while I'm trying to have work and my own relationships. And so that's a lot like, that's a tall order to pay that close of attention.

But when we do, we see like ah, this moment right now where I'm cutting carrots and they came in and they're making themselves a snack, like connection, connection. Like I can cross the threshold here and be over there with them for a minute and that's going to make a huge difference.

Absolutely.

Now, when it comes to creating an environment where parents and kids feel comfortable about tackling tough topics, any suggestions on what parents can do in that kind of context? Where let's say the communication hasn't been great or the connection hasn't been consistent. Any thought on that?

You know, I think that there's sort of like baby steps into like wouldn't we all want our kid to just come right to us and say hey, I've, you know, I mean, you don't want this conversation, but I think I might be pregnant or I, I'm thinking about doing drugs or something like that. I mean ideally, right, we don't want to be the last to know in all of those situations. But that feels like what, what do you mean?

You'd have a kid that would come, come to you with something that huge and that confronting for them and for the parent. Well, what's upstream from that is lots of other rehearsal for that.

So what I mean by that is get really good at when your kid talks to you about their friends, that their friends did drugs, that their friends have been skipping school, that there's a bunch of kids in their class that have been vaping, that they have a friend of a friend who did something in the back of the bus that is now getting spread around the school. Get really good at Being super non judgmental and non reactionary about that.

So when you're, when your teen or your tween tells you something someone else did, that's a rehearsal for them what they'll, what they think they'll experience if they tell you what they did.

So if they say, you know, there's these three girls at school and they're starting to sneak out at lunch and they're vaping to be like, oh my God, that's disgusting, what are they thinking? What kind of girl I'm calling the school, blah, blah.

You've just, you've just, you know, shown your cards to your teen that says, when you tell me something like that about you, I'm gonna freak out. I'm gonna make a big deal about it. I might breach your trust by going to someone else. I'm going to be, you know, just create a yucky interaction.

But if I can just practice going like, wow, I wonder, I wonder why they're doing that. Or I wonder if they understand the impact of vaping. Or I wonder, gosh, I wonder what their parents would think about that.

Or I wonder what they'll think of that ten years from now when they look back at these teens. If I can just get into a state of calm curiosity, that's definitely going to start producing, we'll be rehearsing.

But you could even go further back from that. Hey, I read an article about vaping is on the rise.

Or, hey, I was listening to podcast and they were talking about consent and how that's being taught now in school.

Like, even if your kid isn't coming to you and dishing all the secrets of the things that are going on, you, you can sort of manufacture those discussions by saying, I read or I heard or. So there's all of that is rehearsal for them being able to come directly to you. I hope that answers your question that you were asking.

Yeah, it does.

And then building on that, when we talk about, you know, parents and kids and conflict and disagreements, like, what can parents keep in mind to preserve and even strengthen the relationship with their, with their child? In that context, yeah, I'll say, I'll.

Say a few things about that. First is the do over and the circle back are two of my favorite things in my toolbox. And I'm sure most people know what those are.

But I'll clarify just in case. Circle back is we have a little bit of the example that I gave earlier was my daughter's late getting in the car in the morning.

That's a good opportunity for me to use a circle back because I don't want to start the day off with a burn like, you may be late. I just don't. I just don't want to do that.

And yet she doesn't need to learn about respecting my time and the impact of her being late on me and her sister. So circle back is like, I come back way later. Like, way, way, way later later when I feel like we're simpatico and I say, hey, just real quick.

I just. There's really. That really stonk this morning. I really can. What can we do? Can we.

Is there anything I can do to help you in the morning to move things along? Is there anything you need to commit to? Like, how can we do this better?

Way different of a conversation at 8pm than at 8am like, way totally different. The do over is say I do blow it in the morning and I say, God damn, we're gonna be late again.

Next time you're taking the bus and I lose it, I can, if I can catch it as I'm literally driving, can say, can I just do that all over again. Hey, let's just go to school. I want to have a great morning with you. I love you. We'll talk about this later. I want you to have a great day.

I want to have a great day. Let's just move on. Like, I want to do that over. Those work, like, they work really well and it models them to do it.

You know, my kids are great do overs and circle backers. I think that those are really great, great tools. Yeah, those are the two things that I'll think of, like, right off the top of my head.

Those are excellent tips for sure. Because what you're talking about is pausing and, you know, parking. The emotion that may come out that you don't want to come out, but you.

Once it's out, it's out. So I think, you know, those are really great, great tips for sure. Now, Kristen, you are a mindfulness coach. You're also a habits coach.

What do you believe is fundamentally important for the average person to know about habit building?

Sure, I. The first and foremost thing is that probably 95% of our lives are habits. We're. We're already doing it.

And some of those habits we like and they help us do what we want to do and feel how we want to feel. And some of them, we don't like them. You know, maybe digging into a gallon of ice cream every night at 8 o'clock is a habit.

You know, it's so in some habits, we just don't even think about at all. Like, we don't understand that there's sort of like an invisible infrastructure for our lives. And almost all it is built on habits.

And so I like to highlight that because the first thing I want people to realize is you're already really good at making habits. This isn't like, how would I do that? It's like, you've already done it.

The hard part is, is making sure that we're doing the right habits and, and sometimes having to kind of clean up a bad habit in order to build another one, you know, on top. And one thing I just want to point out really quickly is that habits that have meaning and that we really bring our presence to become rituals.

And teens and tweens love rituals. They do. We've done Tuesday treat day in our family since my kids were 3 years old. And now it's evolved.

And actually I was just talking about it with my daughter. We. It's just every Tuesday when I pick them up from school, we go out for a treat.

And yesterday, well, yesterday was Wednesday, we had to move it because they didn't have school on Tuesday.

We, we went to this beautiful little cafe and instead of going through, like, drive through, we went in and we sat down and we got our things in a mug and we just sat and we talked and it was so lovely.

So we can take things that we want to do that just make our lives more efficient and more effective and actually turn them into these habits that create really beautiful moments of connection when we really actually arrive in those moments. So definitely know that you're always making habits. Your brain already knows how to do it. You're already really good at it.

And it's just a matter of really focusing on what do I want to create and creating some consistency around it.

So along those lines, then, do you believe that kids, tweens, teens, young adults even, should be taught mindfulness and intentional living? And if so, what is the optimal age for that to begin?

Yeah, early and always is my answer to that. I can and I never have to sit down and give my kids a mindfulness lesson.

I mean, that, that that's the case for when they were two, all the way up to where they are now. It's a matter of me saying, halfway through dinner, I am just shoveling this in.

I'm going to put my fork down for a second, and I'm just going to be here for a second and I'm going to notice this lovely food and think about the farmers that came from. And I'm going to really. And I may not even need to say all that out loud, right? Like, that would be super cringey to my teens now.

But it's just a matter of finding a way to highlight, like, oh, I'm being mindful right now. You could say things to your kids like, ah, gosh, I have so many things I want to say right now. I've so.

I so want to react to what you just did and what you said, and I'm just not gonna. I'm just gonna breathe and I'm gonna come back later, or I just want to hear what you want to say. I don't want to say anything.

I just want you to keep talking because I want to really understand where you're coming from. Like, modeling mindfulness is going to have way higher dividends than teaching it, especially in the tweens and teens. When they're little, there's.

You could buy great mindfulness books and you can actually practice meditation, but not. Not when they're tweens and teens, or their eyes will roll so far around, you just think they're having a seizure.

So when we talk about, you know, there'll be many parents watching and listening to this podcast that are like, oh, I've never done this. This would be new for me. You know, I'm already feeling sort of disconnected from my child.

Any thoughts on how a parent can reconnect if they do feel that they've drifted away from their child in terms of connection?

So I would do. I would start with what I call an intersection inventory. So take a look at a week, like a Monday to a Sunday, and.

And look at all of the places and, you know, in time and in location that you intersect. So it's like, okay, we see each other in the kitchen most mornings. Okay, so that would be an intersection point.

I drive him to karate or band practice on Thursdays and that. So that's an intersection. So you want to first see, like, where are my opportunities here?

Get a good inventory of those, and there might not be a lot of them. You know, if you've got a kid that drives or is busy with a sport or something, it's going to be slim pickings. And. But let's just start with that.

Where are my opportunities? And now the sort of next layer of that is, how can I turn that into a connection moment? And some of that might be an outside job.

So you might say, hey, how about on our way to band on Thursdays? Let's Leave a half hour early and stop at in W and sit and have a burger or something. Let's, let's make that burger night or something like that.

Or hey, how about just, let's just notice that whenever we're, when you're on the way back from something, let's just put our phones away. Just. You don't even have to talk to me. But let's just have like a, like just a technology break.

So you're, you're looking for sort of outer tactics for how you could shift, Shift the moment that would allow for some more connection. And then there, then there's the inside job of slowing yourself down, realizing, okay, a connection, you know, an intersection's coming up.

I've got, I've got this thing. How do I, how can I juice this? Like, how can I ring some really good connections about, you know, in this moment?

So that's, you know, that's your inside job. And then I think the third thing I would say is buy mouth tape. Like, just say so much less.

And I have to remind myself of this all the time, every day. I really. I should have it like tattooed on the inside of my arm. Just say less. Because we just, we. We just have so much to say.

We want, we have questions we want to ask, when we have wisdom we want to impart and advice that we want, Want to give. And, and it just, it's not our, it's not our time most of the time. Most of the time it would, it's just let them talk. Let them.

And, and like a well placed. Like, like, oh yeah.

It will go so much further than like, oh yeah, when I was your age, like, first of all, just never start sentences like that because they don't care that you went to prom to. Or that you. At your heart. I mean, they don't care. They don't want to know about your first boyfriend. Like, so it.

Yeah, it's just finding them, looking for opportunities, bringing yourself to them with mindfulness and saying about 95% less than what you normally say. That would be my. That would be my process.

Sounds like a sure proof, foolproof method.

Certainly in many households, the challenge may well be that one parent or, you know, one spouse is doing one thing and the other parent is doing something else. How do you bring that together?

If one parent is intentional in connection and mindfulness and habit building and all the things we've talked about, maybe the other one hasn't. Isn't on board yet.

Yeah, I would say that it would be normal or I Guess not unusual for one parent to be a little more dialed in. And I don't think it's too sweeping of a statement to say that it's often the mom.

I think women or people who are identify with that gender tend to feel more just attuned to how everybody's doing, how everyone is feeling. So it's, it's not unusual for one person to be more on board with, you know, a connection mission or a.

Yeah, I would say just really orienting towards creating more family connection.

But what I will say is that when a spouse can learn from each other and really decide, like, let's create some influence, like, let's be able to influence each other, I can say to my husband, hey, I saw that interaction you had today with Ali, and it was really awesome. Like, I thought you did such a great job. You asked such great questions, and I learned from that and, and vice versa.

You know, I, I can say, hey, I was driving in the car with Elizabeth today, and we ended up having this really great conversation about driving and safety and, you know, that sort of thing. And I just think there's a real opening there for you to also talk to her about that if you see, you know, if you see that opportunity.

So we're on the same team. Like, I'm not.

I know that I'm more attuned than him, and I'm certainly not going to tell him how to parent, but I can model and I can guide and I can sort of give him tips, and I can, you know, I can accept them, too. You know, I don't consider myself the parenting guru in our relationship by any means, nor. Nor outside of our relationship.

I certainly am not a parenting guru. I make tons of mistakes. But we, we work to support each other in this bigger mission of not just parenting, but how we want to parent.

And I think that that's. That's done really intentionally, and I think that can be done really intentionally with couples.

And it, yeah, it's going to maybe take some conversations, like, hey, let's do this. Like, let's, let's. Let's do better. Like, let's try to, like, up our game a little bit. And how can I support you in that?

And how might you support me in that?

What would you want parents to take away? What's the overarching message you'd like them to leave with?

When we talk about mindfulness, intentional connection, and even building positive habits.

I think that, you know, as we started out our conversation, what's upstream from everything is my relationship with myself, the time I spend with myself. And I don't mean the time I spend alone or I mean like I have a relationship with myself that I cultivate.

That for me, looks like a morning centering practice that I almost never miss. And I love it. So it's not like it's hard, it's not a chore, it's not a task that I cross off. I.

I get up, I get up early, I get up a little bit before six, I make my tea and I go sit and I journal and I read. And sometimes I meditate. Sometimes I just sit there with my eyes closed and think. But I go be with myself.

And that's probably the only time that I do that with any intention the whole rest of the day. Because either I'm with other people or I'm with my clients, or I'm listening to a podcast or I'm talking on the phone.

Like I'm like out there, out there, out there. And that time at 6:00 in the morning where I just spend 20 minutes just with myself is the rudder of my day now. I am aware of myself.

I'm aware of what's burdening me, what's on my mind, what's stressing me out, what kept me up last night or woke me up last night. I'm. I'm processing this experience of being me, of being a mom, of just being in this crazy world that we're in.

So I would say if I could just offer one sort of actionable takeaway, it would be fine.

20 minutes a day, could be on your commute, if it's done with intention, could be before bed, could be on your lunch break, could be first thing in the morning. Like I like to do it where you can go be with these things, right? Who do I want to be? What kind of parent I want to be?

What are the habits I want to create? What are the rituals do I want to create? How do I bring myself differently when I get a chance to connect with my teen? Like those.

Those are big questions that we can't answer.

You know, between, you know, with these sort of scraps of moments that we get, I think we need to carve out the time to be very intentional and very deliberate and I think it's doable. And if I hadn't been doing that for at least the last 12 years, I would never give that advice.

I would never tell someone they have to do something that I couldn't do myself. But I have done it and it has made all the difference. In my parenting and all the other ways that I show up in my life.

So many interesting tips, lots of insight. Kristin Maneri Mindfulness Coach Habits Coach, mom, author, Podcaster thank you so much for your time and your perspective today.

Thanks. Thanks for having me. This was really great.

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