Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant

The blog which was written by our 13 year old teenage friend (who we will call Jemma), is a really powerful read and she has been very honest about the issues she is facing in her teenage years.  Parenting teenagers is always talked about in quite negative terms with comments such as “wait until they are teenagers”, “typical teenager, “I don’t envy you with teenagers!” etc. Teenagers do tend to have a bad reputation, but this is actually not all that different to the way people view the toddler stage and interestingly enough there are a lot of similarities between the two developmental stages.  The brain is going through huge changes at both these points and so this is when we typically see more challenging behaviour and high emotions. 

First of all, I want to think about the approach we take with teenagers and how this might impact the relationships we have (or might not have) with them.

Respect has to be both ways – as adults we should not demand respect, it has to be a two-way thing. Yes because of the stage they are at your teenager is likely to talk less to you, or snap at you, or not involve you, but if they know that you respect them and that you talk to them in a respectful manner, they will come round, they will come to you when they need you.  Forcing them to speak or do things because you feel that they should, and in a way feeling like you still have some control, is not going to work and it will just push them away further.  Your teenager is in their next stage of social development, they are not wholly reliant on you for all things, but they still need you for some things which can be quite confusing for them, but also difficult for them to work out without an element of trial and error.  For example, they might come home from school with an issue that they have had and your response might be to try and solve it for them, but actually all they need you to do is to listen.  A great podcast to listen to on this subject is ‘How to Tame your Teenager’ – The Parent Hood with Marina Fogle .

Trust – your teenager needs to know that they can trust you to not overreact, to keep your thoughts and feelings to yourself and that they won’t be ridiculed or made fun of.  Making children feeling safe, regardless of their age, is key .  If we feel safe and trust the people around us we are going to be our best selves but we can also be at our worst too. The reason for this is that when we feel safe we feel that we can be our true selves when often everywhere else we have to ‘behave’.  If you have a teenager who gets cross, frustrated and annoyed at home, see this as a positive, it means that they feel safe and secure and that that they know they have your unconditional love. 

Find your inner teenager to have empathy – having empathy for their situation and giving value and understanding to what they are experiencing as well as knowing that the situations that they are dealing with are hugely important to them is key.  Having empathy for what someone is going through helps you to support them in the  most effective way.  A good book to read about this is ‘Blame my brain’ (this is a book which can be read by both you and your teenager!).  However, something to keep in mind is not to use the phrase “I was a teenager once so I know what you are feeling” as this is very likely to trigger your teenager to put up their defences. Your teenager is experiencing their own feelings and so it is about not projecting you on them but for you to respond with things such as “wow that sounds tough, how did you manage that?”, “How did that make you feel?” as this is valuing them whilst also having empathy for their situation. 

Be a team – listen (different to hearing!) to them and avoid judgment. Try to work out strategies or options together rather than giving solutions – solutions will often be rejected because it will feel like they are being forced on them and that there are no other options.  Give options and suggestions, but let your teenager make that final choice.

Independence and resilience – allowing your teen to have independence is important at this stage.  In the same way that we offer choices to our youngest children to help with their independence, we want to make sure that we are offering this during the teenage stage in an age appropriate manner.  Often at this age parents can put in more control and pull back the options for independence because it feels scary and worrying for them to let their teen to go out with friends, use public transport etc.  See safety points below for more on this.

In Jemma’s blog she talks about some of the key issues that she faces and so I thought it would be good to explore how we might talk and engage with our teenagers on these specific issues:

Body image – Body image and comparing bodies will be something that everyone will do, everyone (males and females) do this at all stages of life.  It is human nature - we are designed to look at other humans - it is the primitive nature of our being.  Unfortunately, we are now in a world where we are able to compare ourselves not only face to face, but also when looking at images on media such as tv, phones etc.  We need to appreciate that there may be parts of your teenager’s body that they don’t like or they think that their friends or those they are comparing themselves to have ‘better’.  In this situation is it about acknowledging and supporting them. Saying things like “don’t be silly you are perfect as you are” is not going to change your child’s perception, what we need to do is explore it with them.  One approach is to get them to look at the positives they can see with their body but also with you as a person.  If they are able to see the positives in their body this will give them much more body confidence.  Remember for every negative we think about or say we need to have 5 positives to balance it.  So, if they feel that there is a negative, get them to balance this with 5 positives…have this as your rule and then they are able to have a much more positive outlook.   We also need to be aware of the language that we are using around them.  As their parents are you talking positively about your body or your qualities that you have? We can all be guilty of talking about parts of us that we don’t like or about diets that we are going to try, but why is it ok for us to have those conversations but not OK for our teenagers? We are our children’s role models so it is always good to think about what we say and do – you can’t tell your child off if it is something that you do! 

We are living in a world of ‘filters’ and these are being used on social media and in the press all the time meaning that we are not always seeing the ‘true’ person! Your teenager is growing up in this world and we can’t change that, but we can help them to learn how to manage it.  An idea of something that you could do together would be to take photos of yourself, keep the original but then put different filters on the photo to be able to make comparisons. You will be able to see a big difference in that photo and what the filters do.  Keep this as something to look back at when going through social media and thinking that others look ‘perfect’ when in fact they are just using a really good filter! ;-)

Safety – It is great to see that Jemma is already putting strategies in place which means she has an awareness of what is around her and that she is not completely naive. 

First of all it is important to explain to our teenagers that we often feel the same, I know I do when walking around or when I am going somewhere that I haven’t been before.  We need to understand that this is in our genetics; thousands of years ago when we would have to hunt for food and would have lived in environments which would not have been safe due to dangerous animals etc, we developed the fight, flight or freeze response when we sensed danger meaning that we either fought so, stood up to the danger/worry etc, ran to avoid it or froze and couldn’t do the fight or flight.  While we don’t live with the danger of animals attacking us anymore we do still have dangers around us and the instinct of how we react is still deep in our genetic makeup so we can’t change how we feel, but we can accept that we have this response and have strategies on how to make us feel more comfortable or relaxed in certain circumstances. Talking to your teenager about what they can do to feel safer and strategies that you can put in place together is key here but often we think that it’s because our teenagers are not aware or paying attention and often they are but don’t always show it!

Peers – As a parent it is time to face the facts that often when your children hit the teenage stage their peer group will become their complete focus and centre of their world.  They are at the stage where they are starting (very gently!) to break away from the family unit and starting to find out where they stand in their peer group (remember this is going to be their world from now on!). They will move through life making new friends, relationships etc and in the teenage years this is where they practice how this works.  It can be extremely enjoyable but can also be extremely difficult.  Friendships will come and go, there will be times where they are working out the pecking order and this can be challenging, upsetting yet exciting and filled with happiness and sad times.  It is an up and down process but how you respond to this will determine how your child opens up to you (or not!). It is what I have said previously and actually is an approach I suggest regardless of age.  Your response needs to be about listening (not just hearing), not jumping in with opinions, suggestions or down playing the situation, but about responding with emotional language such as “it really sounds like you guys are great friends, I am really pleased for you” or “that sounds like a tough day, do you want to talk about it now or do you want to leave it? Just let me know, no pressure.”, “how do you think you might want to sort this out?”, all of these are about acknowledgment and respect.  This can really take some time to get used to and you won’t get it right every time, but trying this can often reap the rewards.

People say having teenagers is tough and difficult but what about seeing it from the teenager’s perspective?  Being a teenager can be tough and difficult – I am not sure I would want to go back through it again!! You have supported them through all the stages such as the walking, talking, sharing, starting school, friendships etc up until this point and now it is about supporting them through this next stage of their development.  They still need you but might not show it all the time! ;-) 

Jemma’s review:

What Claire has said is very true. I think when we have an issue, we do not want to be ridiculed and hear things like “it’s not that bad” or “you are overreacting”, because for us it can be a huge deal and judging us or downplaying the situation makes us not want to come to our parents to talk, as we feel like we will just be judged rather than helped. Also, I think it is very true when Claire talks about jumping in with opinions – this also makes us not want to talk about things because we can’t say how we feel without being made feel like how we feel is wrong or silly – it alienates us. We want to be able to talk without being judged, because we want to be supported not pushed away, and sometimes small things parents say (even if they don’t mean it) can really hurt us. It makes us feel like we can’t have negative emotions without being judged for it, and, as I said before, small things parents might whisper under their breath can make us keep turning the words over in our head and feel really sad and angry.

Thankyou Claire, this blog is exactly how I feel and sounds like it was written by a teenager themselves! :-)

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