In several places we have mentioned the extremes of emotion parents feel during the birth of their child (see giving birth and scares with children). Experiences like that do not usually happen again in a healthy family until the child reaches adolescence — that teenage time when one foot remains in childhood while the other feels its way into an adult world.
Children moving into adolescence are physically, mentally and emotionally at full stretch. They have not experienced such demands on themselves since being born. Not only are they quickly getting larger, but their shape and characteristics are changing too. New emotions spring out at them uninvited, white hot and bewildering. They unwillingly become awkward, gangling, embarrassed beings who cannot do anything quietly or without knocking something over. Physical problems, whether real or imaginary, preoccupy and worry them.
The effect of all this on teenagers’ thought processes is revolutionary. Nothing seems certain any longer; all their assumptions, and all the values you have taught them, lose their authority and come into question. An adult outlook on the world is thrust upon them, and few 16 year olds can manage to stay on top from the beginning. They have to challenge and prove for themselves everything you have taught them to believe in, without the benefit yet of independent experience. Yet in repeatedly challenging your own hard-learned values they may seem to think very little of your experience. The fact is that you are the only people they can afford to try things out on, hoping you can cope with their impulsive clumsiness and bounce back unhurt at the end of it.
Even knowing that this phase will pass does not make it any easier to survive. The child that was always a willing and happy family member may now seem like a hostile stranger, who nevertheless presumes to use your home like a three star hotel. It is hard to go on loving anyone who treats you like that, and you may feel you can never get over it. Many parents and children emerge from all this deeply hurt and very slow to forgive.
Not all children are this difficult, but very many are. There is no simple way out of the situation, and few generalizations hold water since each child is different. However there are ways of holding on, and of preventing breakdown in the general health of your family meanwhile.
What to do
1. Do not imagine that you are entirely to blame or that you are the only parent to have such problems. Other people’s children generally behave better away from home, just like yours do.
2. Have confidence that if you have brought your child up in a loving, stimulating and caring atmosphere, then however much you get hurt, things will be all right in the end.
3. Try to avoid confrontations, which merely harden attitudes.
4. Try to avoid what might be called the routine arguments — over an untidy bedroom, or unkempt hair. These arguments nag on until health breaks down. Make your point kindly and firmly once, and choose the moment. Then wait. Things will get worse before they get better. Your house has always been clean and it is hard to go into a bedroom which looks like a bomb site. Sooner or later it will get equally unbearable for its inhabitant.
5. Put things into perspective — you will not if you exist only for your family. It is important that you live an interesting life outside the home. Then things will not get out of proportion. You need to remember that children do eventually leave home. You must not be left empty but happy that a new and exciting stage in your life has come too.
6. Try to talk quietly to your child sometimes. There is always a moment when they are tired of fighting. It is in these moments that you will learn an inkling of the pain they too are going through. It may be worry over exams (Leaflet E10) or relationships with friends (Leaflet A06) or physical problems. But a relaxed chat between grown-ups — not a parent ’talking to’ a child — can heal many wounds.
7. Play is vital in a child’s development (Leaflets E08 & E09). It is important to a teenager too. Some children at this age will not want to be seen going out with their parents. Catch them unexpectedly and take them somewhere you know they will feel comfortable. Let them see the child in you having fun. They will recognise what they see and be drawn in.
8. Help them to take part in after school activities. These are more important than school itself because it is here that they will be active within a self-disciplined framework.
9. Do not try to buy their affection. It is cruel to buy a child all that he wishes, not kind or caring.
10. Speak to their teacher alone if really necessary but do not complain in a child’s presence.
11. Remember that a teenager may fight against everything but deep down he wants an ordered existence. Most important of all is that he requires consistency. If you have made a rule, stick to it. If there are two parents, they must both stick to it. A teenager is quick to see and exploit a rift he senses between father and mother.
12. Make rules and decisions when you are calm. Those made in anger will be hard or impossible to keep. You must not lose credibility.
13. We refer to rules because teenagers need to know exactly where they stand. Justice is a strong principle with young children and even stronger in adolescence. The rules that you have had all along — bedtimes, mealtimes, manners, dress — will all need to be reviewed. Hang on to them as a routine but be much more flexible. Don’t let them all collapse.
14. Diet can affect behaviour. See if you can note a direct relationship between bad behaviour and an overdose of processed food or sweets (Pamphlet F1 and Leaflet F12).