I had teenage communication problems … with my parents. Growing up, I didn’t talk to my parents. Not because I didn’t want to but because they didn’t talk to me. Sure, we held a bit of dialogue but they didn’t really ask me questions about my day or how I was doing. Not in a way that made me feel like they wanted to know, so I didn’t elaborate past “yes”, “no”, “fine”. When it came to my own teens, how did I get them to talk to me? I re-evaluated my approached and thought about how I like to be talked to.
I Give Space When Needed
As parents, we feel our kids don’t get to have emotions and, subsequently, emotional needs like space to process their thoughts and feelings before being able to have a rational conversation. When puberty first hit my son, I had a tendency to engage in these mindless back and forths where he had attitude and I had frustrated anger that he just had to have the last word. In the end, the problem wasn’t solved, I was even more annoyed than when I started, and my whole mood was messed up for whatever I had planned for my day afterward. It was exhausting and not fair to him.
My daughter never seems to need space. She could spend her whole day, every day, right there shadowing my every move. This includes the very few times she’s frustrated with me … my son is not the same. When he’s having a good day, he enjoys my company as well but when he’s frustrated – either with me or something else altogether – he really prefers space and I’m happy to give it because now we come back together when we’re both fine and communicate our feelings calmly.
I Listen, I Don’t Lecture
Hearing isn’t the same thing as listening. Oftentimes parents like to hear themselves talk. I certainly know that’s how I felt when I’d come home with a less than stellar grade and received the “you’re not applying yourself” speech. No matter how many times I tried to convince my mother my grade lowered not because I didn’t study hard enough or know the work, but because I simply got confused and thrown off by multiple-choice tests, the more she lectured and took things away. I can tell you to this day I still have problems with multiple choices.
I recognized I don’t always know the answers and just because I think something is the reason, doesn’t mean it is. I stopped hearing to respond and started listening to understand. Honestly, this is probably the number one thing that eliminated 97% of my teenage communication problems.
My Kids ARE My Friends
Two things can be true at once. I will never forget the infamous line my mother was KNOWN to say on the regular, “I’m not one of your little friends …”. Many things usually followed that statement but the point was clear, we were not friends.
There’s a thought that being friends with your children means they respect you less. That you won’t be able to discipline them. That they should fear you. I never adopted that as my parenting technique and always found that idea of thinking more than a bit controlling. I’ve always strived to teach my children lessons because I feel everything in life has one. I carried them into this world to find themselves and be their own person, it’s been nice sharing in their hobbies and talents along the way. I don’t think this would be possible if I hadn’t invested the time in befriending them.
I did eventually grow into a different relationship with my parents as I became an adult but by then, it felt too late to truly say we could build a friendship. I was too busy trying to start my own life at that point and because I only ever viewed them as authoritarian figures, certain aspects of my life never got shared or if they did, it wasn’t in the way it should have been. Kind of like when I got pregnant with both my son and daughter … I left a “Dear John” letter on the island about my son and I kept my daughter’s pregnancy a secret until I was a couple of weeks shy of 9 months. I was 20 and 21 at the time but part of me still felt like I would get in trouble for having sex. Hopefully, I’ll be the first one they call with all their good or bad news.
How many people were friends with their parents growing up? If you weren’t, were you able to transition into that kind of relationship when you became an adult? How are you tackling teenage communication problems? Please, let me know in the comments and, as always, thank you for reading.
