How to maintain a healthy relationship with our teenage sons and daughters?
Adolescence is a crucial and essential stage of human life. Apart from being the period in which all those physical and cerebral changes take place to prepare us for the transition from childhood to adulthood, it also represents a great adaptive challenge. It is the opportunity for our sons and daughters to begin to build themselves, to become aware of who they are and how they see or consider themselves and what things they like and satisfy in the world around them and what they do not. It is a stage in which they will build their own criteria, which may change and modify according to the experiences of success and failure they have.
From this understanding, when faced with a hostile teenager, full of resentment, anger and even aggressive behavior, we should see an adolescent suffering, with a lot of emotional discomfort, a feeling of lack of support and loneliness.
This can be a period of stress and crisis for them, but also for mothers and fathers. Thus, for many families it can also be a time of confusion, tension or frustration, in which the strategies that used to work no longer work and people can experience more anxiety at not having as much control over their children.
Why are teenagers emotionally intense?
Having a healthy relationship in an environment of trust
Neuroscience has shown us that adolescence is a very sensitive window to change, and therefore remains a great opportunity for learning. That is why it is key to continue offering a safe, structured and unconditionally trusted family environment to an adolescent who is getting to know themselves better, practicing their socio-emotional skills and facing the world more autonomously, with moments of discomfort from which they can emerge stronger.
Parents must manage a balance between letting the adolescent exercise their autonomy and, at the same time, maintaining a framework of supervision and management of safe limits. It is about regulating and finding that safe distance necessary for the adolescent to acquire their self-management skills for life. In this context of changes and challenges, adolescents need two things above all: emotional support and stimuli.
A healthy relationship is one that offers a framework for development in which They are accompanied, guided and oriented through emotional connection and unconditional support.
Emotional support and unconditional trust are always two key elements for a healthy relationship with our children; that is, a relationship that offers a framework for development in which They are accompanied, guided and oriented through emotional connection and unconditional support . The adolescent must feel recognized and important and, at the same time, we must trust their capabilities and skills and push them to face manageable challenges.
This includes setting limits , as a form of mutual respect: towards the adolescent, who needs to be set limits to protect them from situations and challenges for which they have not yet developed the self-management skills and require external supervision; and towards parents, who must also set their own limits and respect themselves, managing their availability, the need for self-care and tolerance.
Tips for talking to our teenage children
Talking with our teenage children is a great opportunity for learning and mutual understanding.
We must always keep in mind that we are dealing with an adult in the making , an adolescent, with his or her evolutionary challenges in building his or her own identity, criteria and decision-making space; with satisfactions, but also frustrations and discomforts. And, as mothers and fathers, we must take on this role of guide and accompaniment in this development of skills. How?:
- From an attitude of empathy with a real desire to connect with the emotions it can express.
- Trying to understand and comprehend their points of view , the criteria on which they base their opinions or behaviors.
- In a framework of respect in which there may be discrepancies or differences of opinion without wanting to impose, judge or belittle them.
All these elements can be summarized in one basic ingredient: (genuine) curiosity , that is, showing real interest in what they tell us with an intention of putting ourselves in their shoes and being able to understand their emotions, thoughts, decisions or reactions, without judging or giving opinions or solutions up front.
It is important that parents show real interest in what their teenage children say, trying to put themselves in their shoes and without judging them.
But when in conversation our children express certain opinions or explain behaviors or decisions that we consider inappropriate , wrong or that involve risks, we parents run the risk of losing this attitude of curiosity. From the perspective of adults or parents who have to protect our children, we are invaded by fear , the need to avoid frustrations and risks. This reaction can lead us to be critical, less empathetic, to start giving solutions or sermons and to pressure to correct them. We enter alert mode and react from this fear, and that is when we interrupt or make comments like: "But, what are you saying?"; "what's wrong with you is that you don't know that..." or "if you do this, you will end up...". At this point we run the risk of missing out on the learning opportunity.
Teenagers need to learn and, for this reason, they need:
- Feeling listened to , with empathy, and giving importance to their way of thinking, even if it differs from ours.
- Preserve the connection . A conversation can be maintained in which points of view are shared and the opportunity is given to contribute other points of view, other behaviors or suggestions for other ways of acting for future situations.
- Stimulate critical thinking from acceptance and tolerance and not from criticism. It is important to maintain emotional calm so that adolescents can stimulate their capacity for reflection and learning.
Accompanying the changes of adolescence
And what can we do when we are rejected?
When our teenage children show their refusal to talk and respond in a derogatory manner, the most important thing is to remain calm . It is natural that in these situations we can feel bad, hurt and lose the ability to reflect. We need to breathe, connect with ourselves first, respect how we feel and, if necessary, leave the situation to connect with what we are feeling and avoid acting like this if we are very angry or upset. We can say: "Look, I prefer to give myself some time and when I see that I can continue this conversation, I will let you know."
Giving ourselves a positive break to regain our calm is the best way to preserve the connection with our teenage son or daughter, since, if we act with an attitude of alert and attack, we will be two minds without the capacity for reflection and we run the risk of following an escalation that will make us disconnect and feel worse. And we cannot forget that we are the adults and we must set an example . Learning is mostly through imitation; they will learn much more from what they see us do than from everything we tell them to do. So we can take the opportunity to model how to manage conflict.
We often feel afraid when they explain certain things to us and feel the need to avoid frustrations and risks. This reaction can lead us to be critical, less empathetic and start lecturing them.
If we are calm, we will be able to validate and recognize that behind this behavior there is a discomfort hidden , which we may have activated or not. Then, we can restart the conversation by saying: "I notice that you are angry, I see that you are hurt... and I don't know if it was because of something I said or did to you, my intention was not to make you feel bad and I apologize if that was the case"; "I am really sorry if you feel bad and you know that you can count on me when you want to talk about it", etc.
Why do teenagers move on from their parents?
We must remember at all times that our teenage sons and daughters are in a stage of change and need to build themselves to be people with skills for adult life, regardless of our protection. We ourselves are the adults we are today because we were teenagers too. This does not mean that we do not need to accompany them, but a few steps away, so that they walk on their own, stumble, get up and learn from their experiences and their mistakes. If we have established secure bonds, we must trust that, when they need us, they will have us.
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