Are you listening ?

I care about what you think and feel, too

I look back to my time as a teenager and remember the struggle that I had to feel loved and cared about. While we are trying to understand ourselves and form some semblance of an identity, our bodies are trying to figure out a new hormonal balance, heightening emotions and causing us to feel like all we are is extreme emotion. I was fortunate to have loving parents, but I can look back and recall times that even when they were showing their love, I could not feel it. Our first response as parents and guardians when teenagers get ‘moody’ or show ‘attitude’ is to punish or correct them. We feel that we must put our foot down so we don’t raise disrespectful children.

But what happens when we listen?

Remember: Teenagers are human. Humans who feel and think and go through events that elicit stress, worry and irritation. We are social creatures who all want to be appreciated and cared about by people. Common issues in teenage years are problems with anxiety, depression and low self-esteem. Add to this the pressures of society to look a certain way and act a certain way, and we have a maelstrom of emotions that we do not understand and do not know what to do with it.

One of the most common messages I send to my parents that I work with when having teenage clients is simple: Listen to them. Rather than yelling back when they give a sharp tone, listen to them. Rather than automatically grounding them because they skipped school, listen to them. You might be thinking, ‘they don’t want to talk to me’. And many times, this can be true. But what has the message been that we have sent them in our words and actions? Has it been a message that says I understand you have bad days? Has it been a message that says I am here for you not only as disciplinarian, but also as a person who loves you? Simply, has it been a message that says I care about what you think and feel, too?