Top 10 Ways For Parents To Build Strong Relationships And Effectively Communicate With Their Adolescent
The primary goal of parenting is to teach your children to be happy, healthy, independent, and productive adults. This is accomplished through our relationship with them. A healthy, positive, and highly communicative relationship is crucial to teaching and modeling the values, skills, attributes, and mindset your kids will need to become well-functioning adults.
The World Health Organization defines adolescence as occurring between the ages is 10-19. It is often a difficult period of transition where emotional regulation, judgement and decision-making parts of the brain are not fully developed, and the adolescent is dealing with identity, relationships, and impending adulthood. It can be tough for parents who often experience their adolescent as over-emotional, irrational, defiant, and argumentative. Navigating this difficult transition to adulthood requires that the parent-adolescent relationship be strong and that lines of communication remain open. The following are guidelines and intentions we recommend parents adopt to maintain a strong and highly communicative relationship
1. Practice Self-Care
To be the best parent you can be you need to reflect on your strengths and challenges in the areas of:
- physical health (sleep, diet, physical activity),
- Brain Health (emotional regulation, stress management)
- Social connectedness (friends, family, clubs) and
- Spiritual (religion, meditation)
The healthier you are in these areas the more your parenting will reflect your best intentions as a parent and not your triggered reactions. You don’t need to be a perfect human being to be a good parent. Knowing your triggers and the buttons your adolescent can push to dysregulate you give you a chance to avoid mistakes. By modeling self-care, you are setting a great example that we all have things to work on to be our best self and being the best parent, you can for them is important to you
2. Be A Great Listener
The best way to keep lines of communication open and productive is for the parent to be such a good listener that your children really enjoy speaking to you and seek you out when they are happy or struggling. Good listening involves:
- Demonstrating attentive body language (good eye contact, nodding your head, saying uh huh (please put your phone away while listening))
- Reflecting to them the facts and feelings they are saying to assure that they feel heard and understood.
- Asking questions for more detail
3. Rather Than Offer Advice, Ask What They Think They Should Do.
Ask yourself what helps prepare an adolescent for independent thinking and social problem-solving better: giving them advise when they are struggling or helping them think through their feelings, needs and goals and learning to evaluate which options are more likely to solve the problem or address the need. If you try this and they can’t come up with anything let them sleep on it and try to sort it out tomorrow. If they still can’t generate a strategy do the following:
- Ask, “Are you open to some information or an idea for you to think about that might help?”
- When they say “Yes” Share your idea or information.
- Then ask, “What do you think about what I am saying?”
- However, they answer allow them to modify your suggestion in any way they want.
- Ask them to tell you what their next steps will be
It is important for adolescents to grow in their confidence in their abilities to manage problems and stress. Adolescents need practice at thinking things through and problem solving especially in interpersonal situations. When children are small it often feels good for parent when they realize how much their child relies on them. In adolescence we need to help our children rely more on themselves and need us less
4. Feed The Flowers Not The Weeds
Notice and comment more on the skills, talents, and personal qualities your children are displaying (Flowers) and spend less time and words on addressing undesired behaviors (Weeds)
Your adolescent discovers who they are and the flowers they possess and embody by getting detailed feedback from their parents, teacher, and peers. The more you talk about their flowers the more they will own them and live them. The same goes for the weeds. The more you talk about them the more they own them as who they are and what they do.
5. When Your Adolescent Displays Weed Behavior Cue Them (Briefly, Assertively and without Drama) to Reset Themselves
When they break a rule, display disrespect, or do any other “weed” behavior resist the urge to respond with emotional intensity or long speeches. Adding intensity and volume to discipline only sets off the child’s stress response making them scared or alarmed and less capable of fully processing the information you are giving them. Instead, simply give them a verbal and sometime nonverbal cue that conveys they are out of bounds behaviorally. Imagine your teenager is sitting at the dinner table with the family and suddenly burps loudly without saying “excuse me.” A parent might just stare at the child with a serious facial expression which would prompt the teen to say, “Excuse me’ The teen saw the parental cue and quickly reset themselves with the return to proper manners by saying excuse me. The cue can be a look, the phrase “Reset” “Make a better choice”. The idea is to define the line crossed between acceptable and unacceptable behavior and give your teen an opportunity to recover (reset themselves back to more acceptable in bounds behavior.) When done consistently you will discover that your teen is resetting themselves without need for the cues. Tip: when they successfully reset provide some positive reinforcement to affirm, they reset
6. Stay Calm and Well-Regulated When Tensions are Rising in Your Relationship with Your Adolescent.
This is the hardest thing for parents to do. When you are very stressed by what your child is doing or something that is happening in your life cortisol is released into your body to signal that there is danger. If you stay in this state for too long, you will diminish the functioning of your pre-frontal cortex. This is the part of the brain responsible for emotional regulation, decision making and judgement. In this escalated state you are more likely to be impulsive, combative and struggle to calm strong emotions. In this state you will trigger your child with your body language and escalated speech and set off their stress response. Having a plan can help a lot in managing triggers. Try to identify the things your child does that most trigger you (attitude, disrespect, defiance, immaturity, sarcasm etc.) where the stress response shows up in your body (tight neck, shoulder, chest, pounding heart, stomach distress feeling hot or cold, headache) and the best strategy you can employ to reset yourself to a calmer state (slowed extended exhales, taking a time out away from your teen, taking a walk, drinking something cold, progressive muscle relaxation, repeating a mantra etc.) The more important the conversation is the more important it is for you to be and stay in a well-regulated state.
7. Stop the Conversation When it is Clear Your Adolescent is Too Escalated to Continue in a Constructive Way and Move to De-Escalating Your Child.
When your adolescent is demonstrating very escalated behaviors (yelling, cursing, insulting etc.) it is important for you to check your emotional state and regulate it as best you can (see # 6 above) but if you are calm move directly to de-escalation strategies until your child is visibly calmer. Some of the more effective strategies that will de-escalate your child are listed below:
- Reflect to your child their position and associated feelings as you hear them to let them know they are being heard by you. Reflecting and validating what they are saying does not mean you agree with their perspective, but it tells them you are listening and understanding what they are conveying to you. Feeling heard is very calming.
- Don’t talk about your power talk about theirs. Parents are often tempted when emotions are running high to list the privileges they can revoke and punishments they can dispense to the adolescent to motivate compliance. Talking about your parental power to an escalated teen is an invitation to a power struggle. So many parents who have taken all privileges, freedoms, and social activity from their child only to find them continuing their defiance. The better move for parents is to talk about their child’s power: the choices and options that are available to their child and that they have the power to choose one of those options. Feeling like they still have power and choices even when they are not getting the response, they want is calming to them.
- Call a time out for all parties to de-escalate. When all else fails call for a 15-minute time out. Parent and child go to their respective quiet places to calm down. When returning assess if your child is calm and if so, resume the conversation.
8. Speak to Your Teen with the Same Choice of Words, Voice Tone, and Volume and with the Same Body Language You Want an Adult in Authority to Speak to You.
We adults are so sensitive to the way we are spoken to by peers and especially people in authority over us (Supervisors, our parents, police). We notice and react to their tone, body language, and the words they use. We don’t like authoritative or condescending attitudes. Our teens are the same. If we want our messages to be heard and respected, we should package them in the same way we want to be spoken to. When your child violates this standard with you, we want to be able to say, “I don’t like that tone you are taking, and I don’t not speak to you like that” and have it be true. Of course, you will get escalated from time to time and violate this standard. When you do and you are calm apologize to your teen. Apologies send powerful messages to your child. First that you own your mistakes. Second that you value their feelings and regret hurting them. Third you are human and imperfect and are working on improvement. These are all great messages.
9. Stop Trying to Control Your Adolescent and Let Them Have as Much Control and Choice in Their Life.
So many parents are battling to get their kids to do homework, join a sport, take up an instrument, be more physically active. Author William Stikrud PHD author of the book “Self-Driven Child” makes the following point. When we work harder than our child at what is their responsibility and their life, they work less hard because their parents are taking on their job. Dr Stikrud points out that we should let our children know our recommendations and that we will be there all the way to guide and help but, in every way we can, let them make the choices since it is their life. This is how they will best be prepared for adulthood. The only control we really have as parents is to offer our guidance, help and support and set limits on things we will not support
10. Teach and Model Resiliency Skills
Resiliency is the ability to recover from adversity and to even grow stronger because of it. Some of the core resiliency skills are having a Growth Mindset, Effective Emotional Regulation Strategies and adopt the 3 Intentions of the Nurtured Heart Approach.
- You are adopting a Growth Mindset when your response to struggles, setbacks and failures is to ask the question “What can I learn from this to help me be more successful at this effort” “What training or education will enhance my skill set in this area”? “Who can I ask for help?” Wayne Dyer said, “People with negative mindsets see roadblocks and people with a positive mindset see opportunities” When your child is struggling model and teach them to look for the lesson in this experience.
- Emotional regulation strategies help you to manage stress to optimize your critical thinking skills. As parents when we see our children experiencing stress, we often act quickly to fix the situation for them so they can not suffer. There are 3 types of stress:
Positive Stress like when you are speaking in front of an audience, playing a competitive sport, or performing in a play or in a concert. This stress gives you energy to perform and helps you. Tolerable stress occurs when you are sick, or someone breaks up with you. It is very stressful but with support you work through it and recover. Then there is Toxic stress which is when the stress is significant and prolonged, and you do not have adequate resources or supports and are overwhelmed. Resilience with stress happens through practice with positive and tolerable stress. Don’t jump to fix problems for your children in these areas. Ask them how they want to deal with it and support them as they try various strategies. Life will never be stress free but with practice your child will develop confidence they can negotiate all kinds of stress because they have had practice in many situations growing up.
- The 3 intentions of the Nurtured Heart Approach©. The 3 stands of NHA are guiding intentions for effective parenting and for living your life positively. Intention #1 and 2 are described in recommendation # 4 above. “Feed the flowers and not the weeds” Our children want relational connection from their parents and teachers and peers. Giving them attention, connection and describing details of the skills, abilities, and attributes, we are noticing in them is the most powerful way to embed those skills and qualities in them. Conversely, we need to minimize the energy and detail in our responses to undesired behaviors to send a clear message that the energy you so desire from me is more abundantly available when you are showing us flowers and much less available when you are showing us weeds. The third stand is in # 5 above. Be clear about your expectations. Provide positive reinforcement when expectations are being met and reset your child when they display weed behaviors to cue them to recover and get back to flower behavior.