Parents, your teens need you! Although it doesn’t always feel like it, adolescents are actually wired for connection but often have trouble expressing it. If you’re looking to improve your relationship with your teen, begin by responding to your teen’s emotional needs.  Seek to nurture their heart, not just manage their behaviors. This promotes vulnerability and connection, rather than just instruction or correction…and allows teens to begin to feel safe to express their feelings and struggles with you.  Here’s a couple of strategies I share often with the parents I work with that have been super helpful to increase connection. And, in case you’re wondering, I’m definitely not perfect at all of these on any given day…I'm still learning and growing as a parent too! ;)  

ACTIVELY LISTEN

This encourages open communication between the two of you, and also builds your teen’s social skills. Here’s a few strategies:

• Give your full attention to your teen when they’ve got something to tell you. Try to hold off on interrupting them with solutions or long lectures. Hear them out first.
• Validate their feelings. Even if you don’t fully understand their feelings (they can experience some pretty INTENSE feelings!), it’s important to acknowledge their feelings are real and important. Feelings are neither good nor bad…they are simply data that lets us know whether we like something and want more of it, or we prefer something different.
• Hear them out. Often what your teen shares initially is not the big issue they want to discuss. They’re just testing the waters to see what kind of mood you’re in and whether you can handle the rest of what they really want to get off their chest. Ask open ended questions to encourage them, such as, “What else?,” or “Tell me more about that…”
• Summarize what you hear and allow them to correct your understanding if needed, so they feel seen and heard. This can sound like, “So, what I hear you saying is (summarize what you think y0u understood them to say)...is that right or am I missing it?” 
• Note: If you’ve got a teen of very few words, who usually answers with a short “yes” or “no,” or is otherwise not into sharing details about their day, you might start with ONE of these open-ended questions. Keep in mind: you want to avoid peppering them with too many questions. Play it cool ;): 
  • “What were the two best things that happened today?” 
  • “On a scale of 1-10, how would you rate your day today?” Then follow up with “What made it (that number)?”

MODEL EMOTIONAL REGULATION

This helps teens manage the intense emotions from hormones, life’s ups and downs, and their strong drive for independence at this stage. More is caught than taught in handling intense emotions. Set a good-enough example (thankfully, you don't have to be perfect, just good-enough), so your teens can learn helpful strategies from you.

• Model healthy emotional regulation. When you’re angry and irritated, demonstrate for your teens…in real time…how you manage big feelings by modeling the coping strategies and self care you use. Let them hear you counting backwards from 100 by 3’s, let them see you taking a few deep breaths to calm your brain before you respond to that scathing text, let them see you take a break to get a glass of water or walk the dog while you get your brain back to calm.
• Keep your lid secure. It can be tempting to flip your own lid when your teen flips theirs. Take care of you, and do what you need to do in order to remain calm while you help them get to calm. This is by far the hardest part of parenting! Keeping my lid secure while my teen is flipping hers can be difficult. However, it is possible, with practice and self-awareness. 
• Apologize when you blow it. …and you will blow it. You will let big emotions get the best of you sometimes. You’re not perfect…and that’s ok! By apologizing when you “lose it,” you model for your teen how to repair a relationship…and how to respond after they blow it too!
• Demonstrate grace and forgiveness toward your teen. When teens feel respected, they’ll begin to act more respectfully toward you. When they experience your forgiveness, they’ll more easily extend forgiveness to you. 
• It’s ok to learn this WITH your teen. If you struggle to regulate your own emotions, now’s the time to learn…right alongside your teen. Hold each other accountable. Commit together to learn your own patterns, what pushes each of your buttons, what causes your lids to flip, and find some calming strategies that work for each of you. Then celebrate small wins together. You can break generational patterns together!

I’m curious: which ONE strategy will you try THIS week to improve your connection with your teen?   

Resources:

• Age of Opportunity by Paul David Tripp 
• Brainstorm by Dan Siegel