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For more professional insights about raising teenagers, Bored Panda got in touch with Colleen O’Grady, MA, LPC, who is the author of Dial Down the Drama: Reducing Conflict and Reconnecting with Your Teenage Daughter and host of the Power Your Parenting: Moms with Teens Podcast.
To begin with, Colleen pointed out 4 unique challenges for parenting teens compared to parenting young children. “The stakes are higher, and parents have less control,” she starts. “Parents are especially feeling the high stakes and out of control and therefore are more anxious. Because parents feel more anxious, they can put a lot of pressure on their teens in regard to their future."
“Parents and teens can view academics from a high-stakes mentality. This puts a lot of pressure on grades. Teens (and parents) can feel like one ‘C’ will ruin the teen's life. Too much pressure can shut teens down and they procrastinate.”
Another challenge is that parents don’t know all their friends. “When your kids are little, you know all of their friends. You would have play dates and you would know if this was a good friend for them or not. In middle school, parents start to lose that control,” she notes.
“You don’t know all their friends and you don’t know their parents.” This also creates a lot of anxiety for the parents. They don’t know if they should let their daughter spend the night at her new friend’s house, if teens will be supervised, if they allow drinking and vaping, if they allow the kids to go in the back yard and turn a blind eye to what they are doing. “You want your teens to have positive friendships and romantic relationships, and this is hard to discern as parents of teens.”
Another challenge is that teens feel like the online world is the new world. “I think that being a parent of a teen has never been harder because of teens and screens. You used to think if your teen was home and in their room that they would be safe but not anymore.”
Colleen adds that because of the internet, the bullies and predators are one click away, thus parents have to keep their teen safe when they are at home, which sets up more conflict between teens and parents. “Conscientious parents set limits for screen use and take the phone away at night, but this is usually met with angry protests and pleading from the teen.”
And finally, the fourth one is that teens are hard-wired for drama. “Teens have an immature brain, and the undeveloped prefrontal cortex (UPC) is a real thing,” she emphasizes. “The prefrontal cortex helps you see cause and effect, it has perspective, and helps you be more emotionally stable. So, the UPC teen tends to make impulsive decisions, is emotionally volatile, sees things in terms of all or nothing, and will not consider the consequences and makes impulsive and emotional decisions.”
Now, speaking about how parents can strike a balance between allowing their teens to make decisions and providing necessary guidance, Colleen shared that she has two dog analogies for it. First is ‘the retractable leash’. “As your child gets older, you can let out the leash and give them more room. When your child is old enough, you can trust that they won’t run out in the street and you let out more leash. So the teenage years are like that,” she notes.
“Teens who show up responsible are rewarded with more leash, which is more freedom.” She adds that it’s important that a child or teen is not on a choke chain. “They need some room and freedom to develop and mature. Just like a toddler who is starting to walk, they will fall and they need some room to fall in the right environment.”
Another one she called ‘the dog park’. So in simple words - parents can give teens more leash when they are in the right environment. “Think of the environment like a dog park. A dog park has a fence around it so the dogs are contained in a safe environment.”
Then parents know that nothing bad is going to happen. “Your teens need to run free but without the right environment their UPC will lead them straight to trouble. But still teens need to run free, so the right environments could be school activities like sports, choir, band, and theater. Summer camps and intensives are also great dog parks for teens to run together.”
She adds that she personally loves summer camps for teens because there are also some positive risks and adventures, which they are wired for.
Finally, speaking about the parents, Colleen points out that self-care is always important for them, but she thinks that it’s even more important for parents of teens as it’s so demanding and high-stakes. “In my book, Dial Down the Drama: Reducing Conflict and Reconnecting to your Teen - A Guide for Mothers Everywhere, I spend several chapters helping moms get their life back, their clarity back, and their ‘I feel good’ energy back.”
“Parents’ best parenting tool is feeling like yourself, hanging out with your friends, and doing fun things for yourself. They need to do things that make them feel good, because parenting teens does not make you feel good.”
Colleen notes that when parents take care of themselves, they can parent intentionally, avoid the drama bombs, enjoy their adult lives and treasure their relationship with their teens. The biggest benefit of self-care is you become the model for who your teen aspires to be. Your teen is always watching.
