If there’s one thing teenagers crave in spades it’s freedom. If you’ve got an angsty teenager, then a good place to start is to recognise their desire for freedom and to give them a clear path ahead buffered with plenty of trust to help them attain that sense of freedom they so desperately need. But if you’ve got an angsty teenager, that is easier said than done. Firstly – because of the general attitude you may be on the receiving end of. Secondly, because it’s just hard to let our babies go!
But let them go, we must. So here to help us navigate that path to freedom is Harvard-trained psychologist and Psychology Today parenting expert Carl Pickhardt – author of the new book Holding On While Letting Go who is sharing his top tips for giving your angsty teenager the freedom they need during this developmental milestone.
Why we need to embrace teenage freedom
Freedom is choice. And while the child is more content to let parents make life-limiting choices, in service of detaching for growing independence and differentiating to develop individuality, the adolescent pushes to make more of these choices themselves. The stress for parents of adolescents asserting more freedom to grow is feeling less in control and more anxious on that account.
Tips for holding on while letting go as a parent
The key priorities are giving unwavering love and providing a family structure of responsible behaviour to rattle around as the young person pushes against and pulls away from traditional restraints and asserts more freedom of choice. More disagreements are not a problem to protest, but a growing reality to accept.
Now the parental mantra is: “We will be firm where we have to, we will be flexible where we can, we will explain the reasons for our rules, and we will always listen to whatever you have to say, so long as it is respectfully spoken, as we speak to you.”
The importance of communication
Spoken communication is what keeps all caring relationships together by keeping each other adequately informed about what each other is feeling, thinking, and doing. When communication stops, caring parties are left to their ignorance which can be fed by their own worst imaginings. There is no substitute for speaking up and sharing information and listening to what each other has to say, so everyone stays adequately informed.
Taking experimentation and curiosity in our stride
Never take experimentation in stride and simply let it go. Driven by curiosity, experimentation is risk-taking with the exciting and the untried, actions always leading to consequences, some simply educational, others endangering.
Parents have to teach predictive responsibility. “Before you try something new and different, take less than a minute to ask yourself (and answer) four thinking-ahead questions:
- What are the rewards?
- What are the risks?
- Are the risks worth the rewards?
- If the risks become endangering, what is my back-up plan to cope?
Advice for understanding(and being supportive of teen dating
Do group dates, not single dates. Keep dating sober and substance-free. Monitor the treatment you give and receive. Being able to say “yes” to these questions:
- Do I like how I am treated?
- Do I like how I treat the other person?
- Do I like how I treat myself?
- Do I like how the other person treats themselves?
- Do I like what we end up doing with each other?
If your teen can’t say “ yes” to all five questions, then the date may not be for them.
Coping strategies for parents of teens
Adolescence begins with loss — loss of childhood for the adolescent, and loss of the adolescent as a child for the parents. Thus adolescence requires letting go on both sides of the relationship. This does NOT mean that parents are destined to go through agony with their adolescents compared with the sheltered, closer joy of childhood. For me, although childhood is certainly a simpler and more endearing time, it is not as magical as adolescent transformation — getting to see your little girl grow into a young woman, and your little boy grow into a young man.
Supporting your teenager on their journey
Ongoing, open communication and the willingness to stop whatever you are doing to listen whenever your teenager feels like talking; bridging all growing adolescent differences with interest that you are curious to know; and treating all disagreements non-evaluatively, as chances for discussion to help you to better understand.
Teen parenting pep talk
Respect the challenges, support the hardships, be vigilant for the dangers, and enjoy the wonders of the ten-to-twelve-year transformation of the coming-of-age passage that marks your child’s growing up.
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