What Your 'Failure to Launch' Teen or Young Adult Kid Really Needs, with Dr. Mark McConville

EPISODE DESCRIPTION:

In this summer 'from the vault' episode I'm resharing an impactful interview with Dr. Mark McConville, a clinical psychologist specializing in adolescents and young adults. We discuss:

• Strategies for parents to transition from directive parenting into a consultant role
• How to offer wisdom while allowing your child to take the initiative
• The difference between enabling and supporting
• How pre-competence might look like incompetence and what to do about it
• The value of thinking through the worst-case scenario
• Practical examples of limits and setting expectations with a not-yet-launched teen or young adult
• And the critical importance of maintaining a supportive relationship

We also explore the challenges and anxieties that young adults face, as well as the benefits of non-authoritarian guidance. As always, we share practical tips and personal anecdotes that will give you ideas for strategies to foster independence and resilience in your child.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

• Failure to Launch: Why Your Twentysomething Hasn't Grown Up...and What to Do About It - buy here
• Dr. McConville's website

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Chapters

• 0:35 Welcome to Hopestream
• 1:06 Conversation with Dr. McConville
• 3:09 Dr. McConville's personal struggles
• 4:06 Why write this book?
• 7:19 Un-launched? Young people and anxiety
• 8:57 Incompetence or pre-competence?
• 13:09 Social media's role in developing competence
• 14:33 About The Stream Community for moms
• 16:00 Parents as consultants
• 19:11 Using supervision, negotiation and consultation to gain influence
• 23:27 On parenting 20-somethings as teenagers
• 24:36 When your toolbox feels empty
• 25:35 Finding a spirit of collaboration
• 29:31 Dealing with school work and college prep
• 31:18 Take a non-negotiable stance on an abstract principle
• 37:25 Helping vs enabling
• 43:45 The vaule of early intervention
• 46:32 A singular piece of advice from Dr. McConville
• 51:26 Resources and Support

Transcript

When I'm working with a family I'm trying to get the parents to begin thinking of themselves more as consultants.

Being a consultant is a very special role because when you're a consultant, you have no power, but you have lots of wisdom, knowledge, a lot of information. But that information needs to be accessed at the initiative of the consultee. I'm trying to get the parents to not step over the line and say, oh, you gotta do it this way because that'll turn any 22-year-old into a 16-year-old sort of instantaneously.

[00:00:35] Welcome to Hopestream

 Welcome to HopeStream, the podcast for parents of teens and young adults struggling with substance use and mental health. I'm Brenda Zane. I've walked this path with my own child's addiction and high-risk lifestyle. Each week, we help you gain clarity, learn new skills, and, most importantly, find real hope in what might feel helpless.

You are not helpless, and you're not alone anymore. Find more resources at hopestreamcommunity.org

[00:01:06] Conversation with Dr. McConville

Dr. Mark McConville. Thank you so much for joining me today. This is such a treat because I listened to your book over the summer actually, and have been really wanting to have a conversation with you. It's one of those books that I was like, oh, I've gotta get everybody to read this or listen to it. , I'm really excited to have you on today.

Thanks for taking the time to be on Hope Stream. it is wonderful to meet you and I'm really pleased to be [00:01:30] here. we, will get into all things about our kids and how we can help them. But I'd like to start off my podcast with a question for you just to let people get to know you a little bit and that is.

what did you want to be when you were growing up? Oh my goodness. A teenager. I wanted to not have to move beyond being a teenager idea of becoming a grownup. I can see this in, looking back, I think, overwhelmed and terrified me and strangely it's why I, became a good student and stayed in school.

And to this day, I recommend, the best way to stu to clients. I said the best way to avoid growing up is stay in school. You have a lot of PhDs. I got to the point where I thought, oh, I can do this. this world is limited and I've, I'm able to navigate it, but I don't wanna look over that fence and actually have to get a job and, 

be grown up responsible. That's funny. and that's so interesting given what you do and where you are today that, you know, the, the shoes well of the young people that you're working with, it sounds like then. I do, I didn't run into the same, some of the same, difficulties because I was in school and it was a different era.

most of my close friends in college, they got married within a year or two after college. Now. I think most of them are divorced. I'm not. Congratulations. Thank you. But I met, really the love of my [00:03:00] life, and she was very, I like to say to people her practical IQ is about 15 points higher than mine.

 She just as comfortable in the world. 

[00:03:09] Dr. McConville's personal struggles

And, I've become comfortable over time, but really when I look back at myself as a young person those feelings of being 22, going on 16, the feeling of f I'm faking it. I'm terrified that the adult world won't take me seriously, but I'm also terrified that they might take me seriously.

And looking for whatever diversions, and in my case, it was studying existential phenomenology rather than, working at GameStop. And, Becoming a, an ace at, Some video game. Yeah. That's so interesting. very true. so you wrote this book, failure to Launch, and I love the, I'm not sure what you call it, if it's the subtitle or the pre-Title, why you're 20 something hasn't grown up and what to do about it.

And there's so many parents that I talk with who, whether or not their young person is dealing with substance use issues. Some of them are, some of them aren't. 

[00:04:06] Why write this book?

This is such a huge topic and so I would just love to hear a little bit about what was the impetus to write this? I know you deal, with people all day in your practice.

Yeah. But kinda, what was it that made you finally say, I gotta write this book? It's a little difficult to explain. I, in graduate school, I learned to become a journaler. And we were taught to write, what they called an integrative journal. what you're hearing in [00:04:30] class, what you're reading, what you're learning in practice therapy, your own individual personal craziness, trying to learn from those things, integrate them, make sense of them.

And when I, my, my first real job out of grad school I quickly got myself appointed as the adolescent therapist in a large, mental health center because nobody wanted to work with teenagers. And there was really very little literature that was adequate to telling you what you do with these kids.

And so I just journaled like crazy. I have a stack of notebooks where I'm trying to figure out this kid or this issue or this problem. And that's, that led to me writing my first book, which was on adolescence. And it was a sense of, oh, I, I think I've already written it. I just have to tease it out of my journals and put it together.

And the same thing happened with failure to launch as more and more of the referrals I got were 20 something chronologically. But they're psychological and relational dynamics. Were really quite adolescent. And again, there's no literature and there was no satisfactory treatment model. you send a struggling 22-year-old to therapy as a parent, you're paying for it.

Good luck getting the therapist to even talk to you. because after all, he's an adult or she's an adult, Yeah. They legally can't. That's right. I figured out how to make that happen. I'm I'm manipulative in a [00:06:00] good way. I'll ask parents. Is he or she coming as an adult?

They're motivated. They've asked for this. They have their own issues. They seem to be mastering the basic, curriculum of growing up. And if the answer is yes, then they come. As an adult, I don't really need to get involved with parents. But so often the answer is, no. And then I say, I'm happy to see him or her, but you will have to accompany on the first visit.

So the parent is in right from the get go. I know I have a sales job to do with the kid, like I'm trustworthy. I'm someone that's likely to get you and can actually be helpful to you, but I, what I learned is I have to pull the parents into the work. And that's, so I did years of that kind of journaling because again, there wasn't a literature that I could turn to that coached me on how to do it.

And at some point I said. I figured out a few things and I really ought to package them in something that I could share with other people. It's great to get the background on that, and I think it's so true that there's, that when the kids aren't bought into therapy or coaching or whatever it is, and especially if the parents aren't involved, it's just a really confusing situation because as a parent, you don't know what your child's talking about.

[00:07:19] Young people and anxiety

And when I say child, that might be a 21 or 22-year-old. It's not necessarily what we think of as a child, but I wanna say listening to the book, that anxiety is really something [00:07:30] that you see as an underlying issue in a lot of these kids, and I would love to learn more about that.

when you say that, what do you mean by anxiety? Helping these kids stay in this kind of stuck mode. Yeah. I would say first of all it's almost universal for people in that age group, let's say between 18 and 22. Even if they're doing the work of growing up, they're a successful student or they, they're working, holding a job.

 But think of it at that age, what do you really know about how the world works? Precious little And yet you're, especially, you're thinking, but I'm supposed to know. And and this is more, so more true for males than females. There's this shame, the joke about men won't ask for directions.

there's a lot of truth to that joke. Men don't, if I have to ask for directions, I somehow have compromised my masculinity. it's absurd, but it nonetheless is deeply embedded in our culture. And so when you look at that in the context of a 20-year-old young man, there's so much that he doesn't know how to do and the kids who develop the capacity for reaching out and asking, how do you do this now?

Even if it's going to an older student or someone you work with, but milking the world for mentoring because otherwise you, you're left alone with you. 

[00:08:57] Incompetence or pre-competence?

You're what feels like, it [00:09:00] feels like incompetence. It's really pre competence. And I've encountered what's really heightened my understanding of this is encountering it in what seemed like ridiculous situations.

The mom that is lamenting to me that she cannot. Get her 19-year-old to call his dentist's office and reschedule his appointment because he's got a conflict with work and he won't do it, and won't do it, and won't do it. And you think, what could this possibly be? I had someone like this, maybe a year ago, and I brought the mom in with the kid and I just, I asked her, I said, would you mind making the call but putting it on speaker phone?

So because I had directed her, she said, okay, she calls need to reschedule this appointment. Of course, any dental office staff is thrilled that you have called. Yes, they are. That is true. Absolutely thrilled you've called . But our 19-year-old is like. This is an adult who's gonna be mad at me because I am calling to change my appointment and they're gonna yell at me.

You know? So he is thinking more like a 12-year-old emotionally and it just shows up as a kind of avoidance. interesting. Yeah. I don't, I'm just not gonna do it. I, another kid that I put this story in the book who would not take a bus to get to work, even though it was a very [00:10:30] simple straight bus line.

And I watched him and his dad go round and round. I just sat back what in the world? And finally I dismissed the dad. And I get these things often by reflecting and trying to remember, oh yeah, that's how I was. And I said to him, you don't know how to take a bus, do you? And he just stared at me.

I said, do you pay when you get on or do you pay when you get off? And he his ears blushed red. Oh, but that's the kind of thing I get anxious about. Yeah. I don't wanna be out in public just fumbling around looking stupid. it's a little easier to pull that off at my age, people like to help people my age.

but when you're 20, you just feel like I'm supposed to know how to do it. And so it's this anxiety that, that leads to avoidance and denial and rarely are kids, really aware of it, even themselves. They just know, I don't wanna do it. That's stupid. that's that kind of dismissal that is so fascinating.

 Wow. I can, I could go so many directions with that because I can think of so many examples, but I have, let me share an experience. Yes. I some years ago, my wife loves to travel. I don't, but she said we're going somewhere and she's Sven and I said, alright, we'll go to Slovenia. So I was able to finagle an invitation with a therapy [00:12:00] institute in Dubya to come and teach.

So of course I could ride off the plane ride and,it really paid for the trip Genius. So we did that. So we're in the city and there's some reason, I can't remember what, but I needed to go to a bank, to exchange something, to do something. And, we're on this street and she says, oh, there's a bank.

I said, all right, I'll go take care of it. I walk in the bank. It doesn't look any, it doesn't look like any American bank I've ever seen. I, there aren't, there's not a, like a bank of teller windows. I have no idea who I'm supposed to approach, what the protocol is, and I'm immediately, it's like a flashback to being 20.

It's oh yeah, I felt this all the time. This, I'm supposed to know. I sometimes refer to it lovingly as my synagogue experience whenever I go to a synagogue event for, I have a lot of Jewish friends. I have this really neurotic anxiety of I know there are rules, but I have no idea what they're, and I'm afraid I'm gonna do something really embarrassing.

Which of course never happens, but it's, I think that's the kind of anxiety that so many young people have. 

[00:13:09] Social media's role in developing competence

Wow. I think you're right. and I'm wondering about what your thoughts are about social media's influence on that, whether that's something that could be making it worse, or are there potentially ways that it can make it better?

 kids now have so much more access to YouTube or how to videos or whatever, like maybe you can [00:13:30] learn things. It could be a huge asset, and maybe it is an asset, but I haven't had kids come in and say, I googled the question, how do you take a bus In Cleveland, Ohio?

I haven't had someone say that. So I, yeah, I know it certainly helps me. When I'm at the edge of my knowledge or ignorance I do it every week. How do you, but I don't, I'm gonna ask some kids if they do that the University of YouTube is wonderful for practical things, But I, when you were talking about, I love milking the world for mentoring because there is, and so many of the parents that I work with, the moms that I work with are single moms, and the dads are really not very involved from a day-to-day standpoint.

And I have to believe that impacts not only just their lack of their knowledge base, but the feeling in a relationship where they feel comfortable to say, Hey, I don't know how to take a bus, or, I don't know how to do whatever it is. So what do you think about that?

[00:14:33] About The Stream Community for moms

 Hey, I wanna pause for just a sec to talk about something that has been life changing for so many women who started right where you might be by listening to the show. If you're feeling the isolation, the exhaustion, like nobody gets what you're going through, there is a place designed specifically for you.

The stream is our private community for moms and female caregivers for parenting teens and young adults through substance use and mental health struggles. [00:15:00] And when I say private, I mean completely confidential. It is not connected to Facebook or any other platform, or your business could become everyone's business.

What members love about this stream is that you can be as visible or as anonymous as you want. Some moms jump right into conversations and calls. Others like to read and learn quietly in the background. Both are perfect. It's not social media. It's genuine community focused on learning growth and breaking through the isolation that might be keeping you from moving forward.

Right now. Whether your child is in active use in treatment or early recovery, you'll find practical strategies and tools that actually help motivate healthier choices because we know you wanna see positive change in your family. Check it out at hopestreamcommunity.org We would love to welcome you into this village of support and understanding.

Okay, back to the show.

[00:16:00] Parents as consultants

that's, a big part of my curriculum when I'm working with a family is I'm trying to get the parents to begin thinking of themselves more as consultants.

And that's a really, being a consultant is a very special role because when you're a consultant, you have no power, but you have lots of wisdom, knowledge, a lot of information. But that information needs to be accessed at the initiative of the [00:16:30] consultee. So I'm trying to get the parents to not step over the line and say, oh, you gotta do it this way because that, that'll turn any 22-year-old into a 16-year-old sort of instantaneously.

Yeah. But I'm also, working on the 20 something saying, look, your parents know all about this kind of stuff. you're telling me there are no jobs available. I'll bet your mom and dad together. have found 16 jobs in their life and that they have lived through every bit of frustration.

And of course, you don't know how to do a job interview. you've never done one, you have two experts living under your roof. Why don't you ask them? And it's hard if you're that age, if you are my mom and I'm 20 years old, it's hard for me to come to you without feeling 12.

Yeah. And that's really what we're trying to get is a relationship where the kid feels enough confidence that they can see the parent as a resource rather than as an authority. You're gonna tell me how I'm doing it wrong, that kind of thing. Yeah. but also the parents for the parent to say.

Look, I know you're looking for a job and, I know it's, the economy's pretty rough out there. Look, if there's anything I can do I've done this stuff before, just let me know. any question, big or small, that kind of declaration of availability is very, it's so different from, you, you said you were going to make three contacts a day looking for a job.

[00:18:00] Have you made your three contacts today? that's just an invitation for regression. Yes. it doesn't get you anywhere. But and I want kids who see their parents this way. I, one of the images I like to use is these kids are it's like your next, they are your next door neighbor.

And what they're doing is they're building a waist high fence between your turf and their turf. So there is now a clear boundary, and of course there's a gate. but between the two spaces. But they want the latch to be on their side of the gate. So they get to decide when to invite you in.

Yeah. As opposed to you, you just burst in on your own and get into their business. That's really, that is a powerful visual to, to remember. What age do you think, 'cause I love this idea of shifting from the parenting and telling how to do this or that and transitioning that to that consultant role.

What age should we be thinking about doing that? Does that happen at 15 or is it 19? Like when do you transition that relationship? I if I can give a little context. Yeah. I have a model that I've written and published. 

[00:19:11] Using supervision, negotiation and consultation to gain influence

And the premise of the model is there are three fundamental ways that we influence our children, which is what parenting is.

I'm trying to influence my children. One, one of those is supervision. I'm in charge, it's bedtime and we're gonna turn the TV off and I can carry you up the steps so we can walk [00:19:30] up together. But, I'm in charge of the agenda. The second, and that's of course predominant with younger children.

The second is negotiation. there's a little horse trading going on, alright, I'll let you stay up and watch the end of the show, but you gotta promise me that you'll get yourself right to bed. And when I wake you up tomorrow morning and your alarm goes off, you're gonna be a pleasant citizen of the kitchen.

You're not gonna be yelling at your younger sister and giving your mom a hard time. So we quid pro quo. I'm giving you something, you're promising me something, and then my job as a parent is to hold you accountable, right? So yeah, you, if you get yourself up on time and you're pleasant enough in the morning I just say, good job.

Thanks. And if you don't, it's next time you wanna stay up later. later I'm going back to supervision mode, right? I'll make a decision. Supervision, negotiation. And then the third is consultation. And the difference is that in, in negotiation, there's a power sharing in supervision, really the power, and I meanpower in the best sense of the word.

The power is really and should be on the side of the parent. But in consultation, the parent is a resource rather than a center of power. So you're conceding to the kid. You can make this decision, whether it's, What major are you going to be? I, it drives me up a wall when I hear parents that say, I'm not paying for anything other than a business major.

I think it's crazy. Yeah. It's just crazy. that's the only [00:21:00] way to have a happy life is to be a business person. It's nuts. But to say, this is a hard decision. I know you're trying to pick out a direction. Any way that we can be of help, I'm happy to do that. But we conceive that the authority to make this choice is on your side.

Now we, of course, we have limits. I'm running into more parents whose kids are wanting to study cannabis production. Yes. and of course it is becoming an actual industry, but for those parents, I'm glad I'm not in their shooting. Yeah, that's tough. Do I view it as a legitimate business direction or do I view it as just a an avoidance of the world of adult responsibility.

But still those are, so that's the consultation thing. It really signals the relationship between adults. I'm guessing by the time you have a senior in high school, you really wanna be operating from that consultation mode as much as possible. Yeah. Pri primarily you, you won't be there a hundred percent.

Yeah. I look the fact is all three, if you've got a 5-year-old, you should be doing some consultation, Is that really the jacket you wanna wear? I mean,that's a spring jacket and it's really cold out. Are you sure that's what you wanna do? You're sure. Okay. If that's what you want.

So you're, as a parent, you're making this executive decision to, to gear down into a consultant role. but as your kid gets older, it's not quite so [00:22:30] left up to your executive decision making. By the time you have a kid who is near high school graduation I suppose you can put your foot down and say Absolutely not.

And there are some kids who are so impacted by your disapproval, they'll tow the line. But that, that power to assert authority or even to get into a negotiation, it diminishes over time. Yeah. By the time my kids were seniors in high school, I would say much of what I was doing was. Consultation, certainly around decisions like what were they gonna do with school, that kind of thing.

yeah, but I, but we were still negotiating, you want use the family car? there's a quid that goes with that quote. Yeah. There's, there are, we are still negotiating and I'm expecting you to, it's my car after all I want you to comply with whatever kind of parameters I put on it.

[00:23:27] On parenting 20-somethings as teenagers

Certainly when you get kids who are into their twenties who aren't doing the bit about growing up like they are, acting and thinking like teenagers and then they provoke you into parenting like the parent of a teenager. That's a trap. And parents in that state often feel.

Profoundly helpless. I have no leverage, the toolbox that I used, what are you gonna do with a 22-year-old? You're gonna ground them, What are you gonna take away their allowance? even if you could do those things, they would just be regressive. [00:24:00] So you really, your task is to try to upgrade the relationship.

So even if you're not gonna behave like a young adult, I'm gonna begin to treat you like a young adult. I'm gonna work on reorganizing my behavior. What would be a couple of things? let's just say I've got a 17-year-old, not really even showing up for the online classes that they're supposed to be doing.

 They know they're smoking some weed. They haven't really done anything that they're supposed to be doing around the house. They're pretty unpleasant to be with. mom's worried for sure. Dad may or may not be there. like you said, the toolbox is empty.

[00:24:36] When your toolbox feels empty

I think a lot of parents feel like that. oh my gosh, my toolbox is empty. I used to be able to do all these things. Now I can't even take away the computer because they have to have it for school. Taking away a phone is irrelevant. I can't ground them.

 I have long believed that 17 is the, is potentially the single most difficult year to parent because that kind of assertion of parental authority just doesn't, it has a half-life, I like to say by 11th grade, forget about supervising your kid's homework. Yes. you can do it with a 13-year-old.

You can say, sit down at the kitchen table, open up your backpack. Let's look at your assignment notebook. Okay. I wanna know what's your plan for getting this? You can do that. It takes some resolve on your part and a kid won't like it, but you can do it with a 13-year-old. But good luck with a 17-year-old, [00:25:30] right?

It would just be, it would be a, like a Saturday night live skit. It, it's absurd. 

[00:25:35] Finding a spirit of collaboration

So the strategy that I say parents to commit to is the kind of relationship building look, even if it's sit, look, you and I have to get together. I know you're 17, you're you're ready to be out on your own, but you're not, you're still here under my roof.

We have to get along. So I wanna know what you need me to do differently. I want to be able to tell you what I need you to do differently. What you're trying to do is engender a spirit of collaboration. Now, there are some kids where that goes nowhere. They're really, they're delinquent. They are really drug addled, they're too close to 18 to send them off to wilderness treatment.

so you don't, you really don't have a lot of purchase on. how to leverage, get them to do things. So the strategy I have the most success with is the parent really says in effect, let's pretend you're 18 and you're an adult. And that we have to have a collaborative, in a sense, peer-to-peer relationship about how to live under this roof together.

and you really try to sell the kid on that having advantages. And maybe you do make you do some compromising, but if you have a 17-year-old that's really committed to not being collaborative who really is in a kind of screw you you just don't, the day they turn 18, [00:27:00] you may not feel it or think it, but you have leverage instantaneous leverage.

Let's talk about what we both need to do for you to continue to live here. and if we both think we're gonna kill each other, I'm gonna be your friend. I'm gonna help you find another place, help you out a little bit financially. I'm gonna, I'm not gonna quote kick you out, right?

I'm gonna, I'm gonna do it as someone that loves you dearly, but thinks we'd both be better off and have a better relationship if you had your own place. Now it's not, it's easier said than done, but it is doable. And when your kid is 17, it's not doable. Un unless you've got, your parents are robust, grandparents and they can take 'em in, or you've got a.

A sibling, an aunt or uncle that just has a way with this kid. But that's, that doesn't happen very often. Yeah, for sure. It's, I think you're right with 17, that's such a difficult time and it's tricky for the parents, but it's also, I think, tricky for the kids to really know that next phase is looming closely.

And and that can be scary and they might not even know that they're scared about it, but there's something that's just inside is just imploding. That is so true. That is so true. I can tell you in the course of my career, I have hundreds of times heard Just wait till I'm 18. I'm gonna be out that door the day of my birthday.

 And that chatter [00:28:30] just, it goes it. Dials down toward mute as the 18th birthday approaches, and it's all about ah, it was a great threat when I was 16, but what in the world would I do with that now? Yes. Yeah, so true. Are there things that I'm, I just keep going and thinking back to this idea that sometimes maybe our kids aren't doing things or aren't motivated, or they look like they're not motivated because they're really in this stuck mode of I don't really know how to do that.

Whether it's something that's tactical or if it's just something that's a bigger thing, like a way of thinking. Are there questions that we can ask them? Or how do we start to pull some of those things out of them without them feeling stupid, without saying don't you, duh, don't you know how to take the bus?

 are there ways that we can prod for that and help. In that scenario without I don't know, insulting their kind of intelligence. It probably depends a lot on what the issue is. Yeah. 

[00:29:31] Dealing with school work and college prep

an issue for a lot of the families that I work with in that sort of 17 is the preparation for college.

Yeah. And that is always best left to some other adult. Now, it depends a lot on your school system. If you're in a private school, they probably have a, just a cracker jack, department of college counseling. If you're in a large public school it's not such a robust support system. But [00:30:00] anything you can do that gets the kid working with some other adult and hopefully some that knows a little bit about college admissions.

So that is best farmed out. It's just like tutoring how do you tutor your own 17-year-old? How many seconds like riding a bucking bronco? Yes. You don't interruption and argument. I just, and you can both be wonderful people and love each other dearly, but I just think it's somehow would violate some mysterious law of nature.

Yes, I would agree. For things like, you wanna see the kid working, doing something constructive. It does, it certainly helps. you make yourself available. Let me know if I could help. But it also is really important to create necessity. the situation where I run into this often is 16, 17, or 18 year olds.

the school year is ending. Summer is here and they want to live one of those surfing beach summer movies of partying in the sand. They, they don't wanna do anything. this is, I've worked hard for high school and it's, I deserve a vacation kind of thing. And, which I think is a terrible idea.

I, I just do, I think it's a terrible idea. 

[00:31:18] A non-negotiable stance on an abstract principle

So I've seen the approach that I've seen work best is when parents, it's a, it's very, I've observed some parents doing this and I've since kind of formulated it for myself, where they will take a [00:31:30] non-negotiable, stand on something that has the quality of an abstract principle and that will be non-negotiable.

So it'll be something like, look, let me tell you what's not happening this summer. you are not gonna lie around the house. Just hang out with your friends and not do anything that's not happening. Absolutely not happening. Now, whether you want to get a caddying gig up at the golf course, whether you want to go down to Heins and see if they're hiring at the supermarket, whether you wanna one of your friends get together and, create a lawn service, whether you wanna work for your Uncle Joe, because he always needs, landscape workers.

There's this whole range of things you can volunteer at the old age home. I'm not gonna fight with you about any one of those things, but I am gonna fight with you about, you're gonna do something constructive. Now, kids will, if you push them to, as an individual thing, I really want you to talk to your Uncle Joe about getting on one of his landscaping crews, right?

It's like throwing the kid a rope. And what's he do? He takes the rope and he pulls back, and now you're in a, I don't wanna do that. I don't even like Uncle Joe. He doesn't pay enough. And you now you're. you're going nowhere fast. But I've never heard a kid take a stand against an abstract principle.

I love that. They're not philosophers. They're not saying, this is unreasonable that you don't want me to have a, some they don't, they just don't get [00:33:00] into that argument for some reason. But if you push a particular concrete option, they may very well use that as their, that's their, now their battleground.

They're gonna hell will freeze over before I go work for Uncle Joe. Yeah. You've just handed them an argument on a platter when you do that. Yeah. Creating necessity,I, I kinda stipended you, spending money during the school year, but it's not the school year.

So you're capable of earning, spending money yourself or,It's time for you to, get on your own phone plan. You're 18 now or we're going to have you pay for your part of the family phone plan. I remember my daughter had just finished her first year in college, so she was 19 and she came home and she's a, just a sweetheart.

she turns up in the book frequently, all with her permission, by the way. But she is, it's clear she doesn't declare it, but it's clear. This is a summer of getting back to with all my old friends and I was never a very good parent when it came to laying down the law. My father had been so expert at it.

He's probably in the hall of fame for that sort of thing. and my part of my rebellion is I was terrible at it, but I. I finally after circling on, did you look for that job? Did you, are you coming up with anything? Doing that for two weeks. I said to her, you go back to school in September.

You have to have, and I named a dollar figure. Whatever we had [00:34:30] figured out was this is spending money that would get you through a college year. I said, if you have that dollar figure in your savings account, I will write the tuition check. If you don't, if you don't, that is perfectly okay with me because you can just defer.

She was a terrific student. at a good school you can defer and just pick back up in January. So I lost the power struggling kind of mindset and said, you can do whatever. You can make your own decision on this, but I am making a decision. This is the part in the book where I say, you really have to sort out whose business is what.

Yeah. and in a way you could say, for a 19-year-old you decide you don't wanna work. I guess you're entitled to make that decision, but I'm entitled to not write a big fat tuition check for money I can barely afford when you're not pulling your weight. She had a job as a waitress within about four days, working at a restaurant where one of her friends worked and what was different is she read, we stopped playing the parenting power struggle game.

And I was just, I had this sort of FYI, matter of fact, you can, your choice is your choice. Choice. I'll respect it. I'm not gonna be angry with you. I'm not gonna be disappointed, but you should know what my side of the equation is. Yes. And, it was very, I stumbled into it. I honestly don't [00:36:00] think I quite knew what I was doing, but it was very powerful.

when parents can find that space. And again, always easier said than done. I talk with lots of parents from around the country who have read my book and we set up consults and I know the principles that they need to apply, but figuring it how to do it with this child in this circumstance, it takes some brainstorming and sometimes it takes some luck in terms of what a kid is capable of.

I wanna get to that in a minute to find out how you do work, but there's two things that really struck me about that little scenario with your daughter. The first is that you were okay. Like you said that and you would've done it. And I think that's a really hard step for a lot of parents to get to, to be able to say, okay, you can skip a quarter of school.

Yeah. They're so invested in their kids' lives that is not even conceivable that they would say. So I think that's really important for parents to hear is, yeah. but it is, just to be fair, I knew that if she decided to have this, the summer of love or whatever, she was a capable student.

She was a good citizen. She was well on her way to adulthood, so I knew that if she collapsed the fall was short. But for a lot of parents, there's this feeling of, if I'm not there to boy them up the, it's a precipitous drop. 

[00:37:25] Helping vs enabling

I had a mom who I had seen her once.[00:37:30] 

And then I got an emergency contact from her six or eight months later. And her kid had actually improved his lot, a great deal. He was, he'd been trying to make it, he was like 19 or 20 trying to make it with his band, going nowhere. And he enrolled at Kent State, which is, a little downstate from Cleveland and taking classes, commuting.

And he was taking three classes. He is just doing much better. And she calls in a panic saying he has an appointment this morning. It's a Saturday morning in traffic court there. Local mayor's traffic court. He's had three speeding tickets over the last year. He's completely ignored them, hasn't even opened the envelopes.

And he's gotta get there. And he is got a hefty fine to pay, which he was willing to front him the money and he was refusing to get outta. And yelling all kinds of vile things at her as she was trying to wake him up. And she calls me, what do I do? And I'm, easy for me to say, don't do anything, right?

 And she says, oh yeah. Don't do anything. So they'll take his license away for sure. Then how's he gonna get to his classes? All the progress we've made will be down the toilet. Yeah. And he'll be back to trying to make it with his band. And, I, I remember feeling, I'm not often tongue tied, but I remember feeling oh [00:39:00] crap.

Yeah. She's, yeah. What would I do in her shoes? it only later did I investigate a little bit and realize that if they take your license away, they'll still let you drive to school. They'll let you drive to school and work. And so it actually was workable and she ended up going down.

Telling the, it's a local community, so tells the mayor or whoever the magistrate, the, a cockamamie story about his home and bad, he is been throwing up all night and, here's the, whatever, hefty chunk of money to make things right. Yeah. and parents, that's a parable for the parents get into this situation where they believe something catastrophic will happen if I don't, write that check if I don't con, continue.

And most of the time , they're going to the worst case scenario. Part of my job as a clinician and any therapist's job should be to evaluate what's the likelihood of the worst case scenario. What if he makes a suicide attempt? those are things we actually can evaluate with a certain objectivity.

I'm pretty good at sussing out, how much of a risk a given individual presents versus when they're just being manipulative. You know what he'll she'll ruin her credit rating. She'll never be able to let's stop and have you asked your financial advisor, how does a 21-year-old recover from a bad credit rating?

so parents go to the worst case scenario and they're [00:40:30] protective, All enabling starts out as support. Yes. Nobody starts out to enable their kids. They set out to support their kids. Yeah. And the interesting thing is enabling and support look identical coming out of the gate.

They come identical coming out of the gate. I reach, I extend a helping hand, if, just a bedraggled woman with two kids approaches me outside the grocery store and says, could you help? And I whip out a $20 bill and say, of course I can help. and she goes to the, the baby formula section.

I'm patting myself on the back. I think I'm a pretty, pretty decent human being, but if I see her go to where the, the wine rack, I'm like, oh shit I've been taken, my action was the same. And it's what the other does with that, that determines whether what I've just done is support or enabling.

And it's the same with our kids. Yeah. we extend something that's meant to help them. Springboard forward in their growth and development, and if they use it that way, we feel pretty good about our parenting and when they don't, we often find ourselves trapped. now what do I do?

 Yeah. I can't just pull the rug out from under him. yeah it's a very, I come at this, I think [00:42:00] primarily with my heart because the parents who contact me are such good people. And I said to my wife, I have never had a group of clients that I have found so wonderful to work with.

And she looked at me, she said, mark, first of all, they're all obviously very committed to their kids, or why would they buy your book? True. Second, they actually read your book and they liked it. There are probably a lot of people that read your book and didn't like it. They're not contacting you for support and I'm like oh yeah.

Oh yeah. But that is my experience of parents who are just they care so desperately and then sorting out, what is enabling, where is it safe that I could take a step back? That's hard to do and often it does help for the parent to be consulting with someone that, that does this, that you know that a parent counselor or a therapist that really knows this age group, it just tell, it gives you confidence like, okay, I'm not doing the dumbest parenting maneuver in all of history.

I'm really doing something that could be quite useful and motivating. Yeah. Yeah, that's very true. And I think your point about the worst case scenario and playing that out is really important because we do tend to react quickly. So in, in that case, I'm so glad you gave that example about the kid being in bed when he needed to be somewhere.

Yeah. And we take it on as parents to solve that problem for them because we think it's [00:43:30] going, there's this domino effect. if this happens and then that happens, then that's gonna happen. If that happens, then that happens and all of a sudden our kid is 45 years old living in our basement, when really they could just go and fix it the next day or whatever it is.

Wow. That happens. 

[00:43:45] The vaule of early intervention

I talk to a parent who I talk to over the years, every now and then, every three or four years they have, they're quite well to do. He is a very successful professional and their daughter is 49 years old. Is quite capable, bright good education, lives completely on the family.

Dole lives, they have a vacation home or something. They have a, another home other than here in Cleveland. And she lives there. And it's really, you think, wow. It can, it can go on forever. Yeah. And that's what all these really well-intentioned parents are trying to avoid, I think is what can I do now when I'm dealing with a 17-year-old so that I'm not dealing with that.

With a 49-year-old. I and one, one, podcast, I did the interview, they had a call, it was a radio show and a gentleman called in and he said, at what age can we begin to work on these skills that support launching? And I said, I think probably around three. You know that playroom that just littered with every toy in the play box, and you go in and pick it up on your own because it takes you about five minutes to do that.

Whereas it takes you 45 minutes to get the kid and bring the kid in and say, we're gonna [00:45:00] clean up this room together. Where should we start? How about I get the blocks and you get all the trucks and put, that really thoughtful gold standard parenting is really, takes a lot of time, a lot of energy.

 It is easier to pick your kids' coat up and put it on the coat rack than it is to walk up two flights of stairs and to say, come with me, please. Walk them back down to the kitchen floor and say, would you please put that on the coat rack? And we don't have an infinite amount of.

Time and resource and energy. And so we do efficient parenting, but then we sometimes deprive kids of those experiences that say, yeah, no I'm accountable. Yeah. I'm so glad that you mentioned that because when our kids are little and we do that, it is hard, but it also gets harder and harder to hold them accountable and do those things that do take extra time and energy as they get older.

in those teenage years. So I'm glad that you mentioned that because we do still have to invest the same amount of time and energy into those little things as they get older so that they know that we are watching and we're on it. And it can just be exhausting, honestly. You've seen patterns, I'm sure, across [00:46:30] families and across young people. 

[00:46:32] A singular piece of advice from Dr. McConville

And I'm just curious, if we had to hang up in five minutes and, we didn't get a chance to actually do this entire interview, what would be the message or a message that you would wanna get across to parents who are listening and really, struggling with a really difficult child right now?

Speaking from the standpoint of a therapist, no matter how screwed up a kid is, if he knows or she knows that their parents love them and not in a sort of enabling, indulging, being manipulated way, but they know they matter that kid has a chance. And if you think of, you never quite know what.

What, vacuum that poor kid is filling with his drug use. But certainly the deepest of all is, the sense of not having any worth. and usually for those kids at some level, they're screwing up, right? they're, that's why they come to your attention or my attention, and they know it.

And so they, they're already down on themselves. The story, I ended the book with the mom of a heroin addict daughter and the mom had done everything she could and I think put herself next to poverty to get this kid treated. She was late twenties, 27, she finally gave up. what she gave up on was trying to fix her daughter and really looked and said, so what's available?

And what they agreed to was to meet at some diner. They were somewhere in New [00:48:00] York City, so they would meet at a diner Sunday mornings, and that was it. And they would talk about, whatever TV show they were watching and. How are the Mets doing and what I don't know, whatever their shared interests were.

And it was just in the spirit of maintaining a connection to this kid and, this sort of wonderfully delicate moment. At the end, the interviewer said, gee, I'm almost afraid to ask this, but how is your daughter now? And she said, she's actually in treatment now. And she put herself in treatment and, fingers crossed, I don't know of the outcome, but I just thought, that's such a.

It's, it tells dramatically something that I've witnessed as a family, parent, consultant, family therapist, many times that it's like an, emotional umbilical cord. You're right, it is such an umbilical relationship. I think that's a great way to put it. And for moms and dads. It can be so hard to learn how to either stretch that cord or at some point, cut it so that our kids have the chance to learn on their own, grow on their own and really have those experiences.

So thank you for that. I really appreciate it. I know it's hard to boil everything down into one, one thought, but, I think that's a really excellent thought. I didn't crash into a wall like maybe some of your kids, but I had the whole. [00:49:30] World of self-doubt and anxiety and, just kind of avoidance and denial and found the adult world to be a forbidding place.

 so I know something of your kids' world and of the world you're dealing with, but my message to them is I made it and I made it in large part because I had parents who never gave up on me. And when I screwed up, they had a way of turning it into a learning experience. they never said it explicitly.

I always knew that no matter what happened. They would always have my back. So somehow that message was just in the relationship and it was an era when parents were not I never get off the phone with one of my kids who are both adults without saying, I love you. But parents in, in that era didn't do that.

So they had to be transmitted by ESP, I think. But I absolutely knew it. and that's what I wanna say to parents. You may feel like you're not making an impact right now, but stay with it. Do not give up. Do not give up. Do not give up. couldn't leave off with anything better than that.

So we will, and I will put in the show notes resources the book and your information so that people can find that. And for parents who are out there wondering if it's possible to work with you, obviously get and read the book because it's incredible. It just goes into so much detail. and what I love is you give so many [00:51:00] practical scenarios.

So parent could certainly read the book. How else might they be able to work with you? When I do consult with people, I try to help them get their ducks in a row as parents to outline. So what is our new parenting agenda? What kind of supports do we need? Is our kid open to talking with someone? If not, what's our strategy? If he is, how do we find someone? yeah, I'm certainly available for that, 

[00:51:26] Wrap up and resources

Okay, my friend. If you want the transcript or the show notes and resources from this episode, just go to our website, hope Stream community.org, and click podcast. That'll take you to all things podcast related. We even have a start here playlist that we created, so if you're new here, be sure to check that out.

Also, if you're feeling anxious and confused about how to approach your child's substance use, we have got a free ebook for you. It's called Worried Sick, A compassionate guide for parents of teens and young adults misusing drugs and alcohol. It'll introduce you to ways that you can build connection and relationship with your child versus distancing and letting them hit rock bottom.

It is a game changer and it's totally free. Just go to Hope Stream community.org/worried to download that. You are amazing, my friend. You are such an elite level parent. It is an honor to be here with you and please know you're not doing this alone. [00:52:30] You've got this tribe and you will be okay sending all my love and light and I will meet you right back here next week.