What do teenagers really want to tell their parents, how best can we respond?

What do teenagers really want to tell their parents, how best can we respond?

Parent: What’s wrong with you, your quiet?

Teenager: Nothing, I’m just tired.

Parent: No, it’s not that, it’s something else, come on what’s wrong?

Teenager: God, nothing, I’m fine I just feel a bit anxious that’s all.

Parent: Well what you anxious about, come on tell me.

Teenager: Nothing, just stuff

Parent: Well come on tell me, I may be able to help.

Teenager: You can’t help. I’m going upstairs, I can’t be bothered!!

Recognise this Parents??

It can leave us feeling rejected and unaware of what is happening in our teenager’s life. The practical reasons for poor communication such as other siblings being around, long working hours and TV and video gaming can be hard to navigate. When you teenager hits a rough patch, and believes you won’t understand, then their distress can quickly escalate.

Of course, keeping secrets from your parents is nothing new, I could have won a prize in it. We have all done it and still do it as parents today. Lots of parents don’t tell their own parents about their teenager’s misdemeanours, why…because you can’t be bothered to listen to the ‘lectures’

3 out of 5 parents believe communication with their teenager is getting worse, and half of all teenagers believe they cannot discuss their problems with their parents. Boys have a harder time expressing themselves to their parents than girls. There is a key age in teenage years where communication for both girls and boy’s changes and it becomes harder for the parent to attune. This age seems to be 13. Only half of 13-year olds feel they can talk to their parents, compared with 70 percent of 12-year olds.  They need you more in year 7 and the start of year 8 in secondary school, after this they grow more confident in their friendships and it seems to them that parents are dinosaurs that have never experienced anything.

When our teenagers believe we won’t understand, what they are really experiencing is being interrupted, advice giving, feeling judged and us reacting to situations in an overblown way. This is generally too much verbal intrusion from someone who has failed to read between the lines.

My teenage clients believe (sometimes wrongly) … we as parents are in the bargain basement bin of understanding our own children, why? Because we are over 40, we are bracketed in to the category of teachers at school.

It is hard for us as parents to just listen. We have helped pack the school bag, helped our children form friendships, we have done a whole host of practical things to help our children along the way. Attentive and non-judgemental listening is really hard because the worry is all consuming. Trying to find the meaning in something, requires us to zoom out and reflect those feelings back to our teenager’s. It’s a bit like finding a theme amongst a hold host of words.

Can I just say that listening is my job and although I have good communication with my teenage daughter, sometimes the worry takes over and it all goes wrong. It’s a hard thing to do.

So, if I’m to use my research from my teenage clients: the thing that your teenager really wants to tell you is one of two things, that sometimes (although you try hard) your listening isn’t great and they feel frustrated trying to make themselves understood. The second thing it may be is they can’t share what they want to share because they have a sense of burdening you, they have the impression you won’t cope.

The counselling relationship is powerful because the client has a sense of bringing heavy stuff that will be emotionally held. Off course there are other powerful components such as it’s somebody separate from the family, empathic qualities etc, but being understood is a powerful thing.

So, some top tips for listening:

Sometimes you do need to give them clear advice and guidance, but only when you have truly listened and reflected back. Don’t set off for your destination before you’ve read the map!

·       No opinions, thoughts or conclusions until the teenager has really said all they need to say.

·       Check your understanding by asking ‘do you mean’, ‘are you saying’, ‘it sounds like you feel’.

·       Ask open questions if you need to ask any at all.

·       Be as available as possible

·       Ask yourself what would I feel if I was in that position/had experienced that?

There is a kindle download book that may be useful to you titled the art of active listening: How to double your communication skills in 30 days. If you don’t have a kindle you can borrow any book from the library on communication skills that will give you an idea on active listening.

The task of active listening becomes even harder when the topic of conversation is you or dad or step dad or a sibling, because we as parents feel we have to defend ourselves to save us from tolerating the uncomfortable feelings that these conversations bring. Obviously when we are in the firing line just because your teenager feels like it, that is not ok. However, when the teenager repeatedly brings the same theme/message/feeling or reaction to something we may need to stop and listen, think about it overnight and respond the following evening after school (not following morning…bad idea)

I read the following text by Winnicott this weekend which I thought I would share with you here:

“theirs is the task of tolerating the interaction of several disparate phenomena- their own immaturity, their own puberty and changes, their own idea of what life is about and their own ideals and aspirations; add to this their personal disillusionment about the world of grown-ups – which for them seems to be essentially a world of compromise, of false values, and infinite distraction from the main theme…From being comes doing, there can be no do before be, and this is their message to us”.

All the above to think about…and that is before Instagram and snapchat!

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Winnicott.D 1986, Home is where we start from, penguin, London