Why Your Parenting Advice Is Failing (And How To Fix It)

He spent years in the music industry and digital media, working with some of the biggest names in entertainment. But his real expertise— The noise is getting louder and louder. —comes from his own family story. His son is thriving at UNC Chapel Hill, studying marine science on the rowing team. His daughter left college to pursue dog training And now she's doing exactly what energizes her. That's aligned and thriving. With over 57,000 views on his YouTube channel and a podcast and a book called Still Launching coming soon, he's helping parents navigate this critical stage with their adult children. Please welcome Evan Sanchez. Evan Sanchez.

Thank you, Hallie, and my apologies to everyone for any of the technical difficulties that you've been experiencing. I'm using a new system and apparently that's the fun. Just real quick, we're going to talk about what to do when your college grad moves back home and stops moving forward. But first, I want to hear from you guys. What What's going on with you? Like, how long have you— has your college grad been stuck? Can you put a number in the chat? Let me get to the chat. 5 years. Okay. Who else? Sorry, I missed the question. The phone rang. Yeah. How long have you been stuck in this situation? How long has your college grad lived at home? 5 years also. Okay. Anyone else? Yeah, your kid. Yeah, Janet, your kids. Okay, so six years. Okay. Coming home in May. I'm trying to prepare. Yeah. But you're right on. You're right on. Okay. Okay. Here's what we're going to do today. Okay. Can everyone see the screen? And somehow I have lines on my screen. I don't know how. All sorts of technical issues today for me. So. That is fun. So what we're going to cover today. Okay. So what we're going to cover today is a 3-key system that changes the dynamic in your household. Because what we want for our kids is we want to have that trust. We want to have that stronger— those blue lines. Where did those come from? I don't know how I did that. That's just great.

Okay. Anyway.

I'm just going to roll with it. So we want more trust, less tension, and a stronger relationship. You remember when they were young and it was really easy to foster that, right? They trusted you, they took your advice, and there wasn't this tension that there is now. But now that they've come back home, the dynamic has changed completely. And that's what we want to talk about today, because the parenting that you did When they were younger no longer works. And a lot of parents don't realize that, but when they come back home, the whole dynamic has actually shifted. So let's talk about that. First of all, let me assure you— oh, there's a— I had finger surgery if anybody cares. That's why it's like this. Your grad is not the only one. Okay, this is a common problem. 75% of the of people in their 25 to 35-year-olds report a quarter-life crisis. Okay, and 59% of them don't know their next step. Right? All the milestones were clear up until we got to here. Right? We needed to go to high school. We needed to go to college. But after that. And then we also know that there's been a drop in face-to-face time with kids since 2012. And obviously the pandemic didn't help. So this is a structural problem in our society. I talk to so many parents every day and they're experiencing the same thing. So I didn't want you to think that you were alone. Okay. So what do we do as parents? What we do is we do what we have been doing for the last decade or so with our kids. 2 decades. We go into default mode when they need help, when they're stuck, they need help. So you give advice. That's what you naturally did. That's what you did when they were kids. You said, don't touch the hot stove, don't talk to strangers. You gave them all this advice. Of what not to do. But why is this backfiring now? That used to work when you gave advice. It used to work, but I'm sure you noticed when they started becoming teenagers, they would listen to anybody except you. So what happens is at this stage in their development, the harder you push, the more likely they are to pull away. Okay. Because you're saying, listen, I know the shortest path from A to B. I got it right here. It is, here's the answer. I'm giving it to you. Open note, open book. You offer those solutions, but what they feel is judgment. It feels like you're critiquing them, and then they feel pushed. They feel that pressure. And then they start to resist and shut down. Put a 1 in chat if this sound— this pattern sounds familiar to you. Yeah. Yeah. This is what happens. Now that they're an adult, they're not going to listen to your advice. Think about it from your perspective too. If I tell you, if I give you advice, unsolicited advice, You probably retract, you withdraw. This is not going to— and that's what our normal tendency is if it's unsolicited. Now, if I ask you for advice, different story. But anytime somebody gives you advice, especially unsolicited advice, even from a parent, it's going to feel like this. It's going to feel like pressure resistance and they're going to shut down. And that's why your kid is stuck in their room. Playing video games all night and having a flipped sleep schedule, right? So that's what happens. Let me just go back here. And what they're doing here is that they are— yeah, literally playing games right now. Exactly, Chris. Exactly. What they're doing is they're not ignoring you. They're protecting themselves. They're protecting themselves. Think about it. If you're in a foxhole, okay, and there's bullets going by all the time, you're not going to stand up. You're going to stay in your foxhole. That's what you're going to do, right? You're fight or flight. So you're stuck in, in victim mode here. They see all the bullets that are passing them over their heads. That's all the advice. That's all the society pressures. That's all of that stuff. So they don't feel safe. When you're in a protective stance like that, you're not going to be making the best decisions. You're not going to be thinking clearly, right? If you're in a foxhole and there's bullets whizzing by, that's not the time you're going to come up with a billion-dollar idea. Is everyone following me so far? Put a 1 in chat. Okay. Yeah. So we have to understand that they are protecting themselves. Okay. And that's the biggest thing that, that I want you to know. Now, this isn't failure. This is a life stage. Okay. I wish that it was just as talked about as adolescence, but 18 to 29, that is emerging adulthood. We all know the brain doesn't develop till they're what, 26, 27, right? That's when it fully forms. But emerging adulthood is this 18 to 29 period, right? Where their brains haven't fully developed. And not only that, the timelines have changed. We used to think school, go to school, get a job, get married, kids, right? All that sort of stuff. That's not the case anymore. They don't have that roadmap. That roadmap is gone, right? Even a college education unfortunately does not guarantee them a job. It doesn't. And so you have to, you have to reorient yourself. If you were in their situation, how would you be? If you knew that, that you could, if you couldn't get a job right now, how would you feel? They're not behind. I want you to know that your child is not behind. They're right on time for a stage nobody talks about. And especially in this economy, it is harder and harder for, for college grads to find jobs. Okay. Now let me go through here and there are 5 things that look like failure and none of them are.

Okay.

And I'm just going to make sure everybody's on mute. I'm getting some background noise here. So there's an identity thing going on, right? And they're trying to find their fit. They're trying to find their place in life. There's instability where it looks like a mess. There's a lot of self-focus at this time. They're thinking only about themselves. They're not worried about the household chores or anything. And it looks selfish, but they're really trying to build character. And they're in this in-between phase of like, they're not a kid, they're not an adult. Right? So that looks like they're lost. And there's a bunch of possibilities and they can't narrow them down. Right. So what this all means is with all of these things going on, with the timelines changing, with them seeing advice as criticism and shutting down, with them going through this developmental stage, we have to change our approach. We have to fundamentally change our approach. Okay. So now here's a little thing I want you to do. Put in the chat, what's the milestone you're most anxious your grad hasn't hit? Is it a job? Is it living independently? Let me know in the chat. Finding a new job. Yep. Carol. Job and living independently, right? Launching independently and jobs. So Common themes going on here, right?

Hmm.

Yeah, it's that. Now, whose timeline is this measuring? Because this is the timeline we're measuring, because that's the way it was when we were kids. I don't think there was even any debate that I would not live at home. Right. Part-time job to maintain financial obligations while in school 4 days a week. Okay. Yeah. But let me ask you this. What are you proud of them for? Not career related. What are you proud of them for? Even though they're in this phase of life, what are you proud of them? Put it in the chat. He's a great human being. Autonomy. Absolutely. Empathetic. Good person. Honest. What else? This is all good stuff. This is all good stuff. My son is a hood person, not a street person or troublemaker. A good person. Okay.

Yeah.

Authenticity. Yeah. A good person. Yeah. They are good people, right? Wonderful person with a good heart. Christian, right? He could do so much. That's right. They all have this potential. Very kind to people. Sometimes got taken advantage of by others. That's normal, right? But this is what you wanted when they were a kid, right? You wanted them to be good people. You wanted them to have a kind heart, right? And unfortunately, yes, they You know, a lot of kids in this day and age, because of society, because social media is not helping anything either, they're comparing themselves against others. Right? And they say comparison is the theft of joy. And I firmly believe that. Okay. And it's hard as a parent to have a kid struggling at this phase. Because you probably have friends who have kids who went to MIT, And have their dream job or whatever. You've seen kids launch and you're like, yeah, and 2020 had a huge impact on that. Think of all the things that they, they have in 2020. They have, they have an economy where even senior people can't get hired, much less entry level. They're facing a lot of things.

Hmm.

So it's really important to give them grace. Oh, and yeah, yeah, yeah. Sally, yeah, please steal that. Comparison is the death of joy. I think that if I had a bumper sticker, I would say less judgment, less comparison equals a happier life. That's what I would put on a billboard, right? So, for— so that's what I would do because I think that those are the things that we're judgmental against ourselves and we do it with ourselves. We compare us against other Right? But if we stop the comparison, if we stop judging ourselves so harshly, if we stop judging others as harshly, we would all be much happier. Okay? So I promised you a starter guide, Family Conversation Starter Guide. Okay? And it's several pages and it gives you the exact scripts for those of you who stay all the way to the end. And Hallie has the link and she'll put in the link at the end of the time. But we're going to— but it gives you frameworks of what to say because we want to not be judgmental. We want to be curious like a reporter. Anxiety is contagious. Remember that they have spidey sense. They can pick up On whatever vibe you're putting out. So if you have a lot of anxiety, that is going to shine through, right? But they need to feel safe. They need to feel connected to you. What did you do with them as kids? What could you do right now and make them laugh? Right? How could you actually have fun with them? That is really important because that's what they need right now. And that's what the guide tells you how to do. Okay. It gives you a bunch of great talking points. So that's that. Okay. So there's 3 keys to this. Okay. I mentioned that before in the beginning. I'll mention it again. First key, the calm authority shift. How you show up makes all the difference. And you want to show up in a way that they actually respond to and they don't feel threatened by. Okay. There's a misalignment diagnosis, right? Are they misaligned? We'll talk more about that. And then we want the accountability handoff. We don't want to be responsible. They're adults, right? There's certain things that they have to be responsible for at this point. So that's what we want to do. We want to change how we show up. We want to make sure that they're in alignment. And we want to make sure they have accountability too. Okay. Okay. Calm authority shifts. Okay. We mentioned before, right? Every piece of advice that you give them, every job listing that you send them, every person that you say you should contact, that feels like criticism. And it's like you can't figure this out for yourself. So basically what you're telling them is you're not smart. That's the subtext of all of that. So every time you give the advice, they're thinking they're not smart. And they also hear that you don't trust them. You don't believe in them. That's what they're hearing. So we have to change that. And yes, the better advice, the harder they resist it, right? And they'll listen to anybody except for you. That started in their teenage years. Okay. So how do we do this? We do this by stop making your voice louder, make their voices louder. Okay. I call it putting down the megaphone. And so every time you give advice, every time you send them a job listen, that's your voice just being louder. That's not what we want. We want their voice to be louder. Okay. We want to know what's going on with them because a lot of these kids are holed up in their rooms and they're not communicating with you. I talk to parents all the time. This is what they tell me.

Okay.

So yeah, so it was never your words. It's that they came from you. Right? Every parent is going to talk to their kid and say, and the words from you say, I don't trust you. But if the same words came from a friend of theirs or a mentor, they'd consider it. Okay? And what you want to do is you want to not only not give advice, but keep the answer to yourself on purpose. And I know that's really hard because I know you're like, I know 2+ 2 is 4. It's just, that's right there. You probably don't, you probably know what they should do and you are right. But the problem is that if you do it, then you own it. You own their stock. If you hold it, they own it. Does this make sense? Is this breaking through? Put a 1 in chat.

Brilliant, Evan.

Not really. Okay. Chris, tell me more.

Sorry, it was Janet. I said it was brilliant.

Oh, thank you. Thank you, Janet. Chris, you wrote in the chat, not really. What's not connecting for you? When you have a chance, Chris, put it in the chat and I'll go back to it. Okay. So here's what we do. Okay. So Chris, I don't know if this may apply or not, but you're probably like, great, Evan. I don't give advice. I don't tell them what to do. What the hell do I do now? And you're not wrong. You're not wrong. Like, how do you get around this? Right? If I can't tell them what to do, if I can't give them the tools, how are they expected to learn it? So this I borrowed. This is from Chris Voss. He's the FBI's former lead international kidnapping negotiator. Right? And I was like, obviously hostage negotiation parenting, right? That makes sense, right? There's a lot of similarities there. But seriously, that's not, that's not the, that's not why I chose. I was reading his book and I was like, this is what makes all the difference. Okay. So first, the thing is you have to label the feeling. Okay. They say, I'm feeling that, or you say, yeah, it sounds like you're tired of being asked. It feels like, it looks like, it sounds like, it looks like, it feels like. I would write those 3 sentences down because whatever they say, that's what you want to lead with. It sounds like, it looks like, it feels like. Okay. Then you want to mirror their last words. It sounds like you really want to become a Formula 1 race car driver, right? When you use the word, when you use their words, they feel heard and seen. When they feel heard and seen, they grow. And it's really, yeah. And is that LJ? I think that's LJ. Yeah, it's due to your anxiety and needs fixed. Yeah, one of the first things that I would recommend, LJ, is it's like you've got to work on your own self. You got to put on your oxygen mask first, right? One of the things you can do, LJ, is you can write down all your anxieties, right? Just list them out. That's a great way to do it. Okay. And then you want to ask them a calibrated question and it can be something like, is that real or is that the last hour? Or you can use a what or how. I probably should change the slide to say what or how, right? What or how questions. What would a simple next step look like that doesn't feel overwhelming? That's a curiosity question. That's not an agenda question. You want to lead with curiosity, right? Not judgment. Okay. So it sounds like, it looks like, it feels like, what or how. You can also do an accusation audit. I actually do this with my wife. I'll tell you what I do. Okay, this is exactly what I do with my wife. Okay, she gets overwhelmed or she gets hangry, right? Or she gets overwhelmed very easily. So I said, I know you're probably really busy and you have a lot going on right now, but when you have a chance, could you call New York Life? Whatever she's going to accuse me, whatever— if I said call New York Life, Right? She'd be like, I'm tired. I'm hungry. I don't have the time. I'm leading with the accusation. I know exactly what she's going to say. We've been married a little bit. So you have to lead with the accusation. And that way that diminishes it because then they have nothing to come back with. Okay. And also you have to watch your tone. And LJ, you have to work on your anxiety first. You have to do whatever you can to get in a good state to have these conversations. Because the last thing you want is for them to feel that anxiety. Anxiety is contagious. Remember that. Accusation, lead with the accusation. So if you think that they're going to say, you know, that's a stupid idea, you can say, I know this sounds like a stupid idea, but You lead with the accusation that you think they're going to give you.

Mm-hmm.

Yes, exactly. Yeah, exactly. Reverse psychology. And if you haven't read Chris Voss's book, great book. All the techniques work for not only this stage of life especially, but it works for every situation that you're gonna come across, right? Oh, it's called Never Split the Difference. Yep. Never Split the Difference, because that's the book that like, if you want to, you know how they say you have to make it your boss's idea for them to buy into it? This is how you buy them into it. You do the exact thing that Chris Voss teaches, right? You do the exact— what he teaches is gold. So can't recommend that book highly enough. Okay. So those are negotiation tools. Okay. Trade advice for a question. Okay. These are a lot of what and how questions. Instead of, you should just apply, what's making the search feel stuck? Because here's the thing, whatever answer they come up with, that's the right answer. That's their answer. They're going to have buy-in to an answer that they give. Mm-hmm. They're not going to have buy-in to an answer that you came up with. They're not going to buy into that. They're going to buy into their own answers. That's why you have to ask them what or how questions. And these are all great examples. What part of this feels the hardest to start? How do you want this to go? Want to think it through together? These are all invitations for them to Respond. Never split the difference. Yeah, never split the difference. And so these are the what and how questions that you have to do. But first, you have to acknowledge what they said, you have to acknowledge and validate, it sounds like, it looks like, it feels like, and then repeat what they said. Because what happens is, if you repeat my words back to me, I feel a little dopamine hit. Because you just heard what I said. How many of you have been with a friend out to lunch and you say something and they try to top it and then you try to top it and it goes back and forth? Put a 1 in chat if that's ever happened to you. Yeah, Chris, the question is, If you're out to lunch with somebody and you say, I just went to the dog park, and they're like, oh yeah, I love my dog. They make it about them. And then you make it about you and you make it, it goes back and forth. Nobody's listening to each other. They're just trying to top each other's last statement. Yeah. The audiobook is great too. Audiobook's fantastic.

But yes.

So you don't want to put yourself in the box. And that's really hard to do as a parent. When I say putting yourself in the box, what I mean is you don't want to be like getting in the box with them, right? You don't want to be feeling all their emotions with them. You want to have enough distance there so that you're supportive, but not overwhelming. Okay, let's keep going. Okay. And here's how you know it worked. And Chris Voss talks about it in his book. If you say something, right, and they say, you're right, that's the worst thing. You don't want to— you don't want them to say you're right. You want them to say that's right. There's a huge difference. It's the ownership, right? Your right versus that's right. So look for ways for them to say, that's right. If they say, you're right, you have to change your approach. You're right isn't going to work. That's right is going to work.

Okay? Awesome.

And the other thing that a lot of parents don't realize is 2 things can be true at the same time. And I know I'm guilty of this too. Right? I love you, and I'm proud of you. And I need to make a plan together. Right? Both things can be true at the same time. I'm not angry with you. But I am affected by what's happening. I'll always be in your corner, but my corner looks different now. Right? These 2 things are not mutually exclusive. You can still be a parent, but not in the same way that you have been. A lot of people say, well, if I was a really good parent, then I would've done this. No, you are a good parent right now. Just no one taught you how to parent this age because it was so fundamentally different. Okay. Also, the setting when you're having these conversations, a car and a walk, gold, absolute gold for having conversations. Why? Okay. So Claudia, you said, why is it bad if they say we're right? Because then they don't own it. We want them to own what's going on.

Okay.

They have to have the ownership in there. So that's why. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Agreed. Car and walk always, because they're side by side, they're both forward momentum. It signals safety because when you're looking at them, they're like, oh my gosh. Right. But if you can do it on a car ride or a walk, Perfect. Those are the environments you want to have these types of conversations, but you also want to make sure you just don't launch into them. You have to walk into them, right? You have to go gradually. You have to connect with them first before you have these difficult conversations. Okay. So key number 2 is a misalignment diagnosis.

Okay.

So lazy and misaligned are not the same thing. Okay. Lazy is capable but willing. Misaligned is willing but pointed the wrong way or no way at all. The problem with the challenge that we have right now is that there are 10,000 options of what to do, of 10,000 different directions of which to go to, right? We didn't have social media, so we couldn't do this. We did. We didn't have all these possibilities for jobs. We couldn't go be an influencer or a YouTuber or anything like that. But now there's all these other jobs, right? Yeah, exactly. For performance reviews. Yes, exactly. It helped you and it opened you up more. And that's the reason why, because it didn't feel threatening. It felt safe. Psychological safety is the key here, right? So you want to figure out— what we usually do is we just put more pressure and we say, you got to get this done. You got to go. call these people, you got to network, and you have to have a different question before a different action for misaligned. Okay? So what you really want to do is you want to understand, and these are kids that you've seen your whole life and you know they're not lazy. You know they can get shit done. They're just probably misaligned right now. Because there's too many options and it's 1, 2, 3, many. Okay. So there's 3 signs of misalignment. Okay. Yeah, they get what they want to get done. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly, Chris. They get done what they want to get done. And they're going to do that because any idea you give them is not going to work. And so what you do is you have these conversations where you start getting them thinking and reflecting. When they reflect, like when they reflect, then they can think out loud. Basically, you're being a sounding board. Think of it that way. You're not giving advice, you're just being a sounding board. But there's 3 signs of misalignment. Persistence avoidance. They postpone anything in one direction, right? So if it's always avoiding, then That's a sign. Energy drainage. That's another sign. When it should move them forward, but instead leaves them tired, not energized. Borrowed direction. They're chasing a path that from outside pressure, not that one fits them. How many times have we seen that? How many times have we been like, I'll take this job, but I don't really want it? That's misalignment. You may have no choice but to take the job, or you may have convinced yourself that this is what you want to do, but it's again from the outside pressure. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And a lot of people do that. So let me tell you about my daughter. Okay. Lila always knew what she wanted. Uses the word loss of motivation. He's just not excited about anything. He has to find— Claudia has to find out what he's energized about. Nope. Okay. I go right back to me. But Lila always knew what she wanted. She knew that she wanted to be a dog trainer. She's in dog training school right now. Right? But, you know, she said, I'm going to try college. I want to do that. And I was like, okay, but you can leave college at any time. And then she left it last year. Lila's 21. And so she wanted to work with dogs and that's what she wanted to do. She left her junior year of college, right? She got a job at a Humane Society, which was great, but she still had that sleep, that flipped sleep schedule. And to be honest, she wasn't showing up to work on time. And missing a lot of days. Now it was a grueling job cleaning kennels all day, which was very physical on a lot of people. Right? Yes. And Alicia, yeah, that's not uncommon. Sorry, just going back. He's not sure what excites him and that bothers him. And that's not wrong, but you have to say, what would be even a little bit exciting to you? Yeah, it could be depression. That's something that, that it absolutely, it could be, Claudia. Right. Yeah. So, yeah, I did the comeback in the day. Backbreaking. Yeah, it's grueling. Yeah. And everybody had injuries, right? But I had to let her fail at that. I knew that if she didn't show up for work, That she was going to lose her job. And guess what? That's what happened. Right? But I had to let her learn the hard way. I couldn't go in and save her. Yeah, doesn't learn. Yeah, definitely doesn't learn the value of hard work. She understands that now. Right? But she stayed committed to her goal. And now she's in her first week at dog training school and she could not be happier. Right? But she had to find that alignment. And that was painful for the parents, me and my wife. Because we saw her going in directions that didn't match, that weren't exciting to her. And I can't tell you how many people in college want to leave, but their parents won't let them. And that's not helping them. That's my personal opinion anyway. But even if they have a setback, it's not a detour. That's just how they need to learn. Even though it was very Yes. Thank you, Chris. Yes, she found her passion, right? It just took a little while longer to get there. Right. And that's the journey that we're on. We can't expect them to just know what they want to do at this point. And they need to experiment. They need to try new things, even volunteering things, trying a job that might feel a little exciting.

Right.

Not hugely exciting, but a little exciting. Something that they actually look forward to anyway. Okay, so let's talk about key number three: accountability handoff. Okay, we need to go back to being the parent and not being the enforcer. Okay, now you can't hold accountability and be trusted at once, and we've all been the enforcer, right? We track their every move.

Yeah.

We pressure without clarity. We do all of these things, but what we want to do is we want to be present, warm, and grounded with them. We don't want them to feel our anxiety. We have to process our anxiety. Actually, I'll tell you a little thing that I did. Anybody know the show Shrinking? With Harrison Ford?

Absolutely love.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So Harrison Ford, he's a therapist. And the story is that his— Jason Segel's daughter— Jason Segel lost his wife and his daughter lost her mom. And so Harrison Ford and the daughter are talking. And Harrison Ford tells the daughter, you're not grieving. About your mom who got killed in a car accident. And he's like, here's what I want you to do is I want you to spend 15 minutes every day, schedule it, and grieve. And when I thought that, I was like, oh, I could do that with worrying. So instead of worrying at the moment, I could schedule my worry time. And if it was outside of worry time, then I would just move it to the time of the worry time. I'm like, oh yeah, Worry came up. I'm going to worry about that at 4 o'clock tomorrow. Right? So you can do the same thing. Schedule your worry time. Right? Schedule your anxiety time. Otherwise, it's just going all over the place. Again, I cannot highlight journaling is the best way to do it. So, okay. But getting them to launch is a multi-step process. There are 6 phases. Okay? The first phase is we have to have the contribution conversation. It can be rent, it can be labor, or both. Okay? They have to contribute in some way. They must. If they don't have any money, that's fine. They can do a lot of chores. You have to have de-escalation scripts, which you'll get if you stay to the end. So that will help. You want to have a talk with them about career independence. What does that look like to them? What does that look like to them? If they could wave a magic wand, what would that, what would their ideal life look like? How would work and life fit in together? Right? And also part of this is the parent's graduation. You have to graduate from, to having this adult-to-adult relationship now. And then 60 days before. And so if you had an, if you had an agreement that they were going to move out by the end of the year, 60 days before that, they need to practice independence living. You're not their alarm clock. You're not their, your food source. You're not doing their grocery shopping on any of that. You want to make sure that they can do it. And then you want to plan the exit. Right? I have a whole separate talk on the living agreement, which is really the career independence talk, is about what they want to do and how things are going to be, how you're going to show up and how they're going to show up. That's a whole different subject, but that's the thing. So we want to have calm authority. We want to have— we understand that they need to have direction and we understand that they need to own it. Okay? And that's what happens when you apply all 3. That's what makes them launch. Okay? Now, some of you on this webinar have been to my previous webinars. Right. And you know that there's 2 paths that you can take, or really, actually, there's 3 paths. Okay. There's the do-it-yourself path, which you can absolutely do, right? You can get the Family Conversation Starter Guide. You can read the Chris Voss book. You can do that. I also do one-on-one coaching. And let me just tell you about some of my clients. Okay. I had a client whose actually daughter was not living at home, but she was stuck at a low-end job, but she wasn't telling them what was going on. Previous slide real quick. Yes. She wasn't telling them what's going on. She was shutting down completely. Okay. So they had no idea. They're in California. She's in New York. She's ghosting them hard. She comes home for 10 days and I coach the parents, right? Because when you show up differently, they show up differently. You think that it's all them, but it's how you're showing up. And I'll tell you what happened within 30 days. She opened up less than 30 days. She opened up. And started telling them what was really going on. When they stopped giving advice, when they used the Chris Voss techniques, when they do that type of language, when they show up differently, it's amazing how different that happens. And this is not just this one case. Current clients I'm working at today, they just signed up with me 2 weeks ago. They started implementing the changes that I was talking about. And I was coaching them on their specific situation and how they were showing up. What happens? The kid's already doing chores unsolicited in 2 weeks. Unsolicited. Mowing the lawn. They didn't even ask. They didn't even ask. And so When you show up differently, they will show up differently. And that's what I do with one-on-one coaching, because you have to understand what— why you're not showing up the right way. And it's not your fault. You've just never been trained to show up this way. And nobody ever tells you that this is the way that you need to show up. That's the challenge, right? When you show up differently, it's amazing how quickly they change. It's just amazing. I'm just stunned by it. Right? So you can absolutely do this by yourself. But I'm telling you, my clients, I can't guarantee it always, but in most situations, it's 30 days or less. And their kids are showing up completely different. Okay. My screen just totally went crazy. I'm having too much technology fun today. Right. And a couple of things, Hallie's gonna put 2 things in the chat.

Okay.

Okay. One is you've, you've stayed to the end. Okay. So the Family Conversation Starter Guide. So Hallie, if you put that link in the chat. Thanks. So go ahead, download it. It's completely free. It'll give you a lot of great talking points. Of how to start conversations with your kid. Yes. That's— yes, he is old school and that's— and he'll fight you on it. You have to make sure that you're in alignment and that's sometimes hard. It's hard for people to change.

Right.

Yes. And you can use the Chris Voss strategy on him too. So the second thing that Hallie's going to put in chat is a way to have a call with me. And it's 30 minutes. I gather information for the first 10 minutes. We talk about, I'll give you 3 recommendations right off the bat. Right. And then if it fits, then we move forward. Right. If it's a fit, if it's not, then that's fine too. So yes, please go ahead. And so. This is, these are the 3 keys of getting this done. And I'm just going to put 60 seconds. We're going to time, I'm going to put a timer on for 60 seconds and you guys can absolutely schedule a call. So let me just put on my timer. Time. Yeah. Okay. So I'll do that. Okay. So what questions do you have? I threw a lot at you and it's probably overwhelming. And you can come off mute if you want to. Any questions at all? Don't be shy. I know you have a question. There's a timer. Okay. I'm coming to mind at the moment. Tell me this. What was your— it's hard not to be on top. I don't know that I know what you mean by being on top, but what's your biggest aha moment from the last hour? Yeah, it's hard not to be pressuring. Yes, it is. Yes, it is. Especially when you know the answer, 2+ 2= 4. What? It's just It's 4. I gave you the answer. You're right versus that's right. Yeah. That's a good takeaway. What's some other takeaways that y'all had? What or how questions. Yeah, Alicia. Yeah. What or how questions. And you just have to make sure, Alicia, that it's not an agenda question, right? You can't come at it with your own agenda. You have to come at it with curiosity. What would a simple Nick Non-overwhelming step look like? That's what you want, is you want to ask questions that they have to reflect upon.

You need to go outside?

I find that they sometimes have us just listen without giving advice. Yes. So one of the best phrases that I've heard for that, Carol, is if you don't know what to do with your kid, Knock it off. If they're talking and you don't know what to do. I think we're getting some background noise, so please put yourselves on mute. But one of the— yeah. Yeah. Want to hug? Yeah. The hubby should listen to it. But one of the best questions, and you should write this down. Do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged? And I love that phrase. And I wish somebody would've told me that as a newlywed.

Go ahead.

Because when I got married, my wife starts venting to me and guess what I do? I try to fix it. I try to fix it. And that's actually— and by asking that question, and hugged just means supported. It doesn't have to be a physical hug. It can just be supported. But do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged? So if somebody's talking to you and you don't know what to do, then you can say, do you want to be helped, heard, or hugged? Because they'll be just like, I just want to be heard, or I do need your help. So that's a situation where you can talk, where you can say, if you, if they ask for your advice, then you can give it. But when they don't ask for your advice, you cannot. Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So thank you, Carol. Yeah. So helped, heard, or hugged, and make sure that when they feel seen and heard, they will grow. When they're being defensive all the time, they can't think straight. So if they're feeling all this pressure all the time, Whether it's verbal or nonverbal, they're going to shut down and they're going to stay in their rooms and play video games. Another phrase you can use, and I'll give you this one too. Actually, my client just used this. I've noticed. I've noticed that you feel a little more shut down.

Yes.

If he feels, if he's saying that, then that's what's happening.

Right.

And Claudia, he feels controlled because he feels that. And that may be just something in the force, right? That just may be the vibes you're sending off. But, oh, what I was going to go back to was the I've noticed. I've noticed is a great phrase. I've noticed that you feel a little more withdrawn than usual. Pause. That acts as a question. They'll tell you if that's correct or no. If they don't, if there's a pregnant pause, then you just say, what do you think? You want to get them to talk about what they're thinking. So the client that I'm working with right now, she has a son. 38 years old, living at home. Okay. She used, I've noticed. I've noticed that your door seems to stay closed a lot. And you know what? The door started staying open just by that simple phrase. So I've noticed, as long as it's not judgment or criticism, right? You can't say, I've noticed you've been a jerk lately. That's not gonna work. I've noticed that you have low energy lately. Is that true? Okay. Last call for questions. Going once, going twice. Anyone? Was this helpful? Put a 1 in chat if you learned something today. I'll send it to you, Chris. Yeah, happy to help. This is stuff that they don't teach you about parenting. At this phase. Nobody taught me, but I know that when I showed up differently for my daughter, Lila, she showed up differently. I'll give you another tip. I'm just going to throw you more tips. Please tell your kids that you believe in them once a week. When was the last time you said that to them? Thank you, Ali. When was the last time you said, I believe in you? When was the last time somebody said that to you? Wouldn't that be nice? Wouldn't that feel refreshing? And in your 20s, everything feels heavier, right? Yes, it's, it feels heavier. So say, I believe in you. Something I've told my kids since they were infants is, I love you all the time, no matter what. I love you all the time, no matter. Yes, exactly, Claudia. Yes. Tell them what you're proud of. So, so Chris, I hear you. Even though they're mid-upper 20s, these tactics still work. Okay. They work on the boss. They work on, again, hostage negotiation. It works on everybody. It works on everybody. Okay. And yes, you're, it sounds like Chris and yeah, 26. So Chris, it sounds if he's in his mid-upper 20s and things have gone askew. Okay. What we want to do is we want to, yeah, 31. So this is not, see, you're not alone, people. You're not alone. But when things have gone askew, what we're trying to do now If we're trying to parent in such a way so that we don't end up with estrangement. Okay. If you let things go too long, right, it can lead to estrangement. Yeah. And so you don't want that. Yeah. And, and this is a hard shift to make from giving advice to listening. I still have a hard time with it. I'm not perfect. I make mistakes as a parent too. But yeah, if you— yeah, one day at a time. Just do baby steps. Just say, for the next 24 hours, I'm not going to give advice. I'm not going to send any job listings. Right? Don't do that. That's terrible. My mom has done that to me. Don't recommend. One star. But that's what I'm talking about is like, don't beat yourself up if you can't implement this all at once. It takes time. It's a new way of thinking. It's a new way of thinking of not giving advice. But I promise you, when you deal with your own anxiety and when you show up differently, they will show up differently. And my 2 last clients are living proof of that.

Yeah.

Exactly, Carol. We're all in this together. And I was just like, I have, I know so much now. I can help people. And that's what I really want to do is to help you all navigate through this tough time because there's a lot more of you than you think. I can't tell you every other, if when I tell people what I do.

Yeah.

I wish I would've had a village to help, but I can't tell you how many people I talk to who say, somebody I know has a stuck college grad at home who's sleeping all day, playing all night, and I don't know what to do. But when you show up differently, they show up differently. Okay. So I've belabored that point enough. Any, any final comments from anyone? Claudia, you have something to say? Oh, Chris, I didn't see your comment yet. We're guilty of maintaining a shared potential job spreadsheet for our son. Yep. Yeah. That's fantastic. But that's what we do. We're trying to help. But nobody told us that it just shuts them down. So. No one is perfect. Yep. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly, Carol. It's yeah, no one is perfect. I actually have a joke with my kids. I say, "I'm a perfect parent," and now they just know to roll their eyes. Right? I raised them on sarcasm. So what advice do you have for late night video gaming? Yes, that's the hard part, right? Gen X loves sarcasm. I grew up on the movie Airplane, so it's my idea of sarcasm. So yeah, Gen Zers. Alicia, is this a new phenomenon? I don't think so. I don't think so. For the late-night video gaming, okay, that is hard. Flip sleep schedule is hard. Okay. That's not going to come overnight. But again, say, I've noticed that you've been playing video games at night, or I've noticed that things like that, you can say that I've noticed and get his thoughts, get his feelings. He needs to, he needs to feel safe to talk to you. Claudia, that's what's going on there. He needs to feel, he needs to feel safe in talking to you.

Okay.

So the way to make him feel safe is lay off the pressure. I have an employee who met his wife gaming. She's loving fully. Yeah. Gaming is a common thing. My daughter stays up and does Legos. And coloring. Not video games, but it's the same sort of thing. But now that she's in a dog training program that she wants to do, guess what? Her, her flipped sleep schedule is getting fixed. I think she went to bed before midnight last night. Yeah. Okay. That's all I got for you guys. Hope this was helpful. Hallie, if you could just put my link to the call again. Happy to talk about your specific situation. Any advice on reaching out when they don't want to talk to you? Yeah, that's a tough— that's estrangement. And what you have to do is you have to just tell them that you love them. And if they are estranged, I would actually go to estrangement.com and watch that webinar. He's much better at this than I am. Okay, estrangement.com. If they're currently estranged, yes.

Can we get a link to rewatch?

Yes, absolutely, Carol.

Yes, absolutely.

Okay, thank you all for your time and feel free to reach