A 5-session audio course for parents of 10 to 14 year olds
I'm Sorry Your KidIs Breaking Up With YouWith You
A step by step guide to the middle school years so you can stop walking on eggshells, connect with your kid tonight,
and know that conflict doesn’t mean something’s wrong.
I would buy anything Megan made! Every parent should learn from her to figure out how to make adolescence more joyful.
You notice it before you can name it.
Your kid used to tell you things without being asked. Now you get "fine," "nothing," and a look that says you should probably stop talking. You're not sure when it happened, so you start wondering if you caused it.
And then you do what loving parents do when they feel someone pulling away: you try harder.
You've started doing math on their face before you open your mouth. So you push. You get more interested, more available, more concerned. You do more of the things that used to work when they were 8, because doing more of what used to work is what love looks like when you're scared.
And nothing moves.
Which means one of two things must be true: you have no power in your own house, or you're bad at this. You've probably decided it's both.
You've been pushing for so long, you didn't notice the sign on the door changed to pull.
You're doing the thing people do when they feel like they're getting left: going back through the tape looking for what they missed.
You keep looking for the mistake, but there isn't one. What's actually there is good news about your parenting, dressed up as fear. No wonder you can't read it.
You've been aiming your effort at the one variable that was never going to move: your kid's development.
Here's what nobody said out loud
They only do this to the person they're sure of. The pulling away is not a review of your parenting. It's what it looks like when a kid feels safe enough to practice leaving.
You built that. It just doesn't feel like an accomplishment at 8pm on a Tuesday.
And that's genuinely good news, because it means you can stop defending and start putting all that effort somewhere it actually opens something.
Five audio sessions. Scripts for the actual words, plus short exercises. Yours to keep, forever.
Megan has an uncanny ability to relate to and understand teens and their parents. She normalizes what they experience — on both sides. Her tools and techniques will empower you and bring your family closer together.
Concept, application, practice. Every session.
You get scripts for the actual words, plus short exercises to put that shit into practice.
You have bought a course before. It had modules. It had a workbook you printed at work. You watched forty minutes of it on a Sunday with real intentions and it has been sitting in a tab since March, quietly judging you.
This is audio because you are not going to sit down. You are going to listen to this in the car with a kid's water bottle rolling around under the seat, and that is a completely respectable way to learn something.
This story sucks.
Where the story about adolescence came from, why it's wrong, and what it's been doing to you since before your kid did anything. They pull away from the safest person they have. Once you see that, you stop reading the distance as a verdict.
What their brain is actually doing.
Behavior, emotions, executive function, and the answer to the thing you typed into Google at 1am. Yes. It's normal. Feral is developmentally appropriate. Then what to do with that, because normal is only useful if it changes what you say next.
Fighting is fine, actually.
Most of us were taught to win or to go quiet. How to stay in a hard conversation without escalating it or abandoning it, and how to repair fast when you miss. Your kid will use this at nineteen with a roommate and at thirty-four with a partner.
Everything about screens, and why you still win.
The phone, the group chat, the AI you can feel your kid getting comfortable with. Not a lecture about limits. What's a system problem, what's a modeling problem, and why none of it does the one thing you do.
How a kid decides you're safe.
The moves I used on actual middle schoolers, the ones that look like nothing and work anyway. But the moves are not the point, the mechanism is, because nobody knows your kid like you do.
Plus scripts + exercises
Short, printable tools you can use in the car, at the door, or in the middle of a conversation that just went sideways.
She's truly gifted. I love how she takes complex neuroscience and makes it real for teens and parents. It's pretty magical. She's awesome!
This is for you if
- ✦You have typed "is this normal" into your phone more than once this month.
- ✦You keep saying "they're a good kid, but." Every single time. To your sister, to your friend at pickup, to yourself.
- ✦You catch yourself replaying a four-minute exchange from Tuesday to figure out what it means about you.
- ✦You've read the books. You're not looking for another book. You want to know what's actually happening from someone who has met about ten thousand of these kids and isn't scared of yours.
- ✦You'd rather have four useful minutes in the car than an hour of something inspiring you never open again.
This is not for you if
You want your kid to stop doing the thing. I can't do that and neither can anyone else selling you something. What changes here is you, which is inconvenient news and also the only news that's ever worked.
Questions you're probably about to ask
My kid is 9. My kid is 15. Is this still for me?
You're not too early and you're not too late. You're right on time, whatever age your kid is. All of this still works. I land it in middle school because that's the exact stretch where everyone starts blaming kids and stops helping parents.
How long does it take?
Five sessions, and you can do the whole thing in a week of commutes if you want to. Or you can do one a month. Nothing expires and nothing unlocks on a schedule, because I'm not going to drip-feed you your own parenting.
Do I have to start at session one?
No. Start wherever your week is hardest. One does set up the argument the other four sit on, so if you start at four, you'll probably double back.
Is this just the reel, stretched out?
No. The reel names the thing. This is what to do about it, which takes considerably longer and involves me telling you what I actually said to actual seventh graders. If you loved the reel, this is the part the reel didn't have room for.
Will this work if my partner doesn't do it?
Yes. Every move in here works one-sided, which is fortunate, because most of them are. You'll also get the language to explain what's happening to somebody who hasn't listened, which is its own small gift.
Is this therapy? Do I need therapy instead?
This isn't therapy and I'm not a therapist. I taught middle school for fifteen years. If something in your house is genuinely alarming, get a professional. If nothing is alarming and something is still quietly shifting, that's the exact thing this is for.
What if I've already read all the books?
Good. You've got the concepts. What you don't have is what to say at 8pm on a Tuesday when your kid does the thing. That gap is the entire course.
What if I don't do the exercises?
You'll still get something. You'll get less. They're short on purpose, which is my attempt to make the honest version of this possible instead of the aspirational version you'd abandon.
What do I actually get?
Five audio sessions you download and keep, scripts for the actual words, and short exercises. Listen in any order, as many times as you want, forever.
Your sidekick
through adolescence
I'm Megan Saxelby.
I've spent 15 years in actual middle and high school classrooms, which means I've worked with roughly a thousand versions of your kid, and I've seen just about every flavor of adolescent weirdness there is.
I'm also the teacher kids actually like. The kind who gets invited to weddings and, more than occasionally, receives texts from former students that begin, “Okay, this is weird, but I need your advice…”
I was also somehow the teacher who stayed on parents' speed dials for years after their kids left my classroom. So if you're wondering whether I know how to do this with the whole family, I've got receipts.
I also know this stage from the other side.
I was a nightmare adolescent. My mom used to get nauseous when she heard me coming home between the ages of 11 and 14. We're incredibly close now. So when I tell you that your kid rolling their eyes, pulling away, or suddenly acting like you're the most embarrassing human alive does not mean you've lost them, I'm not just quoting research.
I'm the evidence.
I made this course to be the person in your ears when you're sitting in the car waiting out soccer practice, walking the dog, or hiding in the pantry for three minutes of peace. Think of it as an audio hug from someone who knows adolescence, genuinely likes adolescents, and is very hard to shock.
I'll give you the research, the perspective, and the words to try tonight, without making you feel like you need a PhD in parenting before dinner.
Because I think adolescents are some of the greatest humans on the planet.
And I really, really want you to think so too.
You're not helpless. Your kid's not hopeless. And now you're not alone.
Because you've got a very smart, delightful weirdo in your ear who thinks middle schoolers are the best, and is going to convince you too.
Five audio sessions. Scripts for the actual words, plus short exercises. Yours to keep, listen in any order, as many times as you want.
Some people listen to this and that's the whole thing they needed. Some people finish it and want to work on their actual kid with me, and if that's you, it'll be obvious by session three.