A Mom’s Paradox

Teenagers complain a lot. I mean A LOT with all capital letters.  At least mine do, they are the only ones I know.

Probably complain isn’t quite the right word.  It’s more that everything that doesn’t go the way they want is a giant injustice. The store doesn’t have the right lipstick color to match the dress, how dare they! Kroger stopped carrying their favorite brand of cereal – that can’t be right, they must have to carry all the brands, right?!?!? Their boss asked them to do something that was hard-work, how dare they!?!?

It’s always been of critical importance that my relationship with my children is friendly and that they want to talk to me. Afterall, there are only 18 years of their life where I can make them talk to me (and really not even that many, as my son has proven more than once with reticence in the face of even my most incessant questioning).  For the other 75% of their lives, if I want to know what is going on, I have to rely on them voluntarily telling me.

But I hate listening to complaining.

I don’t mind listening to people getting riled up about a wrong, if it means they are developing a plan to make it right in the future. I don’t mind an occasional rant about some awful injustice – like girls kidnapped in Africa, women who can’t vote in Afghanistan, street children in India, or the massive amount of debt in our country.  I can even deal with you if you have an unusual day of incessant whining. But when everything that you say all the time is a complaint about the minor frustrations of daily life, I don’t really want to talk to you.

Thus the mother’s paradox! I know if I want them to talk to me later, I have to let them talk to me now. But I’m not sure how much of the complaining I can take!

To deepen the paradox…notice I’m complaining.

Parenting Teenagers

I have a friend who blogs here. She does a beautiful job of being honest and hopeful.  I always find myself thoughtfully examining why I make the parenting choices I do after reading her posts.

Recently she joined me in the world of teenagers (see her post on the topic). Under our roof we currently have three true teenagers (13, 16 and 18), two twenty-somethings who are still making progress, and a 9 and 11 yr old who are getting entirely too close to teenage for comfort.

In her recent post, my friend asked for any and all advice.  Which set me to thinking what advice I would give.  After much thought, I think I can sum up my guiding principles for teenagers in three ideas.

Guiding Principle #1: Sometimes teenagers just need to be heard.

They just need you to listen as they rant (or whine or complain or scream or cry) about how awful their day (life or week or friends or school or job) truly is.  They don’t want you to fix it.  They REALLY don’t want you to give them advice.  They’d prefer you didn’t try to convince them its not as big a deal as they think it is.  They just want you to listen.  Let them know you understand.  And remind them that it’ll all be ok.  (Really, isn’t that exactly what we all want most of the time?) At which point they may still roll their eyes and/or stomp away.  But that’s all they need from you.  They can work through the rest on their own.  Give them a bit, you’ll notice the weather change before too long.

Guiding Principle #2: Sometimes the parent just needs to say something.

Teenagers are horrible monsters sometimes.  They just are.  It’s part of figuring out who they are as adults.  They say mean things. They do dumb things. They make poor choices.  They have weeks (months or years) of self-centeredness.  As the parent, sometimes (not always, but sometimes), we need to point out to them when it’s happening.  We don’t need to belabor the point.  We don’t have to hold it against them.  We aren’t always required to hand out consequences.  Sometimes we just need to let them know that this behavior or that approach is not acceptable and will lead to trouble.  They will most likely yell “you just don’t understand” and storm from the room.  Or even worse (at least in my opinion), their eyes will fill up with tears and they’ll look completely destroyed.  Sometimes you just need to be the one that tells them they have lettuce in their teeth, and then let them work out, on their own, how to get it out. As adults we expect the people who care about us to do that, in a kind and gentle way.  We should do the same for the almost adults under our care.

Guiding Principle #3: You have to say things over and over and over again.

In some ways, teenagers are big toddlers.  When they were toddlers, you had to tell them No over and over and over again.  When they are teenagers, you have to have the same conversations over and over and over again.  But also, just like when they were toddlers, if you are consistent (and keep the right attitude/tone) you’ll find you have good results after a while.  The first time you give them some advice they may storm from the room yelling “you just don’t understand” (see Guiding Principle #2).  The next time they’ll roll their eyes at you and change the subject.  A few times later they’ll have a civilized discussion with you about why they agree or disagree.  A few times more and they’ll ask some questions to clarify their understanding.  Then one day you’ll overhear them giving that same advice to somebody else.  I know it sounds miraculous.  I wouldn’t have believe somebody either, if I hadn’t seen it happen myself, more than once, with very different children.

I have no evidence (yet) to suggest these principles are helping my children grow into loving, emotionally-balanced and responsible adults.  But I do know they help me stay grounded and patient (more days than not, anyway), which can only be good for our relationship in the long run.  I’m relying on the hope that it’s that relationship that really matters.