Communication with Teens

Every day I hear parents say their teens are driving them crazy. I hear story after story of battles going on in homes and the frustration parents are having trying to relate to their teens. They see their child going down a wrong path in life, and they don’t know how to direct them, correct them, or connect with them. They tell me they are at their wits end, and ready to kick them out! I am writing this blog as an encouragement for you, or someone you know, who may be facing this situation. I work with teens every day and I hear their side of the story. My heart breaks as I hear them saying the same things about their parents. I see them struggling to find their identity and self worth on their own. They are craving direction, but don’t know how to ask for it. They are craving correction, but don’t like receiving it. They are craving communication, but don’t know how to communicate.

Being a teenager is one of the most difficult times in life! Here’s why:

1. The body is going through physiological changes, and they don’t know how to react to them.
2. Their minds are shifting from a child mentality to an adult mentality, and they don’t know how to make the transition.
3. Their running as fast as they can to the finish line, called their 18th birthday, hoping that when they reach it, they will be listened to and taken seriously!
4. They are given more responsibility, but they are not trained how to be responsible.
5. They are given more freedom, but they are not trained on how to use their time wisely.
6. They are given money, but don’t know how to manage it.
7. They are expected to get a job, but don’t know how to work efficiently or the meaning of work ethic.
8. They are expected to attend school, church, activities, and get a job, but don’t know how to deal with the pressures of life.
9. They are given more control over what they watch on T.V., listen to on the radio, and what they look at on the internet, but they don’t know how to make wise choices.
10. They face the pressures of drugs, alcohol, sex, etc., without knowing how to have restraint.

These are just the top ten things I hear teens say that cause them the most hardship.
In most cases, when someone gets pregnant, they invest a lot of time in learning what it will take to care for a baby. They view this time investment as an exciting adventure of learning, and they draw from several resources, in order to gain knowledge on how to be the best parent. As a result the babies are well cared for, their needs are met, and the parents are wise to the challenges of raising a baby.

Then when they pass the baby stage something changes. A few parents will purchase the next book in a series, that teaches them how to raise a toddler, but most parents decide they can “wing it”. They don’t do any more homework on parenting. Fast forward 13 years when the child becomes a teenager and you will find most parents frustrated and overwhelmed when the hormones kick in. Add to that “I know it all” attitude and the battle begins! The relationship starts to deteriorate and in many cases communication comes to a halt. Don’t get me wrong there are words being spoken , but most of them are in a hostile or exhausted tone and everyone ends up feeling angry and defeated.

Both the parents and the teens do what comes natural. They go to their peers for advice and support. What the parents find are other parents who are in the same situation and they hear similar stories of frustration. When they walk away from the conversation they are no more equipped to deal with their teen than before they started talking. The parents determine this is normal and something they have to put up with, until the teen gets to the age where they can move out of the house. What usually happens next is the most disappointing result of these interactions. The parents pull back in their relationship and they give the teen more freedom to be with their friends. The common thought is that if the teen is out of the house they are not disrupting the environment.

As the teen spends more time with their friends hey look to their friends for advice, and they begin to determine that parents are unreasonable. They adopt a false belief system that says, “This is the way it is with all teen/parent relationships and nothing is ever going to change.” They too pull back from the relationship and they want to be out of the house more because they can’t deal with the environment at home either.

The result of both scenarios is the same. Neither the parents nor the teen learns how to communicate and both parties are left feeling agitated, angry, and alone. This combination of emotions and the feelings of hopelessness create an explosive relationship. The result is that both parties end up hurting each other with their words and actions. It doesn’t have to be this way but it takes time, energy, and effort to change it. Those parents who are willing to put in the time and are willing to learn how to communicate with their teen, experience less stress and the home environment is more peaceful for everyone in the household. The teens are less likely to be influenced by peer pressure to smoke, drink, use drugs, or engage in sexual activity.

All of the teens I have mentored or coached over the years, who are entangled in a lifestyle of sex, drugs, and alcohol, have told me they didn’t feel they had any other choice. They felt pressured and they had nowhere to turn for help or advice, because they couldn’t go to their parents for fear of how their parents would react. Parents are you listening to me? Your kids are afraid to come to you because they are afraid of your reaction! Something is drastically wrong when your teen cannot come to you for advice or guidance.

You are supposed to be their mentor and coach. Your number one job is to help your teen train for success! The teen years are not the time to back off in your relationship with your child. It is the time to move closer to them and to learn how to communicate with them. If you don’t do this and you don’t create a positive learning environment for them, someone else will create a negative and destructive one and your teen will become just another statistic.

Many parents have a “not my kid” attitude and they are unwilling to admit that their child is in danger of being influenced into drugs, alcohol, or sex. If they do find out their teen is engaging in these activities most parents place the blame on another kid, and tell their teen to stay away from that kid, because they are a bad influence. It is easier to point the finger than to face the reality of the truth! With the pressures of providing for the family and taking care of other children the parents today feel overwhelmed, and they don’t feel they have the time to do anymore than they are already doing. But I want you to understand that the old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure” really is true! Many of the trials you are facing with your teen are preventative if you are willing to do the work to learn how to communicate with your teen.

I have a son who will be 15 in a couple of months. We have an incredible relationship! He shares his life with me and I coach him through the challenges he faces everyday at school and with his peers. I have given him permission to share everything with me and he knows I will never freak out on him no matter what he tells me. As a result he tells me everything! Sometimes it is hard to hear because I know more than I really want to know, but they are things I need to know. It is hard to hear him tell me of the number of his friends who are viewing pornography online, or who are drinking or using drugs, but in allowing him to share these things with me, I am able to coach him through it.

In turn he coaches his peers and many of them listen to him. Recently he showed me text messages from one of his female friends. The conversation was about her anger towards her parents and how she hated them. He was teaching her how to get a mindset of success by taking her focus off of her parents and putting her focus into her studies at school. At the end of the conversation she thanked him for helping her change her opinion of her parents. She said he was the only friend who really helped her and that her other friends only made her angrier at her parents. My son then told me of the many friends who come to him for advice and he shared with me what he was teaching these kids. He said girls were no longer having sex and the boys were rethinking their involvement in pornography.

You might be wondering how he knew what to say to those kids and how he was able to get them to change their behavior. The answer is that I taught him the truth about those things. I never told him not to have sex or not to view pornography. I told him how amazing sex is, and God’s design for it, and how fulfilling it is when you engage in it with your God given mate. I also told him the truth about pornography. I didn’t shame him or try to scare him. I was honest and told him what happens to the brain when a person views pornography, and how the areas of the brain that are affected by it. We had many conversations about it over a couple of months. The result was that he had all the information and was equipped to make a conscious decision about it for himself.

What I said made sense and he was able to process it and then in turn, teach his peers about it. You may be wondering where I got my information. Well I studied it for myself and became educated so I would know how to teach it to my son. I did the hard work beforehand and as a result I was equipped to train him when he began to ask questions. It goes back to what I said previously. I never stopped learning how to parent. I knew if I tried to “wing it” our relationship would suffer and my son would be left to being influenced by uninformed and misinformed peers, who didn’t have a clue about life. I refused to allow this to happen. I put in the hours of study for myself to ensure our relationship stayed intact and so my son would be equipped to face the pressures of the teenage life.

Look around you today at the number of adults who are ill-equipped in their own lives to face the daily influences of sex, pornography, drugs, alcohol, etc., and I will show you an adult who didn’t receive proper training in their teenage years. They are basically teenagers in adult bodies who are still searching for the truth themselves. They are no more informed than they were when they were teens and they are still going to their peers for information. Unfortunately most of their peers are just as ill-equipped as they are, and the information they are getting is poor.

Look at the divorce rate or the statistics on affairs or pornography addiction. Look at the statistics on drinking or drug use, legal or illegal. Look at the increase in stress related diseases. The numbers are staggering! Adults are facing the same pressures that teens are facing and they can’t figure out how to deal with them in a healthy way. These same adults are now raising teens. If they don’t know how to deal with their own issues how are they going to know how to deal with their teens issues? The answer is they can’t! And so the cycle of dysfunction goes on and it is passed down to the next generation.

It is time for adults to come to a place of maturity and to begin to get help for themselves so they are able to help their teen navigate through life. I spent years reading, taking classes, counseling, etc., in order to deal with the issues of my past and I am grateful I did because I am able to coach my teenager through his issues. The biggest impact you can make on your teen’s life is to deal with your own issues so you are not afraid to deal with theirs. Your teen needs you! Today is a great time to buy a book, sign up for a class, surf the web for information, etc. in order to begin the process of healing and change for yourself. Those of you who are willing to take on this challenge and who are willing to become a coach will have success stories instead of horror stories to share when the teen years are over.

You might be thinking you don’t have the time. Let me dispel that myth for you and put this into prospective. How many hours a day are you willing to work for a company who could lay you off or fire you tomorrow? How much time are you willing to sit in front of a television and watch shows or sporting events that will do nothing to improve your life? How much time are you willing to spend scrapbooking, golfing, mountain climbing, sailing, etc. that will never amount to you winning a gold medal in the Olympics? How much time are you willing to spend with friends who you may get into a fight with tomorrow and never speak to again? How much time are you willing to volunteer for church or your kid’s school that you will not be a part of 10 years from now?

These are only a few areas where people spend their time where that time could be spent learning how to be a better parent. It is not a time issue that keeps you from doing what I am talking about. It is a priority issue. Ask any elderly person who spent their life becoming successful or spent their time serving their own interests, as they are sitting in a nursing home alone, if it was worth it. Ask them if it breaks their heart that their children rarely visit them. Ask them what the one thing is that they would do different and across the board you will hear them say they wished they would have put more priority on family and less time invested in trivial pursuits.

Your children will one day grow up and leave home and in time you will realize how much you miss them. You will reevaluate your relationship and there will come a time you will wish you had done things differently. And as your children have children of their own and they come to visit you, you will begin to see the effect you had on them. I hear story after story of grandparents whose hearts break because they see the way their children are parenting, but the most unfortunate thing is at that point it is too late and the grandparents have to suffer in silence. Some may speak up but most often an adult child will not change their interactions with their children just because their parents don’t agree with their parenting style. In fact, most adult children justify their actions by pointing out that they were parented in the same way. So the cycle of dysfunction continues and another generation is affected.

So my challenge to you today is to reevaluate your priorities and make becoming a healthy parent and coach one of your top priorities! The benefit that will come in everyone’s life far out ways the time it will take to change. Believe me if you will do this you will feel a sense of satisfaction that is far beyond anything you can think or imagine. And your children will one day rise up and call you blessed and they will thank you for placing value on their life. You have the opportunity to pass on a legacy of love, stability, health, wellness, and success that is far better than a gold medal, a tenure watch, or a plague on the wall. Those things will one day be destroyed; whereas the blessings you pass onto your children will go on from generation to generation!