In this thought-provoking episode, Angie Austin invites Katie Millar-Wierig to share her expertise on teen stress management and growth through life’s challenges. With teenagers grappling with school pressures, Katie highlights the importance of a growth mindset and equipping teens with tools to manage everyday stressors. Discover how parents can support their children in becoming confident, self-sufficient individuals capable of navigating life’s bigger decisions. Join the discussion on finding that perfect balance—the Goldilocks zone—of encouraging success without added stress.
Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey there, friend. Angie Austin and Katie Millar-Wierig here with the good news. We often talk about Katie’s book becoming a mean teen parenting machine, but we are going to talk a little bit about the work she does so you can get to know her a little better and how she works with kids and the brain and, you know, overall helping them lead a healthy mental and physical path through school and life. And with school starting now and a lot of the kids really feeling the pressure, navigate this hamster wheel of high school life. Hey, Katie.
SPEAKER 06 :
Hi, glad to be here. Thanks, Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
So tell us a little about your background, your education, and the work you do in addition to being an author.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, of course. So I went to school and got my degrees in neuroscience and psychology. And Initially, when I started, I thought I would do most of my work with children that have neurological disorders or were non-neurotypical like Asperger’s or autism. And so in my college years, I did a lot of work with these children. But as I got farther into it, I realized that the parents especially were finding tools to deal with that. And there was a lot of literature there, but what they really wanted help with was more like the day-to-day, how to manage day-to-day stuff, particularly when it came to like anxiety, life skills, how to have more harmony in the home and stuff like that. And so I transitioned out of doing work with the autistic children, even though I still have a couple of clients that I work with with that. But the majority of the work that I do is just, you know, learning how to cope with normal stressors in life, growth, mindset, all of these kind of things, more like a life skills type of thing. And a lot of that comes from coaching the parents as much as coaching the child.
SPEAKER 04 :
Uh-huh. That makes sense to me. That makes sense to me. I feel like right now, especially with my girls, my son’s a senior, so he’s kind of got a little bit maybe easier load and kind of knows how to navigate it. And he’s taking college classes. They have a really cool program here where every other day you basically go to a campus where you take community college classes, but with your other students. other kids from our district. So it might be seven or eight high schools coming together. And so you’re in a business class, not just with your high school classmates. So it gives you kind of the college experience every other day of school. And so my son’s been doing it for two years and he, it really agrees with him. Like he gets A’s in his business classes and it’s been a lot less stressful for him to kind of transition into the area where he wants to focus. But for my girls, my youngest is in 10th, I would say half her classes are honors classes, and then the others might be theater and weightlifting or something like that. But her honors classes, I think she was in for a bit of a shock as to the difficulty. A couple of them are college level, and she gets college credit if she tests C or above when she finishes the class, and she’s 14. So anyway, last night at 10.30, she was stressing out reading something to my husband. I already had my headphones in, and I’m like, I’ve been sick. So I was like… I’m not taking these headphones off and like fully waking up unless she like rips the covers off of me, you know, because it’s 1030. And why didn’t she do this over the weekend? And then she had said, I heard her say, well, I had basketball tryouts. And then I went to the mall to get my homecoming dress. And then we had the family Bronco party with the neighbors. And then, you know, we had guests over at the house and they left at 10. And she’s like, so when was I supposed to, you know, do this? And generally, she starts Friday night. So I could feel her stress. I could just kind of hear her. She was talking to her dad. And I was like, okay, do I wake up and deal with this now like a really good parent? Or since I’ve been sick, do I just keep my headphones in? Then I heard him say, wow, that’s really good. Okay, I like that. You did a really good job. I thought, oh, sure. I have a parenting moment that I don’t have to get involved in. Everything’s good. And I just kind of go, good job, Faith. Good night. And then I thought, okay. So a lot of times I do sit down with her and I will actually read the chapter. And we will do like the study guide together or whatever. So I try to get pretty involved. She is super stressed because I feel like she did maybe bite off a little more than she could chew because she’s also – on the JV basketball team, and they’re already doing like league things already for the high school. And this is, Katie, this high school is over 3,000 kids. It’s like a campus.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, it’s huge.
SPEAKER 04 :
So I do feel that the two girls, I’ve already heard them say they’re stressed.
SPEAKER 06 :
Yeah, and I think… This is common. And one thing that I think all of us need to recognize as parents and teens is that we learn incrementally how to deal with stress. And right now, their stressors are, you know, maybe even seemingly not that big to us, like something like a test. It’s like, well, who cares, right? Just go in and do your best. It won’t be that big a deal. It’ll all work out. And for us, because we have that perspective, and we’re stressing about things that are bigger picture, like, you know, big financial things we have. We have mortgages. We have things that actually, you know, have big consequences. And we’re looking and saying, oh, this is just a silly quiz or a silly project. There’s that side of parenting. Then there’s the other side of parenting where the parent is pushing them so hard and saying, you know, you’ve got to start now getting into college and being really pushy. Either way, the thing that we need to recognize is that our children are learning through just like they learn to talk through small worlds and then they get to bigger words and then and then they can now you know write wonderful essays for themselves they are also learning how to take care of their mental health their stress how to pack their schedule if they need to pull back on their schedule and so your daughter is having really important life experiences as she’s learning through these stresses and the key that that I tell many parents is to guide them by the time they get to teenagers to guide them but not to rescue them so they need to find that confidence in themselves to feel like i can do this and i i um read a wonderful book, but in the thing, it says that our goal as parents, or whether it’s in your marriage or any relationship is to have the person to want you, but not to need you. And that’s what we need for our children. We want them to be able to say, I want to go to mom because she provides comfort and help in these situations. But if mom’s not available, I feel confident in my ability to solve this problem. And instead of it feeling like, If my mom is not available to me, I will not be able to finish this project. I don’t know if I’ll be able to graduate high school. She has to be there holding my hand the entire time. And so when your daughter, when all of our children, but when your daughter has these stressful moments, the goal is to guide them through how to solve the problem on their own. Maybe sometimes that, you know what, maybe you need to pull back on a class. Maybe you have overscheduled yourself and and you’ve bit off more than you can chew, and so this is a good lesson to learn of how we can manage our schedule better. Or maybe this is, I have confidence in you, I’ll help you a little bit, but this is something you’re going to have to work on on your own. You know, there’s a lot of different ways to handle it, and it’s so individual in circumstances, but if the goal, if you’re constantly looking at the goal as, how can I equip them to be confident in their own abilities to handle hard things, then as they grow into harder things that they’re doing, maybe it’s not a quiz in school, but then it’s, making a major life decision, that they feel confident in their choices. And you also have confidence in them because you’ve been able to help them make proper choices in good incremental ways.
SPEAKER 04 :
And I giggle when you said, I know you and I are a little similar when it comes to type A personality with one kid, like straight A’s. And when you’re like, no, let’s go take the questions, do the best you can. And I’m like, no, that wouldn’t have been you and me.
SPEAKER 06 :
no not at all and in some ways it’s funny because this is the goldilocks zone of parenting where we encourage our children to succeed without stressing them out more yes and you know so there are some parents they’re like oh you’re stressing too much and then there’s other parents that are putting more stress on their kids because you’re not taking this serious enough and i i tend to fall on the side of They need to be more serious. Well, truth be told, I have a couple kids that need a little more push and some that I have to say, whoa, you’re even more than me. Like, you need to chill. Oh, that’s funny. And so it’s definitely child-specific. But finding that Goldilocks zone for them, too, of wondering and also knowing what their goals are. Because if your child’s goal, this is a hard one with school. At school starting, I think a lot of parents are dealing with this. a good thing to do is to sit down together and ask the child, what’s your goal for this school year? And I have one daughter specifically who is a competitive gymnast. She’s a level eight gymnast, very good. Academics are not her strong thing. She does well in school, but it is not her passion or her love. And so when we sat down together to talk about her goals for the school year, her goals looked very different than my daughter’s. And I wanted her to be able to drive her own goals instead of leaving like, OK, well, you know, you’ve got to do it this way. You’ve got it this way. And so as she came in, I let her make two or three goals for herself. And I said, can I put in just one goal that me and dad would like to see this year? And and I chose even not to do a academic goal. I chose to do a more social goal for her. And anyways, because it’s just her needs and her desires and where she wants to be is so different than my other children. And I need to honor that because I worry that the more I push her to be something that’s not true to herself and say, you have to be valedictorian, you have to do all these things, she’ll end up feeling bad about herself. And I know she’ll be fine with her academics, but… I have to honor that her goals may not be to be like her sister, who is on track to do all of those great academic things and say, we’re OK with that. As long as you are still pushing forward, making progress spiritually, emotionally, physically, if you’re still making progress, progress is progress, even if it doesn’t look like it’s the same as everyone else’s.
SPEAKER 04 :
I like that and I think that the child specific is so important it’s interesting because this year they all seem to kind of understand the importance of the academics finally the senior the junior for sure because they’re looking at colleges and they’re like oh yeah I need to do better this year and then the little one she’s more like me she just wants to do as well as she can anyway and in those weighted classes she’s happy that because some of them are pretty difficult but when you get a b it’s weighted as an a you still get like i guess it’s the equivalent of an a because you know they weight them differently yeah exactly and that’s so it’s so
SPEAKER 06 :
fun as a parent to see some of these children really have that desire from a young age and see that perspective but also truth be told my oldest daughter’s that way and there’s other things that I look at and I’m like oh there are drawbacks to that too I wonder are you enjoying your high school experience are you Are you, you know, making lasting relationships? Are you working on your relationship with God, or are you only focusing on these achievements? And so it’s just, like I said, it’s this Goldilocks zone, and if you take each child individually and ask what their goals are and really, really listen to them, not necessarily the parent’s goals but the child’s goals, it can be a very confidence-building experience for the child and helpful for the parent to know how best to support the child.
SPEAKER 04 :
Exactly, exactly. I want to make sure people know how to find you on social media, but also who you work with and how you work with people and that they don’t have to be right in your office, right?
SPEAKER 06 :
Well, actually, right now I’m only doing in-person stuff, so it’s all local here. But you can reach out to me through Instagram. That’s probably the easiest and fastest way. It’s the Balanced Mind Project. And from there, you can see our websites, our programs, books that we have. And then, yeah, if you have any questions or want to reach out, please do so through the DM portion of Instagram.
SPEAKER 04 :
Excellent. And what’s next for you? You work on any books or just getting these kids raised? Like what’s your next project?
SPEAKER 06 :
My next book actually came out last week. It’s called Parenting Teens. Yes, Parenting Teens in the Anxiety Era. It’s just went live on Amazon last week. So that’s pretty exciting. So that’s a book that’s just focused on really just handling anxiety in the home. And so that’s something great. Feel free to check it out. And that also will be linked on all of the social media and the website.
SPEAKER 04 :
Excellent. Well, let’s tackle that one when we speak again next week because we’re blessed to get you in weekly.
SPEAKER 06 :
Perfect. Thank you so much, Andy.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, Katie. Have a great week. Bye-bye.
SPEAKER 03 :
Get your gently used back-to-school shopping done at Arc Thrift. Arc offers back-to-school necessities at a fraction of the cost compared to the big box stores. Whether you’re looking for back-to-school supplies, lunch boxes, or new clothes and accessories, Arc has got you covered. And if your child is starting a new sport or just growing taller, Arc always has quality sporting equipment for all of the sports. It’s getting closer to Halloween, so why not start looking now before the rush? Some of the best and most creative Halloween costumes and decorations can be found at ARC, and they always need donations, so why not have their staff come and pick up your large furniture or at least 10 boxes or bags? Let them know you have a minimum of 10 boxes or bags, and they will come pick it up at a scheduled time. Easy. Just go to their website, arcthrift.com, to schedule a pickup or find the nearest ARC Thrift today. Again, that’s arcthrift.com. Fort Lupton, you’re tuned to Colorado’s mighty 670 KLTT.
SPEAKER 04 :
Hey friend, it’s the good news with Angie Austin, Beatrice Bruno and Michelle Rahn. We get these ladies once a week and I so look forward to having you. Michelle, you’ll have the word of the week and Beatrice, you’re getting ready to go on another God-led excursion. So welcome to both of you.
SPEAKER 05 :
Thank you for having us. Wonderful to be here. Thank you.
SPEAKER 04 :
All right, let’s start with the word of the week, because we like to dive right in now. Michelle prepares this every week. I love it.
SPEAKER 05 :
Well, you know what? I pray that God takes it and gives me the word, and his words are amazing. That it’s his and not mine. Anyway, the word is shallow for this week. Shallow. I would imagine that many of us have touched our toes into shallow water sometimes. And I really don’t like to get all wet. So I’m probably one of those that just dip my toes in. But somewhere in our life. we’ve just gone into the shallow water. And shallow is not deep water, and it’s just enough for the day if I don’t want to get completely wet. So just enough to feel the coolness of the water. And I got to thinking, as I love to observe people, my favorite thing is just watching people and So many people are looking down at their phones. Well, a bazillion of them are. But sometimes you get those people who will look at you in the face, and you smile, and hopefully they smile back. But many of the people that I visit with sometimes are needing what I would call a deep-rooted experience from Jesus. In fact, in my devotions last week, In Streams in the Desert, it was in Matthew where it tells us that some of the sea fell on rocky places where it didn’t have much soil. It sprang up quickly because the soil was shallow. And it seems that from this parable, we must have something to do with the depth of the soil. in our bodies, because the fruitful seed fell on good soil. And I love gardening, and I know for a fact from learning the hard way that good soil makes all the difference in the world. And that’s true of our good and honest hearts. I suppose the shallow people are those who Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. those people. And unfortunately, I can name some friends and God’s put me with them. So I’m hoping that it rubs off a little bit, but they just don’t get it. They just don’t get it. It’s just a facade in front of them. And so each one of us, I’m saying to us, and I’m included, we should be careful to maintain that soil of our hearts. A shallow life lives on impulses, impressions, intuitions, instincts, and largely on the circumstance. But those who have profound character, they look beyond all those and they move forward, seeing the future, even where there’s sorrow or defeat and failure, but they keep moving forward because they have that depth and that faith in the heart of that God’s in charge. God’s in charge, and I’m going to trust in him. So perhaps we could think of the word shallow differently this week and move for all of us to go deeper into our hearts and to the love of our Jesus. Ta-da! There you go.
SPEAKER 04 :
I like that because it’s like, you know, making sure that our soil, our bodies, our hearts, our minds are receptive to the good things and to the good news. And so if we aren’t taking care of these aspects of our Christian faith that, you know, bad things can grow. The weeds can grow.
SPEAKER 05 :
Right. The weeds do grow, and they grow fast. So we have to watch for them, for sure.
SPEAKER 04 :
Beatrice, what do you think?
SPEAKER 01 :
Oh, my goodness. On Saturday or Sunday evening, I decided I want to look at TV. And I said, well, what’s on? And I went on Paramount. And there’s this show called The Real Love Boat. And I said, I used to love Love Boat. The series, The Love Boat. I used to love that show. Well, this is a reality take on the love boat that we remember. And what it is, they bring on, I think, like five or six couples. Well, five men, five women. And they see who can gel together and come together and be a couple and all this good stuff. And as I watched it, I’ve watched several episodes of it now. And the words that keep coming out of my mouth are y’all just shallow. I mean, you people are just really shallow. And as Michelle was talking this morning, all I could think about was second Timothy three and five, which says having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof. Okay. Because see within the body of Christ, when you see those people that are surface Christians, they, in other words, they read the word, they go to church, you know, hallelujah. Thank you, Jesus. And then they go home and they live a life that’s totally different than what they perform in church. And God is telling us, he said, don’t have a form of godliness, but really get into me because I want to show you the better way. But when you are a shallow person in any aspect of your life, you have a form of what you’re talking about, but you’re denying its power because you won’t allow that power to completely take you over. In this show, The Real Love Boat, You can see these people, they see the person that they want to be with. And, oh, yes, I want to be with him because I think we’re going to be just wonderful as a couple. And then the next thing you know, the host of it, Jerry O’Connell and his wife, I forget the chick’s name, but they bring in two more people, two more males and two more females. And then that same one that just said, oh, yes, we’re going to be a marvelous couple. They look at, she will look at the new man that’s coming and say, oh, yes. I think that maybe that’s a better fit. And all I can say was y’all are shallow. Y’all are shallow. And you’ll probably never find love as you think you’re looking for it right now. Right. Never find that level of love because you’re having a form of love, but denying the power thereof. So that’s what shallow is to me. And thank you. So much, Mimi, for introducing that word today because it’s so on time. It really is.
SPEAKER 04 :
You know, when I see some of the… Go ahead. No, Mimi, you go.
SPEAKER 05 :
Just real quick. Our minister a long, long time ago did a great sermon on the CEOs. And the CEOs means Christmas Easter only people. And I like that because it’s like the Sunday Christians, just like what you’re saying. We go, but then how do we live the life the rest of the week? And the roots… And our heart have to be deep to focus on Christ. And that means all the time. So, yeah, go ahead, Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, I love that. I just see, you know, these dating shows Beatrice is talking about. And yes, you know, like as I’m falling asleep, sometimes I’ll listen to something shallow because my brain doesn’t have to really process it because it’s so trivial. And so I won’t listen to like, you know, a physics textbook or I won’t listen to a really in-depth mystery show or anything. I like this show Blacklist that always has like something it’s something of intrigue to solve. But that’s that’s too loud or there’s like shooting or too much thinking. So I’ll put on one of these shallow dating shows and then everyone’s well, like I’ll turn the screen on for a second under my pillow. Take a peek to see who’s talking because you’re like, who are these people that are so who raised them to care so little about others? Oh, my gosh.
SPEAKER 01 :
Yeah, this one young lady, it was two black ladies on there. And look, I mean no harm when I say this to your listeners and stuff. I know my people. OK. And as soon as the other black girl came on, I knew the one the black girl that had made it to this certain level that she was going to do her best to get her off. And she finally said in one of the cameos, she said, well, I’ve got to get rid of her because I think she’s stronger than me. And I know she’s going to try to win my place. And I said, y’all are just shallow, and I don’t know how you think you’re going to ever get into a relationship that’s going to be something that you can, you know, that’s something that will go forward.
SPEAKER 04 :
Like the relationships we have, you know. How long, Michelle, have you been married?
SPEAKER 05 :
Fifty-five.
SPEAKER 04 :
Fifty-five. And Beatrice, you would be married how long if your husband was still alive?
SPEAKER 01 :
It would be thirty-two, thirty-three.
SPEAKER 04 :
Oh, my goodness. And I’m right at 20 now. So, you know, we picked solid partners. And I joke around that my husband isn’t the most romantic when he tells our kids that he wouldn’t have chosen me if I weren’t so fiscally responsible. But he’s trying to say to them that finances can cause problems in marriages. So we wanted to find someone equally yoked in the finance department, too.
SPEAKER 05 :
Amen.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen.
SPEAKER 04 :
That’s good. Beatrice, we have a few minutes left. Go ahead.
SPEAKER 05 :
No, just marriage, you work at it. I mean, 55 hasn’t been perfect. I am the first to tell you, and Bob would sure tell you that. I mean, you have to work at it. And those roots have to go deep, and forgiveness has to come, and you have to listen, and you have to communicate, and yada, yada, yada. But people who are shallow are going to walk into that marriage. And I want to say, you know, you’re looking at family, too. You’re going to marry the family. Yeah. You know, all those things make a difference. So we have to turn. I believe, my belief is that we firmly have to turn to Jesus. What should I do, God? Give me the clarity of mind.
SPEAKER 04 :
I’m with you. I love that. We have just three minutes left, Beatrice. I want you to talk to people about, you know, you kind of get led by the Lord and you work in different ministries. You’ve moved around the country since your husband passed, Texas, Pacific Northwest, Virginia Beach. Now you’re back here and now you’re going to be heading to Georgia. Give us the lowdown because you’re fundraising too as well.
SPEAKER 01 :
Amen. Praise the Lord. And thank you so much for the opportunity to share this. I am I’m going to be moving to Macon, Georgia, Warner Robins area, Robins Air Force Base. And I’m going to be working with some profit for profit and nonprofit organizations down there. But what’s really exciting is I’m going to be able to work with veterans and homeless veterans and getting them off the streets and what have you. So I’m doing a fundraiser because this is a God thing. This isn’t a Beatrice thing. And I’m just you know what? I’m testing God and in a sense and saying, OK, God, this is your desire for me. Then, Lord, send what I need. Send the finances that I need to get down there because I’ve got to get stuff, my property from Virginia and take it down there. And then when I get down there, I got to find a place to live and what have you. And so I’m doing a fundraiser. And if you’re interested in. sowing a seed into my ministry the drill sergeant of life please contact me beatrice at drill sergeant of life.com and um just let me know and i’ll send you the information so that you can sow a seed into the kingdom of god and what god is doing in my life hallelujah thank you so much angie i love that i love that and you’ll and they’ll be doing ministry work down there um just yes can you give us a smidgen of what you’re going to do we’ve got about 30 seconds Well, we have a minute and a half. Oh, praise the Lord. We’re going to be feeding the homeless down there. Also, one of the organizations I’ll be working with, we always give the backpacks for the kids. We supply books in the community, food in the community, clothing, all these different things. And I’m excited about that because. Supposedly, we’re one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Well, let’s do some stuff so that we can help other people get off over the bad seasons in their lives and really provide for folks. And that’s where my heart is, especially with the veterans, because I want to see the veterans getting off the streets and getting their benefits and what have you. And I’ll also be working with a gentleman down there. He is building tiny home communities there. especially for veterans to get them off the streets. And so I’ll keep you updated on that as well.
SPEAKER 04 :
I love that. I love that. All right. If you have any questions for the ladies, you can always go to AngieAustin.org and shoot me an email there. And Michelle does a lot of speaking and she does singing and events. And so, Michelle, how do they reach you?
SPEAKER 05 :
MichelleARon.com. Thanks, Angie.
SPEAKER 04 :
You are welcome, my friend. Love you both, ladies. It’s just such a highlight in my week to have you both come on.
SPEAKER 02 :
Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.
