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. ...

“You’re an idiot, no wonder you’ve not got any mates” “You’re a weirdo” ‘Enough’ I stated loudly. I ask my daughter who is the older one to go and sit in her room to let the tension die down.   This sort of name calling has escalated in this house for about a month and I know for certain it is very damaging.   Some could argue that I’m being soft, that every sibling can remember taunts and name calling and that it serves to toughen you up. I bet though you can recall speaking to people who hold a deep-seated resentment for their siblings in adulthood for the treatment they received when young. Maybe you can remember the particular insults used against you and that is your default position even now? It doesn’t just happen from an older sibling to a younger one (although its more impactful that way round, it’s also more powerful if the older sibling is female) When certain names are stated enough times, the younger sibling is going to internalise it and it wil...

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...

This post may upset some people, or worse still ‘offend’, please understand that when I write this I am not disrespecting any of the above. What I hope to do is raise an awareness of the harm that can be created in a wish to follow something so absolute with no flexibility and a disregard for autonomy that it affects future thinking and well being as a whole. I am writing about the extreme . SOMETIMES when children have been raised by parents where anxiety is high and beliefs and rules are fixed, the expectation doesn’t come from the parents but the code that the family is surrounded by. This is about parents as individuals needing to feel certain, to cancel out any anxiety…and with it any shift in thought and feeling. When parents are extreme in their religious or militant belief or uncompromising in their non-conformist way of being, they leave little room for their children to develop their own signature. Put simply, it in life in all or nothing terms. These ...

Unhealthy control is insidious, it’s under the radar. The feeling it creates is that you are on the back foot, you are either unaware of the nature of it or you just desperately want to make the situation right. It confuses you and makes you angry, sad and sorry all in one go. It does the above things in adult life, but when we are children and we have no separate sense of self, that is where the blue print is created. One element of control in parenting is a parent who restricts their child emotionally, the child ultimately feels smothered. You may now as an adult look back and realise that what you felt as a child was scrutinized and inspected.   As an adult it is confusing, because parents who do this seem incredibly caring and bracket themselves into the ‘worry and fuss too much parents’. Parents who control by any different means do not trust and experience high anxiety themselves. When you have experienced this type of control as a child you may still feel a...