Katya Karpenko in English → Choose a Parenting Course for Your Teen's Situation
Choose a Parenting Course for Your Teen's Situation
In short
These are four recorded video courses for parents of teenagers aged 12–17, and each one is built around a single situation at home: rules and boundaries, motivation for school, emotional outbursts, or friendships. The lessons are in Russian. This page explains in English what each course covers and who it won't help, so you can choose before you open the Russian page.
Contents
Which course fits the situation in my family?
Start with the scene that keeps repeating at home, not with a course title. Parents usually bring me one main picture: the same fight about rules, the homework that never starts, the slammed door, the weekend when nobody calls.
Which of these did you live through this week? Each course below is built around one of them.
| Course | When it fits | What's inside | Not the right fit if… |
|---|---|---|---|
| Personal boundaries | Rules keep sliding. You can't tell where to give freedom and where to hold a line. Your teen can't say no to friends. | Three video lessons, workbooks, lecture notes, four steps to set a boundary. | You want a way to make a teenager obey. |
| Motivation | Smart, but wants nothing. Starts things and drops them. Homework only happens while you sit beside your teen. | Two video lessons, workbooks, tests on your child's type of motivation, a guide to setting goals. | The goal is top grades in every subject. |
| Teen emotions | Outbursts, swings from laughter to tears, silence behind a closed door, and you snapping back. | Three video lessons, workbooks, emotion diaries, a list of ways to cool down. | Low mood has lasted more than two weeks. Start with a doctor. |
| Friendships | No friends, or a teen who bends to everyone or disappears online. A new school changed nothing. | Three video lessons, workbooks, a communication skills guide, a values exercise. | There is bullying with threats right now. The school and the adults act first. |
Two scenes at once? That happens all the time. Pick the one that costs your family the most evenings. Shouting about rules is usually boundaries. Shouting about anything at all is usually emotions.
And if you are stuck between buying a deck of question cards and taking a course, I compare the two on a separate page: conversation cards or a parenting course.
Are these courses for parents or teenagers?
For parents. The adult watches the lessons and does the tasks in the workbooks. That isn't a technical detail, it's the whole idea.
A teenager learns how to handle anger, how to refuse, how to start a boring task by living next to an adult who does it. A lecture doesn't teach that. When you change the way rules or feelings are handled at home, your teen's behaviour shifts in answer to you, often before you say a word about the course.
There are two soft exceptions. In the friendships course some tasks are done together with your child, if they agree. In the emotions course a teen can watch a lesson with you if they want to. Making a fifteen-year-old sit through a video gives nothing, so I never build a course on that.
For teenagers themselves I run something different: a closed online group with peers, three months long, with no parents in the room.
What does each recorded course include?
Every course has video lessons I recorded myself, a workbook with tasks for each lesson, lecture notes and a reading list on the topic. On top of that, each one has its own material:
- Boundaries: what kinds of boundaries exist, a normal reaction when someone crosses one, four steps to set your own, five circles of trust, what not to say to children and teens, how to react when your teen defends their own boundaries, and a short material on a child's body boundaries.
- Motivation: tests that show your child's type of motivation and a guide to setting goals that don't get dropped after a week.
- Emotions: emotion diaries, nineteen ways to put out an "inner fire", and material on alexithymia, when a person can't tell their own feelings apart.
- Friendships: a guide to communication skills, a worksheet on limiting beliefs and an exercise on values.
You watch from your phone, in your own time. There is no timetable to fit into. Access stays open for three months, so you can come back to the right lesson when the same scene happens again. And it will happen again, that's normal.
Are the lessons in English or Russian?
Russian. The videos, workbooks and notes are all in Russian. These English pages exist so that a parent who searches in English can see what's inside before deciding.
Who does that work for? Russian-speaking families living abroad, where the children answer in English and the parents still think in Russian. Mixed families, where one parent understands Russian and takes the course, and then the two of you agree on the house rules together.
If nobody at home understands spoken Russian, the lessons won't be useful to you yet. I'd rather say that here than after you enrol.
Enrolment happens on the Russian page of each course: the form there also takes payment. Not sure? Ask me first. The button is at the bottom of this page.
How is a recorded course different from a live parent group?
A recording gives you a method and material. It can't see your family. You watch when everyone is asleep, pause, rewatch the part about the four steps before a hard talk with your son. That's its strength and its limit.
A live group is people and time. You bring your own situation and hear how other parents got through the same thing, and the conversation is about your evening, not a typical case. My teen groups work the same way: teenagers with peers, no parents in the room.
A short way to hold it: the course changes the adult, the group changes the teenager. If you've watched the lessons and keep getting stuck at the same point, that is the moment a live format makes sense.
When is a course not enough help?
A recorded course is for ordinary hard times: arguments, silence, falling grades, loneliness. Some situations need a person, not a video, and they need one first.
See a specialist in person if low mood has lasted more than two weeks and your teen has lost sleep and interest in everything. Do the same if they've gone quiet not only with you but with friends too, and that has lasted more than a month. If a doctor has diagnosed ADHD, a motivation course alone is not enough, and separate work with a specialist comes first.
Bullying with threats or physical violence is a job for the school and the adults around, not for a course. If your child is in danger right now, call your local emergency number. For a plain overview of teenage mental health, the World Health Organization fact sheet is a sound place to start.
How do you tell your teen you're getting help? Say it about yourself: "I don't know how to reach you, and I don't want to push. I'm going to talk to a psychologist to sort out my part." Teenagers often agree to come along after that, because nobody forced the decision on them.
The courses on this page
Questions parents ask
Which course should I start with if more than one situation sounds familiar?
Start with the scene that repeats most often and costs your family the most evenings. Fights about rules point to boundaries, explosions about anything point to emotions. You can take a second course later, since access to each one is open for three months.
Do I need to understand Russian to take a course?
Yes. The video lessons, workbooks and notes are in Russian, and these English pages only explain what is inside. If one parent understands Russian, that parent can take the course and bring the ideas home.
Can my teenager watch the lessons with me?
The courses are made for the adult. In the emotions course a teen can watch with you if they want to, and in the friendships course some tasks are done together if your child agrees. Forcing a teenager to watch gives nothing.
How long do I have access, and is there a schedule?
There is no schedule: the lessons are recorded, and you watch them from your phone at your own pace. Access stays open for three months, so you can go back to a lesson when the same situation comes up again.
Is a recorded course a form of therapy?
No. A course gives you a method and material, but it does not look at your family's details. For a long low mood, a crisis or a diagnosis, see a specialist in person first.
How do I ask whether a course fits my family?
Use the Telegram button on this page and write two or three lines: your teen's age and what is happening at home. I work in Russian. If a recording is the wrong tool for what you describe, it's better to hear that before you enrol.
Katya Karpenko
I work with the family as a system: what happens with a teenager is almost always tied to how talking works at home, so change starts with the adult. I run closed online groups for teenagers and a separate group for parents, and I write books for teens and their parents. I'm a mother of two teenagers myself.
More from Katya
- Conversation Cards or a Parenting Course: Which Fits Your Situation?
- Why Does My Teenager Sleep So Much?
- Teenager Staying Out Late: How to Agree on a Curfew That Works
- My Teenager Says "I Hate You": How to Respond
- Teenager Anxious About the Future: How to Support Them
- Teenage Daughter Disrespectful to Her Mother: What to Do
- Should You Take Away Your Teenager's Phone as Punishment?
- How to Rebuild Trust With Your Teenage Daughter
- Always Arguing With Your Teenage Daughter? How to Break the Cycle
- My 14-Year-Old Has No Friends: How Parents Can Help
- Angry Outbursts at 12: Why They Happen and What Helps