Oh no! It’s finally happened! Your teen has come home asking for permission to get a tatoo. Maybe you have a hundred tatoos already so this doesn’t really bother you. However, if you’re like most parents you’re not exactly ecstatic about this new development. Here are some therapist thoughts on what to do when your teenager wants to do something to their body you aren’t really comfortable supporting (or flat out refuse to permit):
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Getting your teen to do housework is possible! Image courtesy of artur84 via freedigitalphotos.net.
You work full-time and your teenager is home after school. It feels very frustrating that they stay home a good part of the day, or are out having fun with friends while the house needs a lot of attention. Maybe you don’t even care about the chores around the house if they’d just keep their room clean, bathroom picked up, and put away their dishes. How do you deal with this?
1. Let them know how you feel. This is not to be said in anger or with hostility. That is the quickest way to ensure a teenager isn’t listening to you. On the other hand, if you gently tell them it’s frustrating for you, or that you feel taken advantage of, or that you are overwhelmed and stressed, they will often listen. This isn’t true for every teen but if you don’t get a kind reaction when you’re truly being kind, there are likely other problems in your relationship that need addressing.
2. Make sure you ask. As obvious as this sounds, a lot of parents lament they don’t get any help around the house, but they don’t specifically ask for what they need. You might have hoped your adolescent would take the initiative, look around, and just see what needs doing. This is great in theory but pretty much will never happen. Try writing them a reasonable list each day before you leave to work, asking things be done before you get home (Reasonable for a teen who has no history of cleaning is probably a 30 minute task).
3. Attach monetary value to certain tasks. This works for the highly social child. If you have a teenager who loves to be out with friends, this will be effective. Here’s the caveat, if you plan to make them earn their going out money by doing tasks around the house, you can’t give money otherwise. It’s fine to pay for their sports or things they need for school. However, if they want to meet a friend for lunch, absolutely no money! You can gently remind them they will get a few dollars when the house has been vacuumed, which is a great way they can pay for their own lunch. Something else you’ll notice happening, when they have to earn their spending money they are more careful with it.
4. Require it. There are certain minimum tasks that each household should require of every member. If you want to require everyone to keep their bathrooms and bedrooms picked up, make sure yours is too. There’s nothing an adolescent resents more than a hypocritical parent. It’s fine to attach privileges to the completion of these minimum tasks. One family I worked with had success when they told their teen daughter the bathroom and bedroom had to be picked up each night by 8pm. If it was, she got the privilege of using her cell phone the next day. If not, they would keep it and she could try again to have everything picked up by the following evening. They were very careful not to bend on this, and she fell into line within a week. If she finished at 8:05pm, they thanked her for cleaning up, but still did not give the phone the next day. Boundaries around these types of limits must be strict and unemotional.
It is possible to get your teen to help you around the house. It’s all in how you ask, and how consistent you are with whatever rules you set up. Once you are able to get their help, it’s great for your relationship because you’re nagging less often, and they feel a sense of pride.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
If you’re a parent who wishes to connect better with your teen, you’ll have to have elements of friendship in your relationship. The parents who know how to listen well and care about what their kids care about seem to also have authority. The parents I see in therapy who just try and control behavior with discipline have either a rebellious teen, or one who doesn’t share much with them. If you really want to influence how your teen thinks, their moral compass, and their ability to make decisions later in life without you, you have to be in their hearts. They need to learn to think and feel through hard things, and that’s impossible if you use your emotional muscle to prevent them from making mistakes.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Arguing with a teen can seem impossible, but it’s actually not. Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
To argue effectively with your teenager, you both have to be listening. It doesn’t do a lot of good just to try and overpower each other. Here’s the mistake a lot of teens and parents both make when they are disagreeing: they continue to restate the same point repeatedly. When the other person doesn’t seem to hear it, they just say it more loudly. Eventually the tone of voice gets rude and then the argument can turn nasty. That’s when teenagers are blamed for “having an attitude,” or “being disrespectful,” or “talking back.”
It’s essential to realize deescalation has to occur before anything else. This means the discussion must remain calm. It’s completely fine, and actually positive to feel and express emotions. It’s not encouraged to do this offensively, with a blaming and/or defensive attitude. When’s the last time you were happy to hear someone’s point after they called you a name, rolled their eyes, or spoke with contempt in their voice? I know I have no interest in what someone has to say after that. All I’m thinking is what a jerk they are, and then I dig my heels in.
Parents and teenagers ask me all the time why it’s so much easier to talk about things in my office than at home. The answer is in remaining deescalated. When a family is learning to communicate better my primary goal is to keep the emotional triggers deescalated. I do this by slowing the discussion down and making sure each side acknowledges what they’ve just been told by the other side. In other words, I make sure parents are listening to their adolescents, and vice versa. I also don’t allow blaming. I ask each person in the room to expound on anything they’ve said by also explaining their current emotional state. For example, a teen might say to her mom, “I really want to be able to go to the party even though there won’t be any parents there.” When asked to expound on this, she may say, “I feel left out if I can’t go. I also feel I’m not trusted if I’m not allowed to go.” While this may not cause Mom to change her mind, she can certainly relate to feeling left out and not trusted. Those are really unpleasant emotions. Instead of Mom arguing that these types of parties are unsafe, Mom can tell her daughter she hates those emotions too. Once Daughter feels heard, she and Mom can work together to come up with some kind of creative solution.
It’s so incredibly important to communicate with your teenagers in a way that deescalates them. You won’t even have an impact on them if they are angry, defensive, and otherwise emotionally charged; they are not ready to listen in that state. You aren’t ready to listen either and the only two options become either fighting or shutting down. You may get your child to comply with you, but they will resent you. This is not what your objective is. The objective is always to keep them safe and teach them whatever they need to learn from a situation.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Help your teen be proud of who they see in the mirror- teach them to be significant. Image courtesy of freedigitalphotos.net
Today in church I heard a great little tidbit from Pastor Rick Warren. He said, “Seek to be significant, not prominent.” I thought that was extremely applicable to the teenagers here in Orange County. We’re trained to differentiate ourselves, be a leader, and try to stand out from a very young age. The fact is though, there can really only be a few leaders. Everyone else has to be a worker-bee. We need to teach our teens that this is not a bad thing.
I have seen a number of teenagers in my counseling office who are struggling with the fact that they don’t stand out. Sometimes they are frustrated they don’t stand out academically. Other times they wish they could be the best athlete on their team. Still others desperately long to be the most popular teen in their school. They often see themselves as insignificant because they aren’t prominent.
For your adolescent to believe they lack significance because they are not prominent is a fallacy. Significance is something one decides to develop. It’s our job as the parents of our children to help our kids focus on doing significant things. It’s also our job to help them understand that these actions are not usually glorified, or attention-grabbing.
Here’s what I mean: It’s very significant for your teenager to go to a party where everyone else is drinking alcohol but they choose not to drink, and maybe even call you to pick them up. It’s significant for your adolescent to be one of the slower runners on their cross-country team, but they are always positive and cheering on the other runners. It’s significant if your teenager chooses to acknowledge and respect you in front of other kids, even when it’s unpopular. It’s significant if your adolescent volunteers at a soup kitchen on a Saturday morning before all their other friends are up; none of these things garner prominence.
If you work very hard at helping your children make a contribution to this world, and help them understand that for the most part those actions do not get them attention or accolades, you will help raise happy, self-assured, motivated teenagers. You will teach your teen what it means to have humility. You will help your adolescent know how to work hard. You will teach your child integrity and honesty. They won’t mind taking the longer road if it’s the right one. They will be patient, intentional, focused, and able to set long-term goals.
In short, if you teach your teenager the importance of being significant, whether or not that gets them prominence, you will help them develop strong character and inner contentedness.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Teens are consistently short on sleep. Image courtesy of Sira Anamwong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
School, sports, homework, social life, texting…these are all things that get prioritized above your teenager’s sleep. There honestly is enough time in a day to accomplish all these goals, but barely. If your adolescent isn’t carefully managing his or her schedule, sleep will get put on the back burner.
The average teenager needs to sleep 9 hours and 15 minutes each night! If they have to get up for school at 6:30am, that means falling asleep at 9:15 the night before. For the vast majority of teenagers, this is definitely not happening. They sleep around 6 hours per night during the school week, and then sleep 12+ hours on the weekend.
Here’s the problem with getting inadequate sleep during the week. Your teen is more likely to have depression, irritability, struggle to remember things in school, be less efficient, have a weaker immune system, have more acne, might have weight gain, and lead to an unhealthy diet (people crave more sweets and fats when they’re tired, and they use more caffeine). These are not small issues.
Sleep needs to be one of the top priorities. As a parent it is important to force the issue when it comes to sleep. Insist your teenager gets at least 8 to 8.5 hours of sleep during school nights. This doesn’t mean they lay in bed looking at their phones, it means truly asleep. Do whatever you have to. Many adolescents don’t have the will-power to turn off their devices, or text their friends less often so their homework is finished sooner. It might be up to you to restrict their use.
I have worked with a huge number of teenagers who come into counseling for symptoms of depression. When we get them back on track with their sleep, their symptoms improve rapidly. They feel more energized, are nicer, do better in school, and are overall happier.
I know it’s really hard to tell your kids what to do at this point. However, some things need to be non-negotiable. Help your teenager be his or her best self by getting regular sleep. A great number of parents spend time and money getting their teens treatment for their skin, getting help for depression, getting a tutor in difficult subjects, etc. They forget to try the simplest thing first, which is more consistent sleep.
One challenge adolescents face when dealing with sleep is their circadian rhythm. Adults and small children naturally want to go to bed a little after the sun goes down and wake up a little after the sun comes up. Teenagers go through a phase where they want to stay up late and sleep in late. It’s not just that your child is being irresponsible with their schedule, it’s that their body naturally prefers this schedule. Most high schools though start very early in the morning, making the preferred sleep pattern impossible. As a result a lot of kids stay up really late and then fight with their alarm each morning. this added challenge makes it especially important for you and your teenager to work together to help them get enough sleep during the week.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Hello, I’m Lauren! If you notice your teen struggling, you might be feeling helpless, hopeless, frustrated or concerned as a parent. Try to remember, there is hope. I want to help your adolescent feel better. My hope is for them to enjoy their life again. I want them to feel confident they can handle whatever situations arise.
