IN SUPPORT OF PARENTS
July 24 is National Parents’ Day and in honor of this day I want to support parents who are struggling with a complicated teen.
Parents Responses
Parents are aware that their teens are establishing patterns of coping (avoiding, defying authority, shutting down emotionally, isolating, engaging in self-harming behaviors) that can possibly follow them into adulthood and interfere with their ability to live life effectively. Parents’ fears and worries can trigger a strong impulse to react - an impulse to fix, lecture, cheer up, manage, avoid, or criticize. Giving into these impulses may give parents some immediate emotional release and may even work in the short term. But in the long term, these reactions usually just contribute to a teen's distress and do little to solve the problem.
If parents didn’t love their kids so much, they might not experience such strong impulses.
In my 25 years as an adolescent therapist, I’ve discovered a different approach that parents can use to respond effectively to their teen’s emotions and behaviors. What I love about this approach is that when parents apply these skills, they themselves feel better. And I also am delighted to hear the positive results that parents are seeing at home.
A Different Approach
Shift Your goal –The goal cannot be to change your teen.
Parents see their teen demonstrating challenging emotions and behaviors which potentially put them at risk and so a parent experiences strong emotions and an overwhelming impulse is to step in and change things.
But know this – making your goal to change your teen is impossible. It’s different when they’re little. Trying to fix teens or doing things to control the outcome with your teen can unintentionally contribute to the problem.
Committing to be a wise parent and making that your goal doesn’t sound like it will do much but when parents stop making their goal to change something that they can’t change, they relax. This helps in three different ways – first, parents are no longer contributing to their teen’s already distressed emotions. Second, this frees the parent of the emotional energy needed to think and use other skills to respond wisely. Third, a parent’s use of acceptance (accepting rather than struggling to change something that’s impossible to change) models a powerful tool that helps people experience a reduction in distress and experience the emotional energy necessary to deal with circumstances more effectively. Teens tend to watch parents more than they listen. So, modeling effective skills, such as the use of acceptance, is a wise strategy for parenting.
Stay focused on the moment. Focusing on the future or focusing on an outcome can increase feelings of anxiety. And when there’s an increase in anxiety, your ability to think clearly is compromised. Thinking gets distorted and ineffective when anxiety is high. This anxious thinking can inhibit your ability to think logically and respond effectively. While thinking about or predicting the future can trigger anxiety, you may also spiral into negative thoughts about the past. This, too, can interfere your ability to think clearly and respond effectively. And all of this can impact a teen’s emotions since many of them are super skilled at picking up on a parent’s emotions. So, make a conscious effort to stay focused on right now. Take a breath, take several deep breaths, and focus on this very moment. This will help you think and respond more effectively. This will also reduce the chances that you’ll give into those impulses (like criticizing, lecturing, fixing, or avoiding) which interfere with your ability to be a wise parent and frequently contribute to your teen’s distress. Making an intention every day, not just when you’re stressed, to practice being present is an excellent skill for living and gets better the more you do it. It’s an excellent skill to model for your teen. But being present does not happen automatically. It takes practice. While some folks are naturally more present, others aren’t. I’m not naturally very present. But people can learn to be more present, and a mindfulness practice helps. Please don’t think mindfulness is about meditating or being Buddhist. There are all sorts of ways to practice mindfulness. See our Resources page for a list of Mindfulness Resources.
Validate. This is an excellent skill to use to respond to your teen’s complicated emotions or behaviors. Validating means that you understand and accept your teen’s emotions. You may not agree, but you can accept. You can help lower their distress by trying to understand what it is they’re feeling (Sad? Worried? Overwhelmed?), and then validating them, it makes sense that you feel sad or worried or overwhelmed. Your goal isn’t to get them out of their distress. But your goal is to stay calm and accepting. Validation is a powerful tool, but it’s often misunderstood. It’s not cheering up or coaching or giving advice. In fact, cheering up, coaching, or giving advice is typically a parent’s impulse but it can increase a teen’s distress. Sometimes just sitting and listening and not saying anything or asking, would you like me to just listen or would you like some advice, can be incredibly validating. And when a parent mindfully sits with their teen, it helps your teen learn to be comfortable with their emotions.
Remember - you want your teen to come to you for validation, not the peer group who understands. Instead of giving into the urge to lecture or criticize or cheer up, take a breath, and listen. Mindfully.
Give yourself a lot of praise. Want to increase your chances for successful parenting? Want to feel better about parenting a teen? Then praise yourself when practicing effective skills like staying focused on the moment, not giving into your urge to criticize or fix, using validation. Say to yourself, good job! You had the feeling, but you didn’t give into the urge to criticize or fix. If you did give into the urge, remind yourself, that no one makes changes overnight. This is a process. You can always go back to your teen and say, I’m sorry, I don’t like the way I handled that. And then praise yourself for doing that! This all might sound counter-intuitive, but research shows that when people praise themselves, they increase the chances that they’ll repeat the behavior.
It is time that parents start supporting themselves, praising themselves, acknowledging what a hard job parenting is and giving themselves grace. Parents feel better that way and have a better chance of being successful. So rather than teens experiencing your distress, they’ll pick up on your positivity.
Here’s a fun video that captures the essence of mindfulness!