How to Get Your Teenager to Listen to You

"grrmpf". There he is, slumped on your leather couch. 6 Feet of bones, covered in black, cap and hood on top, sunglasses covering his eyes.His shoes are the size of a seaworthy boat. Who on earth is this person, has a burglar sneaked in while you weren't looking? And what is he saying? Perhaps it's an Armenian, lost on his way to his homeland.

No, it's your baby, all of 16 years old. He doesn't remind you of the baby-photo's now proudly on display. This chubby darling is long gone, leaving you with this complete stranger, who seems to have a speech-impediment. And you know that you've given him the best of everything, the most love, attention and food. You know you love him; all those painful hours in the delivery-room 16 years ago were not for nothing. But does he still love you? It doesn't seem that way, whatever you do, it is wrong in his eyes. How can that be, you are still the same.

"Can you please do the lawns for me?' you ask in perfect English. "Grmf,shhdsm" is the answer, while text-messaging half the world. "What do you say?" you say,
"I can't hear you". The TV is turned up loud, the Play station displays racing cars. The only active part right now is his fast moving thumb, going over his cell-phone like a concert-pianist. The phone put aside, the same very flexible fingers move over the Play station-console now. His attention is rapt, because you need a lot of concentration to race these virtual cars into the virtual wall. Apparently that's what has happened now, and you get the blame, because "you broke his concentration". His face looks like thunder, he is angry. But finally he has found the right vocal-cords again and has connected them with his brain.

But this is unfortunately used for the Play station again. If you want him to listen you'll need to come up with something better than the uninteresting lawn-mowing. "let's take a cruise" is not going to work and you can't afford it anyway. " There's food here in the kitchen" might just work but then there's always food and he knows that. " "Shall we buy you a brand-new car" will get his attention, but then you will have to do just that and it sounds a bit expensive for a simple lawn-mowing job.

By now you get angry. What are you going to do with this big lump, how will you get him to do a simple job for you? He never listens these days, there's always noise to drown out your voice. His friends are more important than you these days. But I tell you how I get the attention:

Go to your electricity-box and turn off the power. Finally silence reigns and you can say what you have to say. Don't make it too long; the attention-span of a teen is about 5 seconds, where mothers are concerned anyway. Besides of which, if you make a speech of hours on end, you'll be ending up mopping the kitchen-floor because the freezer starts defrosting. But it worked for me. Good luck!