Catharine Hannay, ma
Catharine Hannay is the founder of MindfulTeachers.org and the author of Being You: A Girl’s Guide to Mindfulness, a workbook for teen girls on mindfulness, compassion, and self-acceptance.
5 Tips for Getting Closer to Your Teen
Looking back on my own adolescence, I can see both how hard my mom was trying and how badly she missed the point.
She asked me to come into the master bedroom, sat me down on the edge of the bed, and said,
“I told my friends we don’t have a good relationship, so they suggested we do each other’s nails.”
Huh?
What?!
WHY???
I stared at my hands in stunned silence as she clipped off all of my long rounded fingernails and made them into the pointy little tips she preferred. Meanwhile, she listed all the guys she knew from my class, and told me which of them were nice boys I should have crushes on.
While I’m sure her intentions were good, the result was that I felt even more uncomfortable with her.
I mention this story because it’s such a perfect example of what NOT to do. If you’re trying to develop a closer relationship with your teen, just do the opposite of what my mom did!
- Choose a Comfortable Space
My parents’ bedroom was their private space that was usually off limits. So I already felt very uncomfortable before she even said anything.
It would have been much better to initiate a conversation in the living room or the dining room or the car on the way home from soccer practice—Those were spaces where I was used to spending time with her, so I would have felt much less stressed.
- Be Direct, But Kind
“I told my friends we have a bad relationship” was certainly honest, but not particularly helpful. At the time, I didn’t understand that she wanted to improve our relationship. Instead, it sounded like she was ashamed of me.
It would have been better to start the conversation with something like: “It seems like there’s been a lot of tension between us lately, and I feel bad about that.”
- Find Something You Both Like to Do
My mom thought she was following her friends’ advice by polishing my nails… but that wasn’t really the advice. The point was to choose something that we both found relaxing, and to use that as an opportunity to let the conversation flow naturally.
Maybe you and your kid both feel comfortable styling each other’s hair. Or maybe you both enjoy baking cookies or shooting hoops or singing karaoke or watching sitcoms.
It makes very little difference what specific activity you choose, as long as it’s something that you both genuinely like to do. (Or something your kid really likes that you don’t mind doing. One of my friends doesn’t care that much about video games, but she’s happy to play them with her son because that’s when he’s mostly likely to open up to her.)
- Listen More Than You Speak
I suspect my mom’s friends gave her a list of discussion topics. (OK, we’ve covered ‘classes, sports, and activities.’ Now let’s try ‘crushes on boys.’)
But it was a lecture, not a discussion. She didn’t leave any room for me to express my own opinions or explain my point of view, or to talk about whatever I was in the mood to talk about.
- Make More Than One Attempt
After our awkward nail polishing encounter, my mom said, “That clearly didn’t work. Oh, well. I tried.” And that was pretty much it.
As Dr. Harriet Lerner says, “Substantive change in family relationships is a slow process, not a one-shot deal.” (The Dance of Connection, p. 173)
If you don’t have a comfortable relationship with your kid, it’s probably going to take a while to build trust in each other. It’s very unlikely they’ll suddenly start confiding in you on the first try.
Conclusion
As an adult, I can see that my mom was trying to follow her friends’ advice. They probably enjoyed chatting with their daughters while doing each other’s nails, so they assumed that would work for us, too.
The problem was that she was interpreting the advice too literally.
“You have to take parenting advice and look at it through the lens of ‘Who am I?’ and ‘Who is my child?’ What would feel like an authentic way to connect with each other?’
Dr. Sam Himelstein, co-founder of Family Spring
If you’re located in California and need help determining if your child and/or family need professional help, contact Family Spring by submitting an inquiry at this link.
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