I read this in a newspaper about a book which is called, I think::
Why Won't My Teenager Talk To Me?
Can't remember the author, or honestly the book title, but the article speaks out the reality stuff which is common sense to Youth Specialists but maybe not to parents generally - have a read - it stimulates.
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You can't force a teenager to talk to you
Why Won't My Teenager Talk To Me?
The book goes to great lengths and uses considerable research to try to answer the question. But I can save you the
trouble of doing so. The reason your teenager won't talk to you is because you're boring and they're not going to
waste their time.
But why are you boring? Well, you may just be a boring person - many people are • but you are probably just boring In teenage terms. That is, the things you consider important and Interesting are simply not the same as the ones that teenagers consider important and interesting. And even the ones where you can find common ground are not really up for discussion - such as oral sex or why Tiffany is being a bitch to Emma again, when,
like, Emma is so totes dench.
Beyond this, there Is a problem with parents and teenagers and It ts this: parents want to help, they want to be supportive. And as the very essence of being a teenager is achieving a sort of separation from parents, from their values and interventions, this desire is going to act as a barrier.
You may think you are being non-judgmental when you are listening to your teenagers, but you're not and they know it. If they have behaved badly, you are disappointed. If they are putting themselves in jeopardy, you are worried.
Teenage years are the time when the chief influence on a child moves from the parent to the peer group and it is a rather dispiriting fact for parents that a lot of research shows that peer groups are a great deal more influential than parents in moulding behaviour and personality. Parents, during the teenage years, are having to learn for the first time to take a back seat.
When my first daughter was in her teens - she leaves them, officially, this July -I used to try to get her to "talk to me", usually with very little success.
I did at one point lapse into diche and suggest that "a problem shared is a problem halved". To which she replied: "Well, that's one of the biggest loads of shit I've ever heard."
She has a point.
We are drunk on the confessional culture, but this doesn't leave much room for protecting each other's space. And this is one of the key elements ofteenhood: the appropriation of space - emotional, physical and intellectual - from the adult.
We do not want to let go of our children. We can be as reliant on them as they are on us. To refuse to talk to us is to say, "You do not occupy the prime position you once did in my life."
And that is painful. So we pester them to communicate, which just pushes them furtlier into the realm of self-imposed isolation.
Be there for your children - particularly if you are one of those relatively rare adults who has the ability to listen to what is being said (and not said) with sensitivity and understanding and, furthermore, respond in a manner that allows the teenager to take that advice on board without being humiliated.
You only get so many chancesonce you disappoint your children with your inability to "get" them, they will quite quickly give up on
the whole process.
We all want to be the wise parent dispensing the wisdom of ages to our
grateful progeny.
However, I suspect the best we can do is leave ourselves open. Not tug at their guts so that they will spill them, but simply let them know you are a safe space in which they can find comfort if they so wish. And if your children do not so wish, then so be it.
Get over it - it's more your problem than theirs.
