11 thoughts on raising teenagers.
What do I have to say that might be helpful when it comes to parenting teens? Who am I to give advice?
Well, I’m calling these thoughts and observations, not advice. I’d like to think there’s something beneficial or enlightening or even just reminding.
These are my qualifications:
I was once a teenager.
When I was a teen, I thought about what my parents did well and what they didn’t. I filed these thoughts away and kept track.
When I was a teen, I thought about what kind of parent I’d someday like to be. I was gifted with parents who were better than perfect: they were not perfect and they were willing to grow, which meant there was hope and light and opportunity ahead.
When I eventually became a parent, I decided preemptively that there was no part of our children’s lives I would be afraid of or want to rush through.
I married someone who I knew would love our future children as much as I would.
We have one teen currently, and three more who will be over the next decade.
I have already made many mistakes midway through our first set of teen years. But I have faced up to them and tried to learn, to grow, to be empathetic, and to find the wisdom when to step in and when to step back.
I have been deeply resistant to the majority of cliches I have heard about teenagers. I don’t like the way assumptions are made about who a person is at a particular age or stage. There are ways of understanding different developmental stages that can be helpful, but also, every person is an individual and I think it is a disservice to lump all teens into the same categories, with all the underlying stereotypes, explanations, and excuses that go along.
So here are several of my thoughts about parenting teens.
11 thoughts on parents and teens, volume I
Their brain is growing.
Duh. Easy to say, but here’s what’s really maddening: there’s a good chance they’re not just acting smarter than you. There’s a good chance they really are getting - or have gotten - smarter than you in a lot of ways. This is my contribution to the idea of teens and intelligence:
Their smarts and their intelligence are accelerating rapidly. Incredibly rapidly. Maybe they’re beating you at every board game, card game, or dumb phone game you do with them. Maybe they’re not just inching ahead of you; maybe they’re blowing you away. Maybe they are. Maybe they aren’t. Mine is. Honestly, it’s pretty hard. It’s a shot to the ego, to the idea of me being a mentor, a guide, a teacher and leader and, you know, the person you’d want your kids to choose first if there was some type of real-life Walking Dead type scenario where everybody wants the strongest and smartest on their side. It’s humbling to lose, to really lose frequently and regularly, to someone you have raised. It’s hard.
But here’s the thing: their ability to discern, to make decisions, and to apply wisdom to their accelerating knowledge is not happening at the same rate.
There’s something heartening about this. It means you still have a significant role to stake in being a part of their ongoing development and education and in helping them learn to use their accelerating smarts in the wisest and most effective ways possible.
Get in their way.
Their world is expanding. That’s a good thing. You can be supportive and encouraging of that. But you also need to get in their way; that means you need to be proactive in asking questions and initiating conversation and inviting them to engage. Sometimes they won’t want any of those things, and sometimes that’s okay. But do not assume they don’t want you in their way, and don’t stop talking with them.
Get out of their way.
This is possibly one of my worst areas. It’s still difficult for me to discern when to step away, when to give space or solitude to process emotions or challenges or situations; I want to step in and at least listen and comfort. Sometimes they need this. And sometimes they don’t.
Remind them that you are who you are.
Sometimes I can’t tell when to get in the way and when to get out of the way. But my default is to ask; to not assume. A person, including a teen, needs to learn how to set boundaries and the power of saying no. Including to their parents. What that tangibly means is that I see or sense that something is not quite…right, so I ask or inquire, in some way.
I open a door.
It is not my place to throw open the door. It is not my place to jam my foot in the door and demand entrance. But it is my place to knock, announce myself, and ask what is going on and let them know I am willing to walk through the door and hear more if they would like.
Sometimes the door opens, and sometimes the door shuts, and sometimes the counter-offer is that maybe I knock again later. This is both metaphor and concrete.
They need to learn how to say no. And you need to be okay with being told no.
Be proud of them for standing up to you.
This is hard too. But if you are a concertedly-involved parent, then chances are you are a fairly strong person. And if you are a strong person, that means you might be difficult to stand up to. So if someone is standing up to you, that takes courage.
Be proud that your teen has the courage to stand up to you. This will stand her in good stead.
Also, be proud that your teen trusts you enough to know you’ll love them just as much when they stand up to you.
Also, ideally you have spend the previous portion of their life teaching them how to stand up for themself in respectful and appropriate ways.
Play games with them.
Invite them to play. Card games, board games, I guess maybe even video games. Games that can bond and bind and open doorways and windows for conversation and dialog and stories and laughter. Games that you can win or lose and let you get the right amount of competitive. Games that make memories and push your intellect or your imagination or your body. Play catch!
Know their friends.
Learn the names of the people important to them. Remember their names. Don’t just tolerate them. Don’t begrudge them for taking your teen away from you.
If you have done your job well, they are building healthy relationships with other people, and because of that, it’s going to expand their world and their opportunities and their social circles and dammit, that can be hard!
But it’s beautiful. It is. Marvel at the way this person, these people you have brought forth and whose life you have helped form and shepherd, has become an incredible, increasingly-independent human with circles and stories and secrets outside yours, and marvel, marvel, soak in the beauty of that:
Really, it is beautiful; to see your children building and forming and keeping friendships and relationships with others that multifaceted and healthy and joyful…
You should be happy about that. And maybe a little proud.
You can tell them no.
Seriously. You can. It’s not illegal. There is no code or law or regulation or moral principle that says that because teens are smart and have supercomputer phones, that they are free to abdicate themselves from your oversight or administration or governance. No.
You are gifting them; yes, you are gifting them something incredible: that something is still the gift of saying ‘no’ when you need to. Sometimes that means you’re not the cool person, and maybe there’s people in their orbit who will think less of you or think you’re dumb.
That’s not okay, but it’s okay. You’re going to survive, and your job is not to make sure their friends think you’re cool. Now, a 13-year old’s level of responsibility and independence is certainly different from a 17-year old’s, so the types of “no” you’ll give may change dramatically over the period of teenhood. But the song remains the same: there will be times when you can and should emphatically say no.
Saying no is important to learn at every age.
Be the fall person.
This means being willing to be the bad guy. Sometimes people need a lightning rod; a target to be angry at. This too is a gift. Have confidence and faith in your teen and in your relationship with your teen that there can be volatile emotions and there can still be love. Sometimes they need to be angry or feel something at something. Sometimes that something will be you. It’s a gift you can give them: the gift of letting them test out some of those heightened, volatile feelings in safe ways where there’s still love.
When they lash out, there is a good chance it’s not so much about the thing in the present as it is something that’s happened previously that you don’t know much about. Yet.
Being lashed out at might hurt in the present (spoiler: it does). But by embracing this as part of their journey, their growing up, you are embracing them fully as as complete and independent individual; you are experiencing them as few others have or will; you are getting their worst, their most experimental, their range of emotion-testing, and that is a shared experience or bond you will have for your lives.
Encourage their relationship with the other parent and, if relevant, with their siblings.
There’s a good chance there’s other people who love your teen about as much as you do. Incredible. Embrace it and find ways to recuse yourself and create opportunity for their relationship with others to grow and flourish.
You might not be a part of all their memories. But they will learn, they will know if you care about them so much that you’re willing to share them, joyfully and unselfishly, with others. So, even if it’s for selfish reasons, do it. :)
What an amazing time of life. What a ride.
Enjoy it. Enjoy everything you possibly can about this time of life, if you’re a parent. If that’s the one thing you take away from this, take that:
Soak up and enjoy every moment of this time the best you can. Make even the worst moments mean something good.
And never stop saying I Love You.
