Teen worry

Teen worry

I read last week’s column and it might be good advice for someone with an adult child, but my child is an adolescent and I can’t just leave her go her own way, she is strong willed and suddenly everything I do is wrong and the more I crack down the more she goes against me. I can’t talk any sense into her, I’ve tried punishing her, nothing works. She doesn’t understand the consequence of her actions What can I do?

signed: MJ

Adolescence is a challenging time for almost everyone – parents and adolescents.

Everything is changing, hormones are rioting, wills are being tested and exerted, suddenly the child who looked up to us and listened to us, is replaced by a young teen who is struggling to discover who they are as a separate entity from us. This usually means reaching for polar opposite choices - to see if we can, to experience the terrifying freedom of living very differently to what we’ve lived so far.

I am changing, who am I now? I need to stand up, free from everything I know, and find out who I am and what I can do. The most obvious way to do that is by rebelling, by closing off to the familiar things that strangely don’t fit any more, where they once felt comfortable and comforting, they now feel constricting.

This is when the loving chrysalis your strong presence has provided needs to relax enough for the new butterfly to emerge, rest from her struggles, and let her wings dry in the sun. Your embrace now needs to go from the protective cocoon she needed as a small child, to a larger embrace.

You are still needed to keep her safe until she is strong enough to fly, but it is time to allow her more space so she can experience the newness of all she is becoming.

This is the natural process of life; it is the next step in her becoming an independent adult. If we understand that and flow with it, everything unfolds a lot more easily. When she no longer has something to struggle against she will be less likely to resist.

I suggest you make a special dinner and sit your daughter down for a family conference. Begin by telling her things that make you proud of her, be detailed, highlight the fact that she is growing into a young woman and that this growth needs to be honored. It is time for the rules to change to accommodate the new; it is time for boundaries to be redressed, responsibilities to be reviewed, disciplines and rewards to be discussed.

It is extremely important that she play an equal role in this, if you are just laying down the law the purpose is completely defeated, she now has to defy you one way or another because she is feeling trapped and is being told what to do.

If she is co-creating her new role in your family she will be far more likely to be a willing participant. She doesn’t have to like everything you decide together, but she does have to have a say, you don’t own her after all.

An effective discipline that teaches cause and effect quickly and easily, is mapping. The next time your daughter does something wrong, have her write what she did in the center of a sheet of paper, and from there draw lines out to write around all of the consequences of that thing, eg:

I won’t clean my room:
I’m grounded till I do

I can’t find stuff
stuff gets damaged

Now give her a different sheet of paper to outline the consequences of doing what you want her to do

I clean my room
Mum is happy

I like the way my room looks
I can find stuff

Celebrate! Your little girl is growing up.