I don’t understand my teenager: what to do?

Key ideas to know how to connect with your teenage son or daughter.

Problematic or conflictive relationships between parents and children are one of the most intense and emotionally painful sources of discomfort, often producing chain reactions both in coexistence and family dynamics and in mental health.

For this reason, many fathers and mothers who seek psychological help do so from a very specific reason for consultation related to one of their main roles in the family: "I don't understand my teenage son, I find it difficult to connect with him".is a very common example of a complaint.

Therefore, here we will make a brief review of the most important factors that may be behind this problem, and I will offer several guidelines and tips to begin to understand your teenager.

Possible causes behind the problems in understanding your adolescent child.

As much as here we speak of adolescents in terms of adolescents, we must not forget that despite their youth and lack of experience in many aspects of life, they are people with complex psychological characteristics and their own individuality..

The difficulties between a parent and a child in connecting may be influenced by very particular factors that cannot be extrapolated to other families: from long-standing conflicts, to psychological disorders that need to be treated in therapy, to the absence of the father for many years due to a divorce, etc.

With this in mind and assuming that behind these problems there is usually not a single cause but a combination of problem facilitators, we will here we will review the most frequent triggering factors and predispositions.

• Insecurities on the part of the manor: taboo subjects related to their psychosexual development, their social life, etc.
• Resentment for conflicts that have become entrenched.
• Fear of opening up and expressing vulnerabilities or imperfections due to an overly rigid parenting style.
• Lack of time together, in the present or in the recent past.
• Fear of breaking the trust of other adolescents by talking about their activities.
• Fear of getting in trouble for disclosing mental health problems.

Key ideas for understanding your adolescent son or daughter

As I mentioned before, there are very specific situations in which the problem in the parent-child relationship lies in very dysfunctional psychological elements at various levels, not only in terms of communication between the adolescent and the adult. For example, after-effects of bullying, psychological disorders, etc. In such cases, it is advisable to have the support of a psychotherapist.

However, in other cases the problems are not so severe and there are no clear triggers beyond communication failures and bad habits of coexistence, so it is possible to seek solutions by oneself. For this reason, here we will review several tips so that, as parents, it is easier for us to put ourselves in the shoes of our teenage son or daughter.

1. Organize your time

To start connecting with your son or daughter, it is important to dedicate the time to communication that he or she deserves. That is, make it so that when the time comes to talk, this is the main activity, not a secondary one. To do this, the most basic thing is to organize your time so that you can coincide regularly at times when neither of you has responsibilities or other tasks to attend to. If necessary, adapt your schedule on your computer and print it out to include these "gaps". to include these "gaps" in your day-to-day life.

2. Don't turn conversations into an interrogation.

If you limit yourself to asking questions with your teen, it's easy for him or her to interpret this situation in the context of police interrogations and become defensive, and it's frustrating to have to contribute to the conversation without getting anything in return.

Asking questions is fine, but it should lead to a conversational thread that can be developed without one person "pulling the wagon. And by the way, to connect with him or her, it is not necessary that all conversations focus specifically on what he or she has done throughout the day, who his or her friends are, etc. Talk about topics that apparently only affect you indirectly (politics, sports, news on scientific advances, etc.). (politics, sports, news on scientific advances, etc.) is a way of getting to know each other indirectly, not overtly but implicitly, by seeing how the other thinks.

3. Show your vulnerabilities

If you show your imperfect side, your teenage son or daughter is more likely to be non-defensive and more honest with you. and be more honest and open.

4. Respect their privacy

It is very important not to keep expecting the degree of intimacy from a teenager that a child who has not yet reached puberty needs. Connecting with and beginning to understand a young person at this age does not mean knowing what he or she is doing and thinking at all times.If you try to do so, it will have the opposite effect to the desired one: it will make him or her move away from you.

Are you interested in psychological assistance?

If you are considering professional psychological support for adolescents or counseling for parents, I invite you to contact me.

I am an expert psychologist in the cognitive-behavioral model and I work helping individuals, families and organizations regarding psychological care for adults and adolescents; the sessions can be face-to-face in Madrid or online via video-call.