Learning Points: It’s not about the phone, it’s about you and your teen

What is it about the teenage years that are so problematic for families? Why does the teenage soul rage against the machine of the adult world?

Why do adults find it so hard to relate to the teenager?

After all, we were all teenagers, so we have a wealth of experience to help us understand the idealistic world of the teenager.

Most of us were idealistic in our youth.

But parents are often at a loss how to communicate with their teenager.

Of course, we can blame technology for interrupting, and severing, our relationships with our children, but that just might be a lazy excuse.

Yes, teenagers love their devices; yes, they use social media to communicate, and, yes, they can be withdrawn and sullen.

MTV was the cause of my generation’s apathy and rebelliousness; well, that’s what the media said.

Of course, it was just a music channel. It had no subliminal messages about militant recalcitrance. It just had music.

A question I ask parents who come to my clinic for help with their teenager is: if the son/daughter were not on their devices, what would they be doing? Ask yourself that question.

This question often introduces parents to reality: It’s not about devices interrupting relationships, but about the quality of that relationship.

Are you are struggling to think of what they would be doing, or whom they would be with, if they weren’t online?

Maybe it might be important to start building a new relationship with your teenager.

More than likely, you will meet resistance at the start. Never expect your teenager to thank you for becoming involved in their life.

But underneath that silent exterior is a child that craves connection with their family.

A man recently told me that when he was a teenager, he used to wipe away his mothers’ kisses with great exuberance and drama, to show her that he didn’t appreciate her gestures of love, and yet, he said, it was the highlight of every day of his teenage life.

Teenagers often act like this and we can’t allow it to deter us. If you were to ask your teenager on a Sunday morning if they wanted to go out for a walk with the family or stay up in their room playing games, I think we all know the answer. What do you think they will be discussing years down the line?All those evenings on the games or the moments they shared with their family?

Teenagers love spontaneity and they love to feel they are in control of their lives. That is perhaps the single-most discussed area in my clinic with teenagers. How they feel such lack of control over their lives is understandable. The teenage years can seem like a protracted waiting room.

You’re not a child, but you have no rights as an adult and you are not taken seriously and you can’t decide for yourself what you want to do.

Teenagers can feel so powerless. So, giving your teenager a little power over the relationship will go along way to mending it.

Say something like, ‘this Sunday, you decide what we do’. In doing so, you are giving them the power; you are putting them in control; and you are also stating that you trust them to choose something that will be fun and enjoyable for everyone.

The teenage years can test the best of us. Parents can often come to view their child as being ‘lost’ to them. I hear the pain in the parents’ voice as they describe the once-loving and nurturing relationship they had with their child. But that has changed.

Parents can come to view it as a loss. They have lost that once chatty and fun-loving child. During the formative years, a parent is viewed by the child as a colossus, infallible and indestructible. But that shifts during the adolescent years.

A teenager relies more on their peer group than on their parents and this can really pose a problem for everyone.

The teenager can feel like the parents are overbearing and parents can feel like they do not know their child anymore.

I try to explain to parents that it is not about loss, but about being together differently, because the teenager moves quickly into a young adult.

If you do not hold your teenager correctly during those tumultuous years, it can really rupture the healthiest of relationships.

The teenage years are difficult. But rapprochement is just around the corner.

They will return to you and you will have that loving and warm relationship again.