Communicating With Your Teen

How to Communicate with Your Teen

If you're reading this, you most likely have a teenager in your house. You're probably noticing that they may be more angsty, rebellious, and antsy. But don't worry, that's just your average teenager going through puberty. Puberty is a huge change for teenagers. It changes the way they think, act, communicate, and see the world. Puberty is also a crucial time in all teenagers' lives. They may have a harder time being able to pinpoint their emotions and truly understand what they are feeling. This is also the time where teenagers start to become more self-aware, experience sexual and romantic feelings, and begin to identify themselves and who they are as an individual. (1). There are so many different and new hormones raging throughout their body that at times it can get a bit overwhelming. They may take some of this out on you, as their parent. In these moments, it may be hard for you to communicate with your teen, but it is possible and necessary. When it comes to being able to effectively talk to your teen, there's a lot of do's and don'ts.

• Finding common ground

As much as teenagers might say they disagree, their parents' opinions really do matter to them. Parents tend to talk to their teenagers about topics that they, the parents, are more interested in. However, sometimes teens want to talk about less "important" things, but these things are still a big deal to them. Most teenagers really do want their parents' approval. One thing that parents can do to lower conflict and find common ground is to become knowledgeable in things that their teenager is interested in. If your teenage son loves basketball, become knowledgeable in basketball. If your teenage daughter loves a certain young teenage heartthrob singer, become knowledgeable on said singer. Simply having common ground for conversation can open the lines of communication when your child wants to talk to you about harder topics that wouldn't normally be brought up. (2).

• Validation

You might notice that your teenager is blowing things out of proportion. I would caution against using phrases like "calm down" or "you're overreacting". When you say these to your child, they're still in that crazed feeling, but they're being told that they shouldn't be feeling what they're feeling. In fact, these phrases can actually make them feel their emotions more deeply. This is why it can be important to validate their feelings. Validation can open the door to having a healthier communicative relationship. Validating your teenager's feelings doesn't mean that you necessarily have to agree with them or condone their behavior. (3).

Tips for validating your teen's feelings:

• Be present. Eliminate all other distractions. Don't be looking at your phone. Your child came to you to talk because they trust you. Don't make them feel like you are putting your phone above them. Sometimes, teens just need to say their thoughts out loud to somebody who is genuinely listening. As a parent, isn't that so awesome that they are choosing to come to you?
• Try not to make the conversation about yourself. There may be scenarios where your teenager will ask for advice from you because they know that you have gone through something similar to what they may be going through. This would be an appropriate time to talk about yourself. However, don't try to make one another's struggles a competition of "who has it worse?" Sometimes all your child might want is for you to listen to them and truly hear them. When you make the conversation about you, it could send the message to your child that what they wanted to talk about is irrelevant compared to what you want to talk about.
• Be aware of your body language. Try to make a lot of eye contact, but avoid eye rolling or scoffing at them. We are inherently tuned to pay attention to other peoples' body language, and teenagers seem to be particularly keep about what other people are saying simply by their body language. That's why it's important to be aware of your body language. You don't want your mouth to be saying one thing and your body to be saying something completely different. 
• Don't try to minimize the problem by saying something like, "Well, it could always be worse." In your child's mind, this could be the worst that it could possibly be. This type of phrase could make your child less comfortable with coming to you with their problems if "it could always be worse". 

Sometimes invalidation can sneak into the conversation without you really even realizing it. Everybody is guilty of invalidating somebody else. Learning how to validate feelings isn't necessarily easy. This is why it is so important to realize how invalidation sounds in comparison to validation. Below is an example of each:

Example of invalidation:

Teen: "I can't believe that I didn't get invited to that party! I'm such a loser!"

Parent: "Who cares? You're too good for all of them anyway!"

Example of validation:

Teen: "I can't believe that I didn't get invited to that party! I'm such a loser!"

Parent: "I'd bet that's really hard to feel left out. I can see why you feel that way."

• Why is communication with my teen so important?

As teenagers get older, they are going to spend more time away from family. They'll be out with friends more and will be more involved with other things such as work and school. With this new freedom and independence, teens are going to have to make a lot of new decisions. However, they still need to kind of guidance that comes from a trustworthy, loving parent. Being able to talk to their parents about decisions that they are making can be very helpful for these teens. Healthy parental communication can help safeguard the relationship between parents and their teenage children. This can be a protective factor when it comes to harmful acts such as underage drinking, early sexual activity, drug use, and even cyberbullying. (4). For your teenager, knowing that they have a parent on their side that they know they can talk to can make the world of difference. 

Resources

(1) Goddings, A.-L., et al. (2012). The relationship between puberty and social emotion processing. Developmental Science, 15(6), 801–811.

(2) Iurea, C. (2017). Communication and conflict in parent-teen relationships. Jus et Civitas, IV (LXVIII)(1), 75–82.

(3) Kelly, J., & Zervas, N. (2016). How to improve parent-teen communication with validation. The Brown University Child and Adolescent Behavior Letter, 32(6), 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1002/cbl.30129

(4) Romero-Abrio, et. al. (2019). Family communication problems, psychosocial adjustment and cyberbullying. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 16(13), 2417. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16132417