Stress is Part of Teen Life: Communication is the Key

If your 16-year-old occasionally stomps out of the room and the fleeting thought that you might be failing as a parent crosses your mind, the situation is more normal than you think. Family stress is a healthy and necessary part of adolescent development.

A lot of parents think they have failed when they see all sorts of bizarre behavior from teenagers but teenagers by nature are pretty provocative. A lot of what seems to be bizarre behavior is normal. The struggle with parents is healthy and important for teens, although parents may not see it that way.

Since teenagers are still developing their communication skills many of them cannot express their feelings well. That is one source of frustrated communication. Rather than talking out their feelings, teenagers often "act out" their feelings. It is typical of their age. The kid who runs away is acting out his feelings. So is the kid who comes home from school and slams the bedroom door when the parent says something.

Meanwhile, teenagers are going through a particularly difficult metamorphosis. Kids have the task to begin to establish themselves as separate from their parents. It is a slow process of moving away from parents. The struggle for parents is equally as difficult. Underlying adolescence is the issue of parents "letting go" of their children. If you love somebody you don't want to let them go.

The family struggle is the process stepping back from someone you love very much and saying, "Go ahead, try it on your own." Issues like curfew hours, friends, social activities are often meeting grounds for this struggle between kids trying to break free and parents learning to "let go."

Experimentation is normal

Kids experimenting with new things is very normal though sometimes it create stress in the family. The resulting "value clashes" can get hot and heavy. Teens need freedom enough to experience new things, as well as a well-established set of guidelines, which help teach responsibility.

Adolescents need limits, very clear rules. Teenage years are not a time to stop setting limits. When teens stop adhering to the limits they start to get out of control. Once that happens they will get scared.

One 17-year-old agrees wholeheartedly. "I wouldn't know what to do if my parents didn't have some guidelines," said the teenager, citing a case of a cousin allowed too much freedom. "I felt sorry for her."

Parents have to learn how to teach without telling, how to mold without demanding, how to guide without steering. The difference between discipline and dogma is a fine line. The style of communication that parents have established affects its successor's failure or success.

Unique ways of communication

Parents have unique ways of communicating. Each parent may have a different approach. Some parents are very authoritative, leaving adolescents little input in decisions about their lives. There are also overprotective parents who never allow their children to experience the consequences of their behavior. They set rules but never enforce them because they don't want their children to experience pain.

Other parents give inconsistent signals to their teens - a double message. Their words say one thing, their non-verbal communication says another. They don't want to rock the boat so they send out confusing signals.

Parenting is a skill we aren't born with so you just have to learn, practice and improve. If communicating with your teen give you the headache perhaps joining a parenting workshop will help. There are workshops that advocate constructive communication as a way for parents to help teens proceed into adulthood with as little destructive family struggle as possible. These workshops can help clueless parents to deal more effectively with communication conflicts at home. If you've never attended such workshops perhaps it's time for you to start.