Help Managing Teenage Parental Conflict from a relationship expert
Our relationship expert Amanda is here to chat with parents about how to manage conflict with their teenagers.
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Managing Teenage Parental Conflict
Parenting teenagers can sometimes feel like communicating with an ‘alien’ considering they somehow lose the skills of talking! Grunts, mumblings and one
liners like ‘I’m fine’, ‘I’m okay’, ‘It’s alright’ and my favourite ‘I know’, become common.
The number of times they say’ ‘I know’ as if they know everything can be quite frustrating when to us they clearly don’t. To break the attitude I will joke and say “Hey, better get a job now, as you know everything. You’ll make a great employee knowing everything. You don’t want to leave it until you’re an adult like me, as then you’ll know nothing!”
On a serious point, parenting a Gnarly teenager can really test our ability to not let them bring out the worst in us, even when our intentions to ‘look after their best interests’ are not being appreciated.
What’s going on for them, what’s making it difficult?
Teenagers don’t have much patience, especially with their parents. Their sulking, their moodiness and harsh outbursts are all a collective of this specific
developmental stage in their life. It’s a combination of hormones and ‘brain pruning’ which happens at the start of teenagehood.
What’s ‘Brain Pruning’?
What happens is the parts of the brain that are not used, for example, learning music or a language, are ‘pruned away’, and those we do use, like problem-solving, are reinforced. “Grey matter’ is pruned away, while ‘white matter’ is added. This continues until about the mid 20s.
The prefrontal cortex, where we do our reasoning, is LAST to change.
For teenagers, they therefore use their Amygdala, which is the seat of our emotions, hence why they seem to be making impulsive and often emotional decisions!
As adults we understand the ‘WE’ consideration process, including others' needs and evaluating the repercussions of our choices etc. However, teenagers have a blind-spot and that is they are in the ‘ME’ phase. The world revolves around them and they don’t see this in their ‘attitude’.
Those outbursts of impatience, anger, push back, disrespect, are all examples of them demanding their need to experience freedom to do what they want, to have influence and control through their own decisions. This energy is them fighting for their freedom, for their own identity.
They want to experience autonomy, yet their brains are still not developed enough to mitigate risk on an emotional and physical level. Which is where we step in
sometimes with our concern that they may be making not so good choices for themselves.
Their impatience with us along with their resistance could be based on their interpretation of what we are saying to them. Potentially it could be ’judgement’ and not wanting to ‘be told what to do’! Hence the rebellion.
Our teenagers tend to ‘Push’ and ‘Demand’ as they need things to be their way to feel all is good in their world. ‘Me’ phase in action. A break in ‘the rules’ as it were from what they perceive as the confines of the family.
They are potentially seeking their own identity outside of the family. This seeking is a need to Belong to others’ other groups, friends where they can express themselves differently from when they are with their parents. A need to be Accepted for as they
are, not who you want them to be! Hence, the emotional outbursts like, ‘You don’t get me’, ‘I don’t belong in this family, I‘m so different to you all.’
They are finding their way and we need to be curious and inclusive to explore with compassion, what is going on for them.
Mindful Communication With Our Children
When we communicate, we need to be mindful of setting a foundation for growth and support for children to mitigate risk for themselves emotionally and physically.
Our teenagers can become masters of avoidance if they don’t feel safe or fear that their point of view will be criticised or ignored.
When we can validate their feelings and understand what’s important to them and demonstrate calm respectful communication, and experience the same back to us, then as parents, we feel we're getting somewhere.
The hardest thing is to not let them get us all ‘worked up’ and mirror back to them the same anger. Yet, that is what we need to do. Hold our core, stay grounded and remain as emotionally regulated as possible.
It’s tough on parents, as we can often feel unappreciated and disrespected.
At their core, our teenagers want us to read their minds, they want us to get them, to understand them! After all, isn't that what we want from our partners?
For this to truly be possible we need to demonstrate open and honest communication from our hearts. Parents teach their children how to communicate by doing it themselves and being open to exploring to understand each other's point of view.
Sometimes our teenagers are not sure what it is they are feeling, especially boys, and it can be confusing and conflicting. This is when we exercise our patience to use open-ended questions with kindness to explore what is going on for them.
I recommend framing the conversation as an exploration, an invitation to have a good conversation.
Something like this:
● “I have a sense there is more to this for you and I want to understand you and how it’s important to you. Help me understand, can you tell me more”.
Tip: Try and avoid asking questions that start with ‘Why did you….
‘Why’ tends to be a loaded word, a bit ‘judgy’. Perceived as potentially loaded with
judgement and they may become defensive with their responses from questions that start like that.
Holding a safe space for them to speak and be non-judgmental is very important.
Don’t rush the conversation and provide the space for them to expand on what they are saying. Your kindness and gentle curiosity will support the conversation to reach an understanding and for them to feel seen and heard.
Validate their reality and their feelings, as it is for them.
The more we can do this the more safety and trust we build for our teenagers to articulate their feelings and the situation to be transparent. Sure, they may not tell us the whole truth, yet we will still have more honesty and peace in the home.On a side note, there are different reasons our teenagers may create arguments. I knew of a teenage boy who created an argument with his Mum so she would ground him. This prevented him from going to a party. He didn’t want to go to the party and didn’t feel comfortable declining, so set himself up, to get grounded, to get out of it.
Another good reason to dig a little deeper to understand what’s going on behind the ‘attitude’.
Boundaries Are Awesome
We need to have healthy boundaries in the family on how we will and won’t communicate with each other.
Sure, we all can have a bad day and stress can bring out the worst in us. Within the family unit, each of us are not outlets for our ‘bad moods’.
A good mantra to have is “If I can’t say anything nice right now, don’t say anything at all”
When your child or teenager is full of emotion, and all fired up ‘at you’, vocalising a Boundary to honour yourself and set the standard in the moment could sound
something like this:
● “Hey, that hurts. I love you and as your mother/father, I will move heaven and
earth for you. Yet, when you chose to speak to me like that, it hurts, and I feel
really disrespected. Can you please, start again and speak to me with more
kindness and respect. Thank you”
● “Clearly something is very important to you, and you really want something
specific. I don’t want or like to be spoken to like this --- this attitude ---this way
you’re speaking, I feel is disrespectful and is unacceptable. I love you, yet
when you chose to speak to me like this, I don’t like you. I’m curious to
understand how you think talking to me like this is going to achieve the
outcome you’re looking for. Are you willing to alter your approach so we can
talk better with each other?’
You get the idea!
Then pause, the next person to speak must be them. Holding your silence in this moment is empowering yourself to stand by your words. There is power in the
silence! Plus, it gives us a chance to focus on being calm. We are breathing slowly to calm our system to respond in a considered way.
Second boundary holder if they still ‘blurt out’ something that is not good:
● “I do want to talk to you and understand what you want and how it is important to you. Yet, I will not have this conversation while you are choosing to talk to me like this. I recommend you calm down, if that means walking away to your room to do that, then go for it. Please return, calmer, nicer, so we can have a
conversation that will be respectful for both of us.”
● “I feel my terms of engagement are fair and reasonable, don’t you? (yes) Please honour them. Okay, would you like to start again with what it is you
want to talk about?
If you need to be a ‘broken record’, doing this, holding your ground, so be it. We need to encourage the behaviour we want to experience, which is respectful and considerate communication.
Thankfully they grow up and eventually leave home, going off into the world to create their own path. Your work is done and they get to parent themselves.
I hope this is helpful and you are able to quell your teenagers.
An old Chinese proverb that you can tell yourself in those moments is:
“When you lose your temper, you lose”.
Then Breathe…….
Slowing things down will help you be more considered and hold your core.
All the best.
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