Living with teenagers: 8 tips for parents in trouble

The adolescence it is a conflictive phase. The dizzying physical and mental changes make parents and children feel very lost. Fluid communication helps a lot, but sometimes patience is the best tool.

Video: Why is adolescence such a difficult stage?

Living with adolescents: mission impossible?

When you were little, you would eat them and, when you grow up, you regret not having eaten them.” Who has not ever heard this nice phrase? Some have not only heard it, but have spoken it (although they would never admit it).

The point is that many parents fearfully face adolescence, perhaps remembering the one that they themselves set up for their now grandparents. And the latter, although they generally try to be discreet and not make firewood from the fallen tree, often look at us sideways with a mischievous smile, as if to say: “Do you remember? Do you see what we parents have to put up with?”

Well, there is hope. Adolescence is hard sometimes, but it passes. If not, think a little: you were also a teenager, right?

Why do teenagers behave like this?

Adolescence is an often conflictive phase which, nowadays -because it seems to be getting ahead of itself- usually occurs between 12 or 13 and 16 or 17 years of age.

It can be preceded by preadolescence, a more or less long phase of more or less intense turbulence that sometimes seems to begin just after the end of infant colic.

There are –it is believed– studious adolescents, orderly, hard-working, obedient, always happy, affectionate and respectful of their elders. If your child is like this, don’t be scared; there’s probably nothing wrong with it.

But there are also many who, at some point –or at every moment–, they have a mess in their room, they accumulate dirty clothes under the bed, they forget to do their homework, they pass by us without saying hello, they leave home without saying goodbye, they reject our kisses and hugs, they respond with outbursts to the most innocent comments.

And there is more: they prefer to tell their secrets to any stranger before their parents, they make fun of us, they pierce us with some murderous looks or they enter into fits of rage, crying or sullen silence for no apparent reason.

Not to mention the clothes they wearthe way they speak or the music they like.

Some theories…

Many theories have been proposed to explain this type of behavior: that it is a matter of hormonesthat they need to rebel against their parents to affirm their own personality, that what happens is that they are spoiled and very spoiled because respect and discipline have been lost and “we were not like that”.

When I was a teenager myselfa very popular theory held that adolescents do not have a defined role in our society, they are neither children nor adults, and that makes them unhappy and gets on their nerves.

In primitive societies, they explained to us, they take the children to the field for a few days and do an initiation ceremony. When they return, they are already men for all intents and purposes and problem solved.

I remember ardently wishing for an initiation ceremony. Years later, I found out exactly what such ceremonies consist of and I began to think that, in reality, “like here, you don’t live anywhere”.

Prevent before cure

Adolescence can’t be avoided, of course. It will come, for sure, and then it will end, also for sure. But its effects will be different depending on the starting situation.

After a happy childhood and a satisfying parent-child relationship, adolescence is a jolt. But if the relationship was already bad, or there was no relationship worthy of the name, you will understand that adolescence is not exactly going to fix everything. It can be a real disaster.

If you make your son obey by force or by the threat of force or by shouting, what will you do when he is taller and stronger than you? He allows your son to act not out of fear, but because he wants to do well. That wish will last a lifetime.

If you let him cry in the cradle, If you don’t come when he calls you, if you deliberately turn a deaf ear to his complaints, if you silence him because he won’t let you hear the TV, do you expect him at thirteen to ask you for help with his difficulties, confide his secrets to you, ask you his questions? issues?

Children need to know that they can trust their parents. at any time, for any difficulty, that they will not be denied the help they need.

But if you teach your son to always obey and without question, “because I said so”, “don’t answer me”, “I don’t want to hear another word”, how do you expect him to know how to refuse when he is offered alcohol, pills, sexual relations he doesn’t want or participate in a prank?

Children must learn that they have the right to say no and to have their refusal respected

If a child does not see his parents more than at dinner time, if your life passes between school, school cafeteria, extracurricular activities, babysitters and summer schools, what relationship will there be when adolescence arrives? They may not even know.

We’ve all been through this life stage.

Your child will not only outgrow adolescence, but will likely deny it. And don’t we all do it to some degree? Looking back, those inexplicable mood swings, that magnificent unconsciousness scares us. We want to erase them from our history. “In my time we did study”, “We respected our elders”, “I never spoke to my father in that tone”…

Parents say it softly and never in the presence of grandparents, because they run the risk of being immediately denied. Grandparents, since no one can deny them anymore, say it loud and strong.

Where are all those hippies, “misunderstood”, rebels without a cause, those who sang “I’m a rebel because the world has made me like this, because no one has been able to understand me, because no one has treated me with love”? Well, exactly where today’s teenagers will be twenty years from now: disguised as parents and swearing that they were never like that.

Many years and several adolescences later, I cannot stop thinking that the best thing, when you have a teenager, is to wait in silence.

Do not embark on a constant and useless struggle. Adolescence will pass, so focus on maintaining a good relationship until then.

tame the wild beasts

I am convinced that going through adolescence is like weathering a storm. You can do absolutely nothing to stop the wind; you can only try to keep the ship afloat until it subsides.

And always, always subsides. Sometimes the end of adolescence is abrupt, almost as if one of those initiation ceremonies had taken place.

One day, the astonished parents exchange experiences: “Hey, he said goodbye to me.” “Well, yesterday, she asked me for a snack, please, and she thanked me.” Everything is over.

Think that you do not lose a teenager, but you gain a young adult. Of course, not everything will be smooth sailing. Among adults, there are also conflicts. But it is something else.

Tips to reconnect with your child

Everything has its positive side. We offer you some useful tips to cope with this stage.

1. Try to see their qualities

Look for the bright side, there always is.. Surely your son does many things right throughout the day, and even the ones he does wrong he doesn’t do them all the time.

Instead of becoming the typical curmudgeonly parentruminating continuous reproaches (“How many times do I have to tell you…!”, “Look, you have fed me up with your…!”, “And you call that…”, “This weekend forget about…”), strive to look for positive thingsremember them, name them out loud.

2. Change your point of view

You will discover that even some things that seemed wrong to you can be interpreted differently. Think of this sentence as an example: “Once again you have left everything for the last hour, do you think you will do in one night what you have not done in the entire term?”

Now compare it with this one: “Yesterday you stayed up studying until very late, I see that this quarter you take it seriously.” Or “you spend the day chatting with your friends, you’d better do something useful” versus “your friends love you a lot, they always call you”.

3. Speak well of your child

Dirty clothes are washed at home. Parents too easily fall into the small revenge of meeting with other parents to turn our children green: “If I tell you how the room is…”, “And the uncle, on top of that, goes and asks me for money for a record …” He tries to avoid it. What will others think of your child if even his own parents criticize him? Would you like your son to tell everything he knows about you?

4. Remember your adolescence

Remember. Did you also ever argue with your parents? And more than one! Try to remember what you felt, why you said what you said, and why you did what you did. Try to imagine what your parents felt, why they said what they said (I’m sure it’s easier for you now!).

Are you still convinced that you were right, absolutely right, and that your parents were retrograde and authoritarian? Well, maybe that’s what your son thinks now.

5. Give it time

And maybe he is also right (or is he also wrong?) Or, perhaps, with the perspective that years and experience give, do you now understand that your parents were also partly right, that they had to (or honestly believed they had to) do what they did, that you weren’t either? did you make it easy?

Now apologize to your parents. and stop expecting your son to understand in two days what you have taken twenty years to discover.

6. Think about what is important

Reserve your authority for serious issues. What difference does it make if he dyes his hair green or red? If you get good grades, what does it matter if you study in front of the TV or while listening to music?

Avoid all the conflicts you can avoid, Compromise in everything that can be compromised… and do not be afraid to exercise your authority when it is really necessary, when some danger has to be nipped in the bud.

If you haven’t wasted your authority prohibiting a thousand nonsense, it is easier for them to obey you in what really matters.

7. Keep calm

Before you say or do something stupid, count to ten. up to a hundred, up to a million. And, in the end, you better not say anything. Spoken words can no longer be picked up afterwards.

Repeat like a litany, or a mantra: “He’s not like that”, “it’s the hormones”, “it’ll go away”, “he’s not like that”, “it’s the hormones”…

8. Remember that he loves you

Maybe it takes a while that he hardly shows it, in which he avoids kisses and hugs. But she loves you just the same; and if you know how to be attentive, you will notice it.

A father I know proudly repeats the words of his fifteen-year-old daughter: “My friends say how lucky I am, because I told them you never punish me.” “Moments like this,” says my friend, “give meaning to a life.”

To know more

How to talk so your kids will listen and how to listen so your kids will talk to you (Médici Editions), by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, is one of those books that all parents should read.