Your Relationship with Your Teen still Matters

There is power in a relationship with your teen. Something I began to realize and understand after effectively pushing my teen farther away from me and closer to his friends was that he wouldn’t want to hear anything I have to say if all he hears is that he is doing this or that wrong and the ways I believed he needed to change.

I mean, who do we like to be around? We enjoy those who seem to get us, those people who like us despite our flaws. We like to be around people who share our view of ourselves or maybe even see us better than we see ourselves. So why would anyone, teens included, want to be around people who are constantly criticizing and trying to change them. This doesn’t mean that you have never talked about grades or speeding tickets. There just needs to be a balance.

There was a book on marriage. I do not remember the title, but it spoke about making deposits and withdraws into and out of your relationship account. Your positive interactions are making deposits and your negative ones are making withdraws. But here is the kicker; your negative interactions take out five times as many withdraw in a single encounter whereas a single positive encounter only puts in one. So unfair, I know.

So how do you reconnect? Obviously, we have to increase the positive and decrease the negative. We all know about picking our battles. Well, this is just as important now as it was when they were in preschool. Look at parenting like a mentorship. When your, teen’s friends or your niece or nephew talk to you about issues in their lives, do you respond the same way as you would to your own child? You probably don’t. You probably listen and ask questions without judging or trying to fix it for them. This is because we are not as emotionally invested in the outcome. I don’t know about you, but my teen’s friends seemed to feel more comfortable talking to me than my own teen did. And I believe this is why. Because when I began to approach him, in the same way, he began to open up more again. And they are not completely opposed to our advice, they just don’t want it when they haven’t asked for it.

This does not mean you will relinquish authority. It just means, in those moments, you are there as support not as the problem solver. I will add a link to resources on reflective listening and me statements which also help facilitate better relationships. There is also a great little book on Kindle called Motivational Interviewing for School Counselors by Reagan North. I believe this is a great tool for parents as well. The author emphasizes that teens generally want to do well, but they are so busy trying to push back on our rules and wants that they aren’t taking the time to think about what they truly want for themselves and how they are going to get there. So in other words, we can have better relationships and allow them to take on some of the responsibility of preparing for their future, which in turn takes a load off of our shoulders.

Now for the positive, sometimes you may have to look really hard. But it’s there keep looking. It may be in the way they supported a friend or helped their younger sibling reach something on a high shelf. There are many little things even the most difficult teen does that can be encouraged throughout the day. Make it your goal to find more and more. You can start with one to two and keep working your way up. Hey! Did he just hold the door for that lady? How considerate!

All links are shared resources on my site parentingforgoodmentalhealth.com. New resources will continue to be added as they are relevant to my posts.

https://www.amazon.com/Motivational-Interviewing-School-Counselors-Reagan-ebook/dp/B01N29ZSY8/ref=sr_1_3?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1510613721&sr=1-3&keywords=motivational+interviewing+in+schools&dpID=51e80wkogBL&preST=_SY445_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

https://www.goodtherapy.org/blog/how-to-connect-with-your-kid-using-reflective-listening-skills-0908154

http://www.encouraging-appropriate-behaviour.com/resources/download-I-messages-pdf.pdf

Category: Behavior, Child/Adolescent Mental Health, Child/Adolescent Mental Illness, Mental Illness

Published by Parenting For Good Mental Health

Hello, My name is Tricia. I am the proud mom of two amazing young men. My youngest son was always a very energetic and highly reactive child. Life with him was often like a roller coaster ride. He had to work very hard to learn how to manage his emotions and behaviors. By the time he turned 10, he had learned to manage them fairly well. But one night while watching the movie The Mummy, his anxiety was triggered. Night after night, he just could not get the scary images out of his head. This went on for almost a year where he would cry in bed at night. Nothing we tried seemed to help. So we decided to take him to see a psychiatrist where he was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder, depression, OCD, and bipolar disorder. Unfortunately, the care and medications that he received from various professionals did not really help. By educating myself, I began to learn that there were many more options that had not been provided or suggested. I believe that had I had more information sooner; his care could have been better tailored to his needs. This was a very difficult time not only for my son but for our entire family. We had to develop new ways of interacting that did not cause fights over the littlest things. We had to learn the hard way what not to do in a crisis. My husband had to learn that you don’t have to have a reason to be depressed or anxious. Sometimes you just are. And that it is not helpful to say to a depressed person, that they have no reason to be depressed. Having never experienced these feelings himself, my husband really struggled with understanding these things. But now that he gets it, he wishes he would have understood sooner so he could have been more supportive to our son in the beginning. Thankfully, our son has found his own way through the darkness. And he has developed some skills and tools for managing his mental illness. His path could have been easier and less painful for him had we known about these other options sooner. As parents and caregivers we need to educate ourselves on their illnesses and the evidence based care options that are out there. We have a limited number of clinicians that treat children and teens, so we sometimes only get to see them once a month. What kind of impact do you think you could have on your child if you only saw him once a month? We need to bring as much to the table as possible. The clinicians can only work with the information they are given. The more you can tell them the better they will be able to tailor your child’s care to his needs. We also need to know how to be the parents our child needs because what works for other kids does not always work for ours. I would like to help educate others so that their path to recovery might be made shorter. There is a lot of support out there, but sometimes we do not hear about it. NAMI is the first support that I will recommend. NAMI the National Alliance on Mental Illness is the largest grassroots mental health organization in America. Through NAMI you will find support and education that can help you to better facilitate the care your child needs. https://www.nami.org/ View all posts by Parenting For Good Mental Health

Marie December 7, 2017 at 3:54 pm

This was a great read.
I have a 13 year old daughter and I’m finding out that our relationship is so much better when I truly listen to her and focus on the positive things she’s doing.
I’m going to check out your links. Thanks for sharing. 😊

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1. Parenting For Good Mental Health December 7, 2017 at 4:34 pm
  
  Thank you for the positive feedback. I hope you find the links informative.
  
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