The parent adolescent relationship

When your child grows into a teenager your relationship with them may change. You will find yourself needing to switch from relatively simple parenting, to focusing on your new parent adolescent relationship.

Developmentally, teenagers face huge changes physically, mentally and emotionally. In order to grow up they must begin to separate from their parents. And although it may not seem so, this process is at least as painful for them as it is for the parents.

As adolescents mature, they experience:

• an increased need for autonomy.
• a desire for more privacy.
• a greater investment in their peers.
• a need to try on different identities.
• huge physiological changes.

And while all of this is occurring for them, parents experience their own developmental crisis. They’re asking themselves what happened to that sweet, compliant kid they knew so well. They’re making an effort to get control of the situation, and to make their child respond the way they used to.

Life will be much easier if you accept that even under the best of circumstances, communication with your teenager will be limited. It’s part of what needs to happen so that he or she can eventually leave home. And despite her need for distance from you, there are ways to encourage quality (if not quantity) interaction with your teenager. Below is some information on building a good parent adolescent relationship.

Rules of thumb

• Focus on the donut, not the hole! Focus on the relationship, not the problem. Build up the positives.
• Be a thermostat, not a thermometer! Learn to respond (reflect) rather than react. More on this is below.
• What’s most important is often not what you do, but what you do after what you did! We all make mistakes, but we can recover. It is how we handle our mistakes that makes the difference.

Reflective responding

This is a way of following, rather than leading. Verbally reflect behaviours, thoughts, needs/wishes and feelings, without asking questions. This helps the parent understand the child, and helps the child feel understood.

Example

Look into the adolescent’s eyes for clues as to what they’re feeling. Put the feeling word into a short response, generally beginning with you. Such as “you seem sad,” or “you’re really mad at me right now.” Your facial expression and tone of voice should somewhat match those of the adolescent, as empathy is conveyed more through non-verbal communication than verbal.

If this is a big change from the way you have been communicating, the adolescent will likely notice it. If she insists you talk normally, this could be a way of saying she doesn’t want you to change, because that will mean she must then change to adjust to your new way of responding. Simply reply, “this is my way of letting you know that I’ve heard what you said, and to give you a chance to correct me if I’ve heard wrong.”

Often the anger of an adolescent seems exaggerated and prolonged. This is the adolescent trying to communicate just how angry he feels. If you acknowledge and reflect your empathy, he will no longer feel the need to communicate it so strongly.

Model adult behaviour when you are in conflict with your teen. Whatever you do, don’t yell, threaten, or preach if you don’t like a behaviour or how your child interacts with you. Not only will you be ineffective, you will be teaching your child this sort of communication.

Setting limits

Even though your parenting style may need to change a bit to focus on your new parent adolescent relationship, you will still need to set limits on behaviours that make you feel uncomfortable. You might use the three-step A.C.T. method of limit setting:

1. Acknowledge the adolescent’s feeling or desire (convey empathy and understanding with your voice).
   • “Ben, I know you’re angry with me…”
     • He learns that his feelings, desires, and wishes are valid and accepted by parent. Often just empathically reflecting feeling can defuse its intensity.
2. Communicate the limit (be specific, clear and brief).
   • “…but yelling is not appropriate.”
     • While feelings and desires are accepted, not all behaviour is.
3. Target acceptable alternatives (provide a few choices).
   • “…How about you go play some basketball and burn off your angry energy. We can talk about it later, when we’re both calm.”
     • The goal here is to provide him with an acceptable outlet for expressing the feeling or original action, while giving him an opportunity to exercise self-control.

How to set limits

Limits should not be punitive and should be stated firmly, but calmly and matter-of-factly. After empathically acknowledging the adolescent’s feeling or desire (a very important step), you state, “but yelling is not appropriate,” just like you would state, “the sky is blue.” Don’t try to force your child to obey the limit. Remember to provide an acceptable alternative. In this method, it is up to the adolescent to decide to accept or break the limit; however, it is your job, as the parent, to consistently enforce the limit.

Providing children and adolescents with consistent limits helps them to feel safe and secure. This method of limiting children’s behaviour teaches them self-control and responsibility for their own behaviour by allowing them to experience the consequences of their choices and decisions.

Consistent limits → Predictable, safe environment → Sense of security

When you don’t follow through, you lose credibility and harm your relationship with your child.

Consequences

Some of the odiousness of enforcing limits can be eliminated by engaging children in the process of setting the limits and assigning consequences before the limits are tested. When parents include teenagers in establishing clear limits about appropriate behavior and consequences, the arguments over rules and punishment end. Children can no longer claim that punishments or expectations are unfair, and parents can take on the role of calmly enforcing the pre-arranged consequences instead of having to impress upon the child the seriousness of the problem and scramble to find an appropriate punishment.

Remember that your influence depends on your relationship with your child, not your power. You can’t make your child do anything at this stage in life. It won’t help to make threats, to lose your temper, or to try to “ground” or punish a teen. In fact, these tactics tend to spur kids on to greater rebellion as they try to assert their independence. What is important is that your child knows you love them, that you trust them to do the right thing, and that they can achieve your respect when they do do the right thing.

Still need help?

Access the Anglicare SQ Family Support Service (Brisbane) or Reconnect (Riverview) if you think you would benefit from some counselling around this issue.