Talking to teenagers

First of all, don’t argue with them, why? because you will make them good at arguing! Practice makes perfect. In CBT they have a phrase ‘what fires together, wires together’ it sort of explains how wonky thinking and behaviour is formed. What you are trying to aim for is reflective thought in yourself and your teenager. So, first of all before new actions and responses can be installed you have to undo the set of behaviours that you don’t want. You have to interrupt that pattern. What you don’t want is your teenager thinking they have all the answers. Firstly, because his/her answers aren’t always right and second it will drive you mad. Think of it as a dance, you’re not willing to dance on demand anymore as you are saving your energy for other important things. The other important things are noticing, being present, hearing the message in the noise and most importantly keeping yourself regulated for the sake of yourself and everyone else in the family. ...

Parents are the new focus for teenage anxiety treatment, is it possible to not feel judged? You know as an adult when you go to your mum for advice and the conversation starts off ok and you feel supported and then she says a certain thing or looks a certain way and the conversation takes a different turn. Her concern is for your children and she slips in the time when you made a bad decision or reacted in a certain wrong way. Before you know it, you want to leave but she’s made you a cup of tea and brought the Blue Ribands out…too late, you have to suck it up. Well lots of parents’ report feeling this way when visiting the consultant paediatrician or psychologist. So you may be surprised that the new approach that has grown from a Yale study is to focus on the parents attitude to their teenager. There is a realisation from researchers that treatment for anxiety in children/teens is limited if there is not active participation from the child/teenager that traditional CBT ...

Verbal Intrusion – Getting on your teenager’s nerves. Its all in the timing. We all do it, some of us reflect after the explosion and think about what was said, how it was said and if too much was said. Some of us don’t reflect at all, learn nothing and the teenager knows that. I work with a lot of young people, I consult with parents and carers throughout the duration of the therapy and some just can’t stay quiet. The parent experiences it as caring for the teenager, the teenager experiences it as interference and intrusion, Why? Because it comes from a leaky anxiety valve, that doesn’t burst big and long enough for the parent to acknowledge it is a problem that needs professional attention, but is a steady and potent drip that keeps the parent teetering on worst scenario thinking. There is evidence to say that this is avoidance of feeling, an avoidance of imagery in the minds eye. It serves to comfort the parent, like white noise from a fan. Some parents thi...

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 a...

Sometimes the theme of my sessions with teenagers, is about the overreaction from parents. My clients feel that by parents doing this over most things that their position becomes weakened and ineffectual. It’s like the parents lose a bit of their sway by losing the teenagers respect. How many times have you heard yourself say... “for goodness sake, just stop arguing, why do you always argue? The simple answer to this rhetorical question is that the teenager needs to be heard, why? because they just do, it’s a thing that they can’t help. So, with that in mind you can consider that arguing with your teenager makes them better at arguing (something which you will suffer for later) So which things are not worth the hassle of arguing? 1)       Eye rolling…irritating yes, just ignore, it is not a reason to shout and totally lose it. 2)       Slamming doors…you just have to say that if the door frame collapses they wil...

Calling all mums, do you feel like you’re the referee in your house? You know the scenario; your daughter has left her dirty plates stacked up at the sink. Your son is 10 minutes late home. Dad/step dad wants to leave the house on time and teenage daughter is taking more than the imagined 10 minutes to get ready to join dad for the lift. Dad tries to deal with it, but he’s a bit bad tempered and short on patience so he reacts like something from a 1970’s parenting manual. Teenager mutters something and before you know it, you two are arguing and teenager has gone upstairs, out the way listening to headphones on iPhone oblivious to frayed tempers and accusations of bad parenting. Dad/other parent: “you know what the problem is don’t you, your soft, that is why her bedroom looks like it does and she speaks to me in that s****y way. Mum: “no she speaks to you in that s****y way because you are always on at her” Dad/other parent: “what, because I ask her to clean her ...