Amy Childs

I’ve been a pretty good parent, but my teenager seems to hate me. S/he is ____ [fill in the blank: rude, ungrateful, unmotivated, disrespectful, moody, hostile, uncommunicative, dishonest, angry, distant, etc] and I don’t understand why. I have avoided so many of the mistakes my own parents made, and I thought it would turn out better than this. We’ve gone to counseling but s/he still seems to think everything I do is annoying. Where have I gone wrong?

I have a lot of sympathy for parents who give so much to their children in the hope of having intimate fun and friendly relationships with them, and then find the teen years filled instead with tension and conflict. We might know we don’t want to have the stressful relationships with our teens that our parents had with us, but we don’t know how to invent a new way to be with our young adults while they are still dependants living in our homes.

I also have lot of sympathy for teens, who are ready to take charge of their own lives but are not allowed to because of legally, socially and parentally imposed controls. It does not surprise me when young people who were raised in loving supportive homes grow to be angry and rebellious against this oppression. In fact, it surprises me when they don’t! Young people who have been raised to believe that they are smart, creative and capable become hurt and angry when they realize that, because of their age, our culture is not actually supportive of who they deeply are and what they truly want.

Attempting to parent in an empowering and supportive way in a world that does not trust children and teens is an ambitious project. Understanding the confusion and conflict that is inherent in current modes of parenting can provide some relief. Seeing how you can be on your child’s side in this conflict, rather than siding with the outside world (and the oppression that it carries) can help ease tension and bring more fun into your home.

I have very lighthearted and fun relationships with my own three teens, but this did not come without an enormous expansion in my own attitude about what a makes a “good” mother. I see that mutually enjoyable relationships are possible between parents and adolescents when parents are willing to learn to let go of old parenting paradigms and enter a new realm of trust and freedom with their children.

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