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Adolescence
Parenting Adolescents and Dancing with Differences
Parents have to learn new steps to navigate changes in their teenager.
Posted July 3, 2023 Reviewed by Devon Frye
People are different from each other; no news there. So what’s the problem?
Simply this: While shared similarities in relationships can make it easier to find comfortable common ground; human differences can make it harder for people to get along. For example, consider the contrast between parenting a child and parenting an adolescent.
Childhood is often ruled by similarity to parents because the child wants to be like them (imitation) and do like they want (compliance) to create a strong attachment to depend upon, securing closeness to parents for connection and support.
Adolescence is often ruled by growing contrast to parents because the young person is now differentiating for more individuality (diversity) and detaching for more independence (autonomy) to allow for increasing separation and redefinition.
Growth Creates Change
Come adolescence, the young person is now undergoing change on four levels of personal definition.
- Characteristics are changing, like developing sexual maturity.
- Values are changing, like identifying with a counterculture of peers.
- Habits are changing, like becoming increasingly nocturnal.
- Wants are changing, like pushing for more individual freedom.
When the parent in counseling declares, “This is not the child I have always known!” they are not misperceiving.
From here on, parents must learn to dance with more differences with their daughter or son than before, practicing four steps that they may not have had much occasion to use before: accepting, respecting, tolerating, and negotiating growing points of contrast between them.
“Dancing” means taking these steps to accommodate growing differences between them, working through those they can, and working around those they cannot as adolescence gradually grows them apart, which it is meant to do.
Change Creates Differences
Growth is change, and change is that unrelenting process that keeps upsetting and resetting the terms of everyone’s existence all their lives. As the child changes into an adolescent, it can take a lot of parental adjustment and getting used to growing differences in their teenager.
For example, contrasting characteristics, discordant values, incompatible habits, and conflicting wants are all individual differences that can make it more difficult for parent and adolescent to get along. Now take these differences one at a time.
Kinds of Differences
Characteristic differences are inherent, un-chosen, vested aspects of one’s self that basically define how a person is—like their sex, their physical make-up, their temperament, or their personality, for example. Characteristics cannot be changed. In relationships, they must be accepted.
One characteristic of an adolescent is that now she or he is likely becoming more womanly or manly in role and appearance. To say to the adolescent: “Wearing clothes that draw attention to your developing body is not OK; you need to keep dressing like a child” rejects how the girl or boy is growing.
Value differences are deeply held beliefs that are so powerfully held that when a person runs out of reasons to defend them, they are still in place—like about right or wrong, true or false, and meaningful or pointless, for example. Values are deeply set. In relationships, such differences must be respected.
One common teenage value is identifying with the culture of one’s peers, like entertainment and popular icons that define this generation. To say to the adolescent: “I don’t care what ‘everyone’ likes; you’re not listening to that kind of music in this home!” is prejudicial against growing youthful taste.
Habit differences are practiced patterns of behavior that with repetition become more automatic than intentional—like how one is routinely orderly or disorderly, prompt or late, speaks up or shuts up, for example. Habits can be intractable. In relationships, they must often be tolerated.
One habit of adolescence is increasingly challenging parental authority, arguing more to contest what is not agreed with. To say to the adolescent: “Don’t you ever disagree and talk back to me!” refuses to discuss what the adolescent questions, and shuts down communication.
Want differences express what one would like to happen or not happen, which motivates much daily behavior—like desires, preferences, and goals, for example. Wants are subject to changing inclinations and circumstances. In relationships, they can be negotiated.
One common want of an adolescent is to have more independence to create more room to grow. To say to the adolescent: “I’ll decide when you’re ready to try that, not you!” shuts down a discussion about preparedness for undertaking more tempting experimentation and riskier behavior.
What to remember is that the first three levels of differences—characteristics, values, and habits—are firmly fixed and if not impossible, at least very hard to change, while wants have more flexibility.
Managing Disagreement
Neither parent nor adolescent should be in the business of challenging or trying to change the other person’s characteristics, values, or habits (all resistant to change) since by doing so the message received by the other person is criticism at least and rejection at most. Now the relationship can suffer by one party becoming dissatisfied and impatient, and the other party becoming offended and injured.
What works best is for the concerned parent and adolescent is to translate differences that can’t be changed (characteristics, values, habits) into what may be changed (wants) which can then be worked out and compromised.
- Characteristics: “Now that your body is growing up, let’s talk about ways we both want you to be able to dress yourself.” These differences need to be accepted
- Values: “Now that you live in a new culture of peers, let’s talk about ways we both want you to be able to express what matters to you.” These differences need to be respected.
- Habits: “Now that you increasingly question our limits and directions, let’s talk about ways we both want to communicate as more disagreements arise between us.” These differences need to be tolerated.
- Wants: “Now that you desire more room for new freedom, let’s talk about ways we both want you to safely grow.” These differences need to be negotiated.
In these discussions, parents can promise: “We will be firm where we have to, we will be flexible where we can, and we will always give a full hearing to whatever you have to say, so long as it is done in a respectful way.”
It’s a challenging dance that parents must learn to do with their adolescent—leaving differences that can’t be changed alone, while translating what’s intractable into what’s wanted, and working out arrangements where they can.
