69: Family roles and teens who challenge them

In today’s episode I am going to discuss family roles and how your teenagers can challenge them. Before I get into this I want to share a movie I watched recently called Tommy’s Honour. It is based on true facts regarding a father (Tom Morris) and his son (Tommy Morris) in the late 1800’s in Scotland. These two men are credited with being pioneers of professional golf. Tom wanted Tommy to take over the business of being greens keeper and the club and ball maker when he died. Tommy wanted to play golf and challenged not only his family role but unwritten rules of social class. Tommy and his father had various conflicts when his dad attempted to remind him of his role or place in life. Tommy not only changed professional golfers being paid fairly, but role modeled not letting prejudice or old beliefs systems stop him from loving the woman he married. Margaret (Tommy’s wife) had gotten pregnant out of wedlock and was banned from her church and Tommy’s mother wanted him to “never see her again” when she discovered this information. Tommy went against his mother’s advice and the towns. Toward the end of the movie, Tom makes a decision for his son vs allowing his adult son to make the choice himself, and it had a heartbreaking impact on Tommy. Tommy showed his Dad how we can love through the biases, not live to get other people’s approval and forgive others when they have made mistakes. In episode 65 Julie Hanks briefly mentioned if a family has an identity such as a ‘sports family’ and your daughter doesn’t like sports. In episode 49 I discussed how a psychotherapy conference earlier this impacted me and my hope for parents and caregivers are to stay curious and seek to understand the teen girls in their life ways vs dismissing or discouraging them. I am a big movie lover and have watched thousands of movies over my lifetime. I know there are other movies that demonstrate choosing to be different or standing up to challenge beliefs systems may not make you the most popular person in your family or your community, but not letting fear stop you from doing what you believe in. Parents and caregivers, I encourage you to pause and give yourself permission to explore what you think and feel when that teen girl in your life challenges the family or societal roles. Stay curious with her and seek to understand why it is important to her, what she wants from being an artist, engineer, athlete, or whatever she desires. Being beside her, owning your own fears without projecting them onto her, can help you stay a team vs placing the “issue’ in between your relationship. I invite you to invest in yourself through my coaching services at www.NicoleBurgessCoaching.com or find the show notes www.NicoleCBurgess.com/ep69