Do you ever feel like parenting a teenager is the most intense, high-contact, supervisor position ever created? It’s truly more exhausting than when they were toddlers. At least then we had a limited number of issues to deal with, right? Eating, sleeping, potty training, socializing.

Now? The issues never stop. There’s something new every day. Things we’ve never thought about or discussed or considered before. Should we have a rule about this? What should the rule be? Do I allow them to do that? How do I get them to do this???

It’s mentally taxing, emotionally draining, and it can lead to lots of arguing and power struggles.

Today, I’m going to help you shift the way you think about and manage these issues with your teen that will cut way back not only on your mental and emotional load but decrease the chaos they create. Don’t go anywhere.

PODCAST INTRO

Let me first simplify what we’re talking about here – we’re talking about how to manage any situation where your teen wants one thing, and you want another. And there’s inherent conflict between you and your teen because your goals and their goals are so very different.

Their goals are to be accepted by their peers, experience as many new and exciting things as possible, and to be able to decide how to live their life, without interference from you.

Your goals are to make sure they’re safe and healthy, stay out of trouble, live by certain values, learn certain life skills, and have the best life they can, now and in the future.

It boils down to a tug of war over control; your parental control versus their need for more control. How do you balance divergent goals with the least amount of arguing and animosity (so you can preserve your relationship and ultimately be even more influential in their life)?

First, you need a deeper understanding of how adolescence works and how your role as their parent changes during this developmental period.

From puberty forward, our kids not only begin to think and feel differently—their emotions are much bigger and unpredictable and their cognitive processes change. They think about themselves and other people differently. They become obsessed with their social life, hell-bent on being accepted by their friend group, and more distant from us.

They’re able to think about how they think, and how everyone else thinks. They understand more nuanced and analytical concepts, which gives them a big boost in confidence—they begin to think they know as much as we do and should be treated like an adult (even though they still often act like a toddler).

This is all because of how their brain is wired, it’s necessary business, it’s evolution, and it cannot be helped.

They feel ready to go out into the world and do their own thing. They’re wired to plow full steam ahead. They think they’re ready to plow full steam ahead. And they want you to allow them to make their own decisions and do their own thing. They have a deep evolutionary need for autonomy.

If you don’t understand (or haven’t quite accepted) and don’t support this need, you set yourself up for a very bumpy ride through adolescence because your reaction to their behavior will not be appropriate.

You also have to realize that because they’ve changed so much, your role as a parent must also change.

For years you’ve been the boss, the chief decision maker, the rule-setter, the social director, the confidant, the super-hero. You had all the power and control.

But now because of these neurobiological changes, they want to be their own boss, they don’t want you telling them what to do—they want to make their own decisions, and at the very least, they want to be heard and understood. They want autonomy and respect.

If you don’t understand why they’re acting this way, you’ll make assumptions, jump to conclusions, take things personally, get nervous about their behavior, and start trying everything you can to hold on to that power and control that they seem so hell bent on taking from you. You don’t realize it’s you that needs to adapt to their changing needs.

So, you try and get a tighter grip on things: you scold, punish, continue to tell them what to do, and treat them like the little kids they once were—you’ll treat them with far less respect than they need.

And when you add in all those big emotions their brain is causing right now, it makes for lots of confusion, frustration, hurt feelings, angry confrontations, and power struggles…which leads to a very precarious parent-child relationship and worse behavior from your teen (which causes you to react with even more control—it becomes a real spiral to hell).

You can avoid this spiral (or stop it) and balance yours and your teen’s goals and control, by adapting your parenting role—go from boss to guide. You support their autonomy by sharing your control and giving them the respect they need and deserve.

Picture yourself in one of those commercials where the parent has their arm draped around their kid’s shoulder as they walk through the park, laughing…like that. LOL. Really, that’s what you’d like it to be like, right? Walking side by side talking about things without arguing, your teen sharing things with you and asking for your opinion, and you talking to them like they’re a young adult rather than a child. Who wouldn’t want that?

Now to get this, I’m not saying you have to let them do whatever they want—far from it, because the reality is, they’re not ready for that.

But what you can do is give them more space to make their own mistakes, be more open and receptive to their ideas, be more flexible, and be more respectful in your communication with them.

This is a huge part of staying connected to your teen, making sure you remain influential in their life.

Because if you’re arguing all the time, you create an atmosphere of anxiety, animosity and antagonism, which means there’s no connection, they won’t talk to you, they’ll keep you shut out, hide things from you, lie. Forget about them asking for advice or help.

………………………

So, let’s go back to these constant issues you deal with – the rule setting, the outrageous requests you get from them, the begging to do something you don’t want them to do, their failure to meet certain expectations…all the things that pit your parental control against their need for autonomy. How can you prevent arguments and power struggles while managing all of these issues?

It’s a lot easier if you keep several core concepts in mind.

Core concept #1 - Get your emotions under control. In other words, you have to be an emotionally regulated human to do any of this the way you need to. At the very least, you need to recognize when you can’t keep it together and remove yourself from the situation, calm down, and come back to your teen later.

If you let your emotions take over, you can’t think—that part of your brain has just shut down and you’re at the mercy of whatever automatic reactions you have.

For example, if they ask you to do something that’s just so out of the realm of possibility, and the panic wells up in you and you automatically react with, “No way. Not happening. Don’t even think about it.” They’ll feel disrespected, unheard, unsupported, and invalidated.

And you know what happens next. Usually some yelling, a little, “you don’t get it” and more. Afterwards, you probably feel horrible. You may realize you messed up but feel completely incapable of handling it any other way.

I know this feeling oh so well. If that sounds like you, then you need to start by working on your emotional awareness (becoming more aware of your negative thoughts and the unpleasant emotions they cause). This awareness will help you become more regulated in the moment so you can slow down and think about what to say or do. I’ll link to my free parenting guide, Emotional Awareness Strategies in the Show Notes. It’s a good place to start. I’ll also link to a few other podcast episodes for a deeper dive.

So, first things first, start working on your ability to maintain a calm demeanor with your teen (even when they’re not calm). As you become more emotionally regulated, you’ll be able to access the thinking part of your brain so you can use these next concepts in the moment.

Core concept #2 – Talk to your teen the way you would talk to a friend or colleague.

Use the same tone, inflection, body language, and facial expressions that you would with another adult. In other words, treat your teen with the same respect you treat another adult.

A huge chunk of autonomy support can be accomplished through this one concept. I mentioned it in last week’s Substack, Avoiding “You Don’t Get it” From Your Teen (I’ll link to it in the Show Notes if you haven’t read it yet).

Keeping this concept top of mind when you’re communicating with your teen, will help you avoid accidentally trampling on their autonomy and triggering an argument. Remember it.

Core concept #3 – Approach every issue of contention that comes up between you and your teen as a joint problem to solve.

This goes back to your role as guide and sharing your control. Instead of approaching every issue as a decision you need to make, it’s a problem to solve together. And I do mean every issue.

They want to drive to the beach this weekend with 3 other friends. They want to stay out until 2 am instead of midnight on the weekends. They keep missing the bus in the morning. They want to sleep over at their boyfriend’s house. They did sleep over at their girlfriend’s house (without asking), they just came home with their head shaved…whatever the issue, it’s a problem to solve together.

No more issuing edicts… “from now on if you miss the bus, you walk to school.”

No more giving them an answer without hearing them out and discussing it first… “are you kidding me, that’s not happening, nope.”

No more assumptions about some mistake they’ve made without asking what happened and discussing it first… “Get in this house. Do you know what time it is? Never mind, you’ve lost the keys for 2 weeks – hand them over and go to your room.”

You can’t solve problems without a discussion.

And you can’t discuss how to solve a problem without both you and your teen talking. Discussions are a two-way street—both people need information from the other.

There’s also a general order in which these conversations should take place to best support your teen’s autonomy. And there are some basic communication skills that you should use.

Which leads us to Concept #4 - Listen, Listen, Listen. This is by far the most important communication skill there is and one that we parents are sorely lacking.

Teens more often than not feel we don’t listen to anything they say. We don’t understand them or worse, we don’t care to understand them. And they’re absolutely right. Most of us are far too concerned about saying what we want to say than listening to what they want to say. And that’s a huge mistake. Nothing makes your teen feel disrespected and threatens their autonomy like not listening.

Granted, listening is not a skill that comes naturally for everyone but it’s especially difficult as the parent of a teen. As I discussed in last week’s episode 210, fear causes us to talk more than we listen. And fear ramps up during adolescence as they gain more freedom and start doing riskier things. This is why Concept #1 is to become more emotionally regulated.

For example, you might have a problem listening to your teen when they’re angry, grief-stricken or fearful—any of those unpleasant or uncomfortable emotions.

You may get frustrated, nervous, or even angry when they become emotionally dysregulated. So, you try to make them stop rather than listening.

You invalidate how they feel in that moment, or ignore them, make light of the situation, or, God forbid, tell them to calm down. This feels so much worse to them than just a typical threat to their autonomy—it’s confusing, it’s maddening, and it accomplishes just the opposite of shutting down their emotions—it just ramps them up.

When there’s a problem to solve, your teen’s emotions can go from zero to 60 in 2 seconds flat and you need to be prepared to listen.

Teens also often feel unheard when they’ve made a mistake or done something wrong. We can be really quick to jump to an immediate conclusion about their behavior without asking them what happened and affording them the opportunity to explain. Without listening to them to understand where (if anywhere) they went wrong, we can’t possibly solve the problem of helping them do better next time.

All too often we fail to listen to our teens when they ask us for something, ask permission to do something, or complain about a house rule. We refuse, say no, or scoff at them when we should have at least given them the opportunity to state their case. When we don’t listen, we can actually miss important information, and we deprive them of the opportunity to hone those already fairly polished debating skills, and we certainly threaten their autonomy and needlessly cause an argument.

Nothing makes your kid scream at you like not listening.

In many cases, listening involves pausing or simply asking questions before opening your mouth to talk. You have to afford them the opportunity and sometimes even prompt them to talk so you can do your listening.

For example, you should invite a conversation anytime there’s an issue that concerns your kid. You have to stop going around making unilateral decisions on their behalf unless absolutely necessary. That’s a thing of the past. You could get away with that when they were a kid but not anymore. When you decide something without discussing it with them first, again, you’ve ignored their need for autonomy.

For example, let’s say your daughter can’t seem to remember feeding the dog when she gets home from school. It’s causing an issue because the dog ends up chewing on everything in the house until you get home from work and feed him.

Instead of angrily telling your daughter that if she can’t remember to feed the dog, you’re not going to allow her to go out on school nights anymore, you’re going to have to discuss the issue first (it’s a problem to solve jointly).

Unilaterally making decisions like this, even if you’ve asked and reminded and cajoled her to feed the dog in the past, will threaten her autonomy and more likely than not, cause an argument.

Anytime there’s a problem regarding your teen’s behavior, it calls for at least a quick conversation before you step in and make some sort of unilateral decree about it. Invite them into the conversation you’re having with yourself in your head. You shouldn’t be making any decision like this without first seeing what they have to say about it.

Think about all those decisions you make on your own right now and then tell your teen how it’s going to be. It happens all the time. “No more going out on a school night. You can’t seem to get your homework done.”

“I made an appointment with the oral surgeon for that tooth extraction for next Friday. You’ll have to miss the afternoon at school.”

“I’m not going to try to get you out of bed in the morning anymore—you’re too grumpy and uncooperative. I’ll buy you an alarm clock and you’re going to have to get up on your own.”

Those all may seem like fair things to say or do—to you. You’re a parent – parents, parent! But to your teen these statements sound like declarations of war, which is why they fight back.

Instead of granting them the courtesy (read: respect) of having a very adult-like conversation, you’ve taken all the control away from them, and told them how things are going to be.

To be fair, how do you know that going out on a school night is causing the homework issue—maybe it’s depression or a girlfriend problem? How do you know they don’t have a big exam the afternoon you scheduled a doctor’s appointment? How do you know they’re just being uncooperative about getting up in the morning and it isn’t another issue?

Even if you correctly predicted the problems here, the point is, you didn’t talk it over, you didn’t listen to what they have to say about any of it…you just made the decision and told them how it was going to be. As I’ve said many times on this podcast, by the time your kid is an adolescent, the telling is over.

Again, I’ll repeat it, approach every issue as a problem to solve jointly with your teen, through a discussion, which starts with you listening to them.

There’s one last concept I want you to explain today. It’s something that might take some practice but if you even get it half-right, it’s going to help prevent arguments.

Concept #5 is brainstorming and negotiating. Many parent feel that negotiating with a teenager is something that should be avoided at all costs. These are the parents that still think they should still be the boss, the one with all the power…and the parents who are constantly arguing with their teens, issuing consequence after consequence and getting nowhere, and walking around just waiting on the fire to put out.

Many conversations you have with your teen will require a little brainstorming session that will either end in a negotiated settlement (an agreement) or will end in you delivering the bad news that you need to.

You may be talking with them about changing a current rule, addressing something they’ve asked for, or asked to do, trying to come up with a new rule or guideline together or even talking about logical consequences for a current or future mistake.

In any case where your teen’s goals and your goals collide, brainstorming and negotiating can often prevent an argument now or in the future.

In a nutshell, you’ll simply let your teen know that you have concerns about them doing whatever it is or changing the rule, or about the mistake they’ve made, etcetera, and ask them if they’d like to brainstorm some ideas with you.

For example, if they’ve asked to buy an $800 bow because they want to learn how to shoot like Katniss Everdeen or Darryl Dixon, instead of saying, “are you out of your mind?!” You’ll listen to their entire presentation about why they want that bow. You’ll also reflect what they’ve said and validate their feelings about it and then you’ll state your concerns about it, without shaming them or making fun of the idea or even saying no, just yet.

To do this, be sure and use “I statements” (“I’m nervous about starting out with a weapon that serious and expensive without dipping your toe in first and seeing how you like it and learning more about using it. Let’s brainstorm about this a minute. I wonder if there’s a way I can feel like I’m keeping you safe and being smart about our finances, but you still get to learn archery? Can you think of anything?”

Maybe they will and maybe they won’t. You may have to lead the conversation if they don’t seem to be willing to negotiate. In a perfect world they’d throw out a few ideas, you’d do the same, you’d talk about them and negotiate until you decide how to proceed.

Kinks in that plan could include their unwillingness to even discuss anything other than their initial request and, their emotional dysregulation or your emotional dysregulation. If either of you becomes emotionally dysregulated, the conversation should be put on hold until later (Concept #1) and if they’re unwilling to negotiate, you can offer your own ideas of a compromise. If the negotiation falls apart, you have the final say here.

You know why? Because this issue falls into one of 5 categories that will always fall under your control (should you not be able to negotiate something)—anything that’s dangerous, unhealthy, illegal, unethical or likely to close some door in the future). But remember, just because something falls under your control doesn’t mean you skip all the listening and reflecting and validating and brainstorming and negotiating and keeping your cool, and talking to them like you would another adult.

That’s the whole point here. You share your control when you can, and when you can’t you still support their autonomy by all means possible to avoid conflict, promote connection and remain influential in their life, which means they will have better behavior all around.

I’m following up this episode with a Substack post where I walk you through a conversation similar to those I use in my course in Parent Camp. Be sure and watch your email for it, or check he link in the episode description to jump over to Substack for the post dated April 29, 2025, you can also subscribe there to receive the email, if you don’t already.

I hope that makes sense to you, because that’s it for Speaking of Teens today. For more on communicating with your teen I’ll link several episodes along with a couple of free parenting guides in the Show Notes.

If you’re new here, thanks so much for hanging out with me and I hope you’ll jump in to my growing back catalog of episodes and come back next week. And if you’re a SOT OG, thank you a million times over. I’m thrilled to be approaching our 200 thousandth episode download. It’s crazy! So thank you for all the listening and sharing and rating and reviewing…it just means so much.

Alright, until next time, remember to connect with your teen in some small way, each and every day.