#Parentchildconflict #Tween/Teen Conflict

The teens years are a challenging time for families. Teenagers are going through puberty and trying to assert their independence, while figuring out who they are, building social lives and managing academic stressors. The teenage years are a complex phase of life in which physical, emotional, and intellectual changes are occurring over a short period of amount of time. Parents often feel they are taking the brunt of the teenager’s emotions, while finding it harder to connect with their child. Remember when they were young and wanted to be around you ALL the time. They were once literally attached to your hips. Back in those younger days, it was hard at times to understand the needs of your child. They were learning new vocabulary and figuring out how to articulate themselves. However, as teens they have the words, but it seems like they’re speaking a different language from you. Even worse, now it feels like your teen wants absolutely nothing to do with you.

Conflict with teenagers is normal and is a natural part of the process. However, it’s really important how parents manage that conflict. A parent’s reaction and responses can either drive a teen closer to their parents or farther away. I’ve often seen parents struggle with this stage cause sometimes it feels like you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t. Teenagers might make statements such as “You just don’t understand me at all!” or “You never listen to anything I say!” or worse yet give an eye roll and go back to their phone. It’s like what the parents says goes in one ear and out the other. It can be frustrating and hard to not react. But how do you navigate these conflicts and those type of statements?

Here comes the DBT skill of Walking the Middle Path. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) is a form of CBT, with greater focus on emotional and social aspects. DBT is an evidence-based approach that has been adapted to help teens and parents regulate their emotions and improve their relationship. Walking the Middle Path is a metaphor of how parents can handle difficult parenting moments with their teenagers. This skill refers to the importance of dialectical thinking: the ability to hold two truths that seem like opposites and accept there is more than one way to see a situation or solve a problem.  Thinking dialectically means you know your teen has unique qualities and different points of view (most importantly different points of view from you). 

The first step (and most important in my opinion) in walking the middle path with your teen is being able to provide validation. Validation is the recognition and acceptance of another person's thoughts, feelings, experiences, and behaviors as understandable.  When you validate your teen, you’re showing them that you hear them, you see them for who they are, and you understand them. Validation helps your teen feel respected and it can quickly help de-escalate an argument. Sometimes parents struggle with providing validation because they assume it means they are in agreement with their teen. Validation does NOT mean that you agree with your teen. It shows that you can put yourself in their shoes, see their perspective and show empathy despite disagreeing with the situation/event itself. 

Here's an example: Your teen joined the track team and started a new job. You warned them about the commitment and hard work it will take to balance all their tasks. The third week of practice, they had to miss a party because of they needed to complete school assignments. They started complaining, “It’s not fair! I really wanted to go to this party. Why do I have to miss all the fun events? I’m getting home late! I have no time for homework and it’s exhausting!” 

Now….I know what you’re thinking and what your natural response would be: I warned you about this! I told you this weeks ago. It’s like you don’t listen to a thing I say.” Yes, yes, yes. I get it. You saw this coming and tried to help your teen and it didn’t work out. For some reason, they also seem like they’re annoyed with you. I doubt this teen would be receptive to your “I told you so” response. At times, it seems like teens don't think things through or fully consider the consequences of their actions. There’s a reason for this. Adolescents differ from adults in the way they behave, solve problems, and make decisions. There is a biological explanation for this difference. Studies have shown that brains continue to mature and develop throughout childhood and adolescence and well into early adulthood (Blakemore & Robbins, 2012; Hartley & Somerville, 2015). As a result, they might struggle with some decision-making skills and have moments described above. Now that you understand a little bit of why we’re in this situation, this is the perfect opportunity to validate your teen! You might be thinking: “what is there to validate? I told them this would happen, and it happened.” Well, put yourself in their shoes. I know we have all been guilty at times of biting off more than we can chew. It’s not uncommon for us to spread ourselves thin by putting too much on our plates. So, you can express this by validating their experience and feelings. Statements such as “I can see that you’re feeling overwhelmed. Juggling all those tasks can surely make you exhausted. That sucks that you had to miss a party that was important to you.” Even sharing your own experiences could be helpful as it shows them you really do understand what they’re going through, and you can model for them how you worked through those situations.

Second Step: Accept that different opinions can be legitimate (even though you might not agree with them). This is another thinking trap that people fall into “I’m always right.” This thinking pattern causes a person to internalize his or her opinions as facts and fails to consider the feelings of the other person in a discussion. I’ve seen quite often that parents will have a stance that they are right, and the teen is wrong. This type of thinking makes it very hard to sustain a healthy relationship with your teen. No one has the absolute truth, and we need to be open to other alternatives. This allows your teen to feel safe in discussing issues with you because they know you are open to seeing their perspective.

Third Step: Finding balance. A common mistake I’ve seen with parents is parenting on an extreme: being too lenient or too strict. A lenient parent is either permissive or uninvolved. These parents tend to have rules that are inconsistent, nonexistent, or unenforced which can foster exploration, creativity and independence. However, these teens don’t have limitations, consistency or guidance which can lead to problem behaviors and feeling not cared for. Strict parents emphasize discipline and following rules which is great for consistency, structure and predictability but leaves the teen no room for self-exploration and freedom. At its worst, this type of parenting can create a teen who’s rigid, has low self-esteem, one who strives for perfection and/or doesn’t feel good enough. Finding the balance is parenting in the middle ground of these two. These parents have reasonable rules, expectations and limits and also have flexibility and some leniency. Parents who find balance are mindful of the battles they pick, have clear predictable consequences which they follow through on, and allow their teens to make mistakes with some freedom to make their own choices. They have learned to accept that their kids are not necessarily going to follow the path they had mapped out for their lives and are willing to go on that journey with them!

References:

Blakemore, S. J., & Robbins, T. W. (2012). Decision-making in the adolescent brain. Nature neuroscience, 15(9), 1184–1191. https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.3177

Hartley, C. A., & Somerville, L. H. (2015). The neuroscience of adolescent decision-making. Current opinion in behavioral sciences, 5, 108–115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cobeha.2015.09.004

Linehan, M. (2015). Dbt® skills training handouts and worksheets. New York: The Guilford Press

Rathus, J. H., Miller, A. L., & Linehan, M. (2017). Dbt skills manual for adolescents. New York: The Guilford Press