Richard Hogan: I feel like my teenager is rejecting me, should I take her phone? 

Try to think about being together in a different way during these short few years. Try to find an activity that both of you can enjoy.

Richard Hogan. Photograph Moya Nolan

Dear Richard, can you please give me some advice? 

Our teenage daughter (14) does not want to be involved in any family activities. 

I am finding this very difficult to deal with as we were so close for so many years. last weekend she refused to come with me to visit my parents. 

She always loved going to see them and they were visibly upset when I arrived without her. 

She has a younger sister (10) who she suddenly has no interest in also. They used to play all the time, but now she doesn’t even talk to her. 

I can see she feels rejected too. 

My husband says it’s just a phase but I am finding it very difficult as she doesn’t even want to have dinner with us. 

She told me today that she doesn’t want to come on holidays with us this summer. 

It’s the silences I can’t stand. She is up in her room on her phone and I don’t know what to do. 

I feel like taking the phone away. Please, please help.

Well, you are touching on something close to my own heart and lived experience. 

Last week I was driving to a farm in Tipperary to record the third season of Raised by the Village. 

On the way down I decided to listen to the sound track to Frozen. I was feeling a little nostalgic because my first daughter was two years old when it came out in 2013. 

Music has the ability to transport you back into the skin of a younger self. 

Whenever I hear those songs, I am a young father again. lying in bed dressed up as Elsa while my only daughter, at the time, has her blonde wig and cape on knocking on the door and asking, ‘do you want to build a snowman?’ 

Take after take we would go through the scene. 

So, on that drive I felt a little nostalgic for that time, because that daughter now is nearly 14-years-old. Cape gone, fake tan and eyes lashes are the current obsession. 

As the songs played, I nearly had to pull the car over because I became emotional listening to the lyrics; ‘come on, let’s go and play/I never see you anymore/come out the door/it’s like you’ve gone away/we used to be best buddies/but now we’re not/I wish someone would tell me why’. 

I became emotional because I understand that way of being together is gone. 

As I headed down the road, tears in my eyes, I said a line to myself, I have been saying to parents for many years, ‘it’s about being together differently during this period’. 

What I mean is that adolescence is a time when your child moves towards independence. 

Brain regions associated with peer reinforcement and attention are more sensitive than any other time on our lives. 

So, our peers become far more important to us than hanging around with our parents, and for good reasons too. 

That’s how they learn about themselves in relation to others. I know my own daughter will come back to us, we will become important to her again. 

In fact, of course we still are, but it’s a different relationship. She hasn’t gone anywhere, she is right there inside her room. 

BOUNDARIES

What I’m saying in all of that is that it can feel like your child is rejecting you, and that she doesn’t want to hang around with you anymore, but the reality is if she did hang around with you all the time and still needed the relationship she had with you as a child, I would say there is an attachment issue. I would also be concerned she had an issue in her development and sense of self. 

So, try not to think about her as rejecting you but more about being together in a different way during these short few years. 

Try to find an activity that both of you can enjoy. I think she needs respite from her phone too? I wonder about the boundary there? 

What about a rule about having no phone in the bedroom at night, and give her respite when she comes home from it too. 

These boundaries might pull her back into the family. Also I would talk to her about her sibling, and explain that she misses her. 

I have had this conversation myself with my daughter. Teenagers can be quite single focused, and pointing out something like this might help her sister to come back into her view. 

Teenagers struggle with this sense of loss too.

The relationship has changed from what it was, but you can be there with her in a more supportive role. 

The fact that she is moving towards independence and relying on you less is a testament to your parenting of her as a child. 

She is confident enough not to rely on you so heavily. That is a good thing. 

From about ages 13-15 teenagers can struggle to be around the family. They can stay in their room more than be down around the family dynamic. 

It can be an awkward time for them too, they’re not adults and not young children. They’re somewhere in between. 

Try not to force things, and remember she will come back and build a snowman with you again.