Would you like a better connection with your teenager? here are some of the principles...only some! this thing takes practice.

I recently read a short article by Lorraine Candy declaring that you cannot be a best friend to your teenage children…my response was why would you want to be a best friend?

Lorraine, who I must point out is the editor-in- chief of the style magazine, writes a weekly column for the family section of The Sunday Times magazine. In the article she explains a trip to the theatre where there is hardly any conversation amongst her and her daughters and that they film videos of their mother swearing at the over complicated microwave. She concludes that the gradual separation is heart-breaking. A statistic alongside the article is that 75% of adolescents lie, with an average of nearly 3 untruths a day.

Well I would like to bet that 65% of adults lie, with 2 whopping untruths a day…so what? what has that got to do with being attuned to your teenager.

This kind of article perpetuates the notion that teenagers are these distant, unreachable, difficult people that as parents we are to put up with this developmental stage until it passes. It allows parents to rationalise and justify the mood in the house and the effort level generally.

The art of this very tricky stage is as Havelock Ellis puts it “lies in a fine mingling of letting go and holding on”

Independence into teenage years does not mean disconnection. I have written several blogs about improving parent-teenager relationships. A couple of them you can read here.

 https://helenharveycounselling.blogspot.com/2018/01/what-do-teenagers-really-want-to-tell.html

https://helenharveycounselling.blogspot.com/2017/09/how-to-emotionally-meet-your.html

I must say I don’t feel this disconnection in my relationship with my teenager. I feel connection and lots of it. I try and stick by these rules to help me with this.

1)      Allow them to be heard, above all else they need to be heard. Even if they are talking total twaddle, just hear them out.

2)      Their behaviour is separate to them as a person. Learn to separate it and also not take it personally. This explanation of the teenage brain may help https://helenharveycounselling.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-teenage-brainwhats-going-on-and-why.html

3)      Look past the behaviour, what is the pay off for them, what need is this behaviour meeting. Zoom out and see it within the context of all that is going on.

4)      Don’t shame, don’t guilt trip. ‘look how ill your making me’ That sort of stuff sets up introjection that is problematic in later years.

5)      Ask ‘what do you feel’ when you do XYZ.  ‘What is it that makes you do that’, try this instead of ‘why’. ‘WHY’ does not bring many fruitful answers that can be understood and worked with.

We don’t want to be our teenagers’ best friend, but we want to stay connected. We don’t want to control, we want to guide. It’s not an easy balance, it takes practice and these rules above are good starting points.

If you would like to know more about these things in more detail, please take the time to read the blogs at Helenharveycounselling.blogspot.com or purchase Talking to Teenagers book at http://amzn.eu/d/hEJQeLY