Parenting Teenagers Untangled

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Are you trying so hard to be a good parent that you might be doing too much for your tween or teen, and accidentally making life harder for both of you?
In this episode of Parenting Teenagers Untangled, Rachel Richards talks with clinical psychologist and author Dr. Tara Porter about her new book "Good Enough" and why good enough parenting is actually the best kind of parenting.
Drawing on more than 25 years working in adolescent mental health, Tara explains how so many teens—whatever their diagnosis—secretly feel they are not “enough”: not clever enough, organized enough, pretty enough, or successful enough. She links this to a wider achievement-obsessed culture, fueled by:
An education system caught in a “grade arms race”
Social media’s like-and-kudos economy
The professionalization of parenting and the tsunami of advice aimed at parents
Against this backdrop, Tara shares her three core principles of good enough parenting:
A good enough attitude – Letting go of perfection, resisting the urge to optimize every aspect of your child’s life, and accepting that zigzags and setbacks are normal.
Relationship-based parenting – Prioritizing connection over outcomes, being “like wallpaper” in the background: present, warm, and available without crowding them or trying to control everything.
Firm and kind boundaries – Finding the balance between warmth and firmness (authoritative parenting), gradually letting go of authority through the teen years so that by adulthood, your child is guided by their own internal compass, not your rules.
Rachel and Tara explore:
Rescuing vs building resilience
Two common struggle patterns in teensThe perfectionist achiever 
The rebellious non-complier 

How to set boundaries that still protect the relationship
Better conversations with teens
Tara’s two key listening tools:
Empathy – stepping into your teen’s perspective, so they feel genuinely understood.
Curiosity – asking open questions rather than jumping in with solutions.
Rachel adds the idea of “LUFU – Listen Until they Feel Understood”, and both discuss why advice rarely lands until a teen first feels deeply heard.
Mental health labels vs hope and growth
Rachel's personal blog on getting the balance right 
Dr Tara Porter
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Please don't hesitate to seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping. There's no shame in reaching out for support. When you look after yourself your entire family benefits.
Find all the tips from the episode on Substack: 
My email teenagersuntangled@gmail.com
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Ask Rachel anything
We’re living through an age where it can feel like our teenagers’ entire lives are happening behind a screen we can’t see. 
Meanwhile mental health problems in teens are a rising problem that is being blamed on their devices. 
The instinctive response for many of us is to clamp down: ban certain apps, monitor every move, or take away devices altogether.
But as Professor Candice Odgers put it so powerfully:
“You can’t ban your way out of a mental health crisis. You have to build instead.”

In this Wonder Room conversation Katharine Radice and I explore how parents can move beyond panic about phones and toward curious, constructive conversations that help teens feel safe enough to be honest.
These are some of the core things we cover in this episode:
Shifting focus from the phone to the child
Phone use is often a symptom of underlying distress or needs, not the core problem.
Moving from monitoring to understanding
Hours and apps matter less than the quality of your teen’s relationship with their online world and how it makes them feel.
Creating conditions for honesty instead of forcing lies
Avoid loaded, judgmental questions and big emotional reactions that make teens hide or lie about what they’re doing online.
Naming the role of algorithms and external forces
Ask “What is the algorithm feeding you?” to shift some responsibility away from the teen and toward the tech design, making honest conversations safer.
Scaffolding self-reflection and self-regulation
Use curious questions (“Are you stuck?”, “Any surprises in your screen time?”) to help teens build lifelong skills in reviewing and adjusting their own digital habits.
For my Fearless Parenting community members I have gathered the key ideas and given you practical questions you can use tonight with your teen.
Katherine has a Substack full of help and ideas for parents of teenagers
Support the show
Please hit the follow button if you like the podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. 
You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message. 
Please don't hesitate to seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping. There's no shame in reaching out for support. When you look after yourself your entire family benefits.
Find all the tips from the episode on Substack: 
My email teenagersuntangled@gmail.com
My website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact me
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Ask Rachel anything
Are smartphones and social media really damaging our teenagers’ mental health – or are we looking in the wrong place? In this episode, Rachel Richards talks with Professor Candice Odgers, a leading expert on adolescent mental health in the digital age, to unpack what decades of research actually show about teens, tech and wellbeing.
We explore why today’s teenagers are doing better than many headlines suggest, the real size of the link between phones, social media, anxiety and depression, and why offline risks are the biggest predictors of online problems. Candice explains how family stress, academic pressure, inequality, climate anxiety and adult mental health all play a powerful role in teen distress – and why focusing all our fear on phones can distract us from where we can genuinely make a difference.
You’ll hear practical guidance on monitoring vs. connection, how to talk with teens about their online lives without pushing them away, what “ready for a phone” really means, and how social media affects girls and body image. If you feel overwhelmed by scary stories about screens, this conversation will help you move from panic to evidence‑based, compassionate parenting.
Candice Odgers  via her website or on Substack
My substack:
Support the show
Please hit the follow button if you like the podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. 
You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message. 
Please don't hesitate to seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping. There's no shame in reaching out for support. When you look after yourself your entire family benefits.
Find all the tips from the episode on Substack: 
My email teenagersuntangled@gmail.com
My website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact me
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Ask Rachel anything
As a teenager, I grew up in a home with almost no routines. No one talked about what needed to happen when, and I remember constantly thinking, “What am I supposed to do now?” Life felt like reinventing the wheel every day. I didn’t feel safe, and I felt a lot of energy went into trying to cope in the chaos.
Now, as a parent and host of Teenagers Untangled, I’ve come to see routines not as dreary box‑ticking exercises, but as powerful tools for connection, calm, and joy. In this Wonder Room conversation, I sat down with teacher and parent Katharine Radice to explore how routines, habits, and rituals can serve our teenagers—and us.
You can find all of the notes and recommendations made in this bonus episode by clicking here:
Sign up for free emails to let you know when a new episode comes out www.teenagersuntangled.com
Support the show
Please hit the follow button if you like the podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. 
You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message. 
Please don't hesitate to seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping. There's no shame in reaching out for support. When you look after yourself your entire family benefits.
Find all the tips from the episode on Substack: 
My email teenagersuntangled@gmail.com
My website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact me
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Ask Rachel anything
If your teenage daughter says, “I have anxiety,” “my ADHD was out of control today,” or calls a friend “toxic,” it can feel both strangely sophisticated and oddly shallow at the same time. She has language. She has labels. But somehow, you’re still not sure what’s really going on inside her.
In this episode with psychiatrist Dr Suzanne Garfinkel-Crowell, author of Girlhood Translated: Understanding Girls in the Age of Therapy Speak and Self-Diagnosis, we pulled back the curtain on what this language is doing for girls — and what it’s doing to them.
I particularly loved Suzanne’s tip for us parents:
‘The biggest problem with therapy speak is when it’s a conversation stopper, because really, these words should be conversation starters.’
In the discussion she gives us parents ideas on how to move beyond the language our kids are using, and help them understand what’s really going on. 
This isn’t an “anti-diagnosis” conversation. It’s about understanding how the language of mental health, the DSM, and social media are shaping girlhood, and how we as parents can respond in a way that brings us closer instead of shutting our daughters down.
Dr Suzanne Garfinkle-Crowell
If you'd like written notes to remind you about the points in this episode, or you'd like to think more about it, come to my Substack
Support the show
Please hit the follow button if you like the podcast, and share it with anyone who might benefit. 
You can review us on Apple podcasts by going to the show page, scrolling down to the bottom where you can click on a star then you can leave your message. 
Please don't hesitate to seek the advice of a specialist if you're not coping. There's no shame in reaching out for support. When you look after yourself your entire family benefits.
Find all the tips from the episode on Substack: 
My email teenagersuntangled@gmail.com
My website has a blog, searchable episodes, and ways to contact me
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Facebook