By Julie Alvin
Midlife women are in the shit when it comes to parenting. Whether you came to parenthood late and are navigating the havoc a young child can wreak on your established lifestyle and sense of self (raises hand), or you got started earlier and now find fully grown adults staring back at you from across the dinner table (how?), even the most confident among us struggle to find their footing when faced with the enormous project of raising well-adjusted humans.
It doesn’t help that the parenting industrial complex churns out an absolute tsunami of information for the parents of young children (of course – there’s more gear to sell them), but just a trickle when it comes to the task of parenting teens and young adults. When we surveyed Gloria readers about what parenting information they were most interested in, a chorus of you responded looking for advice on parenting older kids.
You have questions on how to navigate the tension between giving your kids autonomy and keeping them close; between helicoptering and free-range; between, to quote psychologist and author Alison Gopnik, the carpenter and gardener approaches to child-rearing. To help with this, as well as on other topics, we turned to Dr. Sarah Spannagel, a clinical psychologist with expertise in adolescents, young adults, and families. Our questions, and her answers, are below.
What are the main issues you see when it comes to parenting teens? What should parents entering this stage watch out for?
I hear a lot about managing the social landscape, which is much different than when we were this age. There’s this whole social media piece – what can happen on social media, all the emotions that come with a presence on social media.
There’s a lot of top-down pressure that I also think is very different. Is my kid going to get into college, is he going to get into a good college, does he need to do eight sports and eight clubs? That pressure is very real for kids.
Family dynamics are different. Parents are working a ton. Their attention is preoccupied with things that are very real – their jobs, their finances, their marriages, their friendships. And they’re now sandwiched in, so they might be caregivers for their parents.
How do you recommend parents walk the line between letting teens have their independence and providing limits and guidance?
I recommend having that conversation. Talk to them about how you are trying to achieve that balance. You can say, “Hey, this is new to me too. Here’s my goal. I want you safe and I want you having a lot of fun. The more I can trust you with this freedom, the more I can give you. Let’s figure this out.”
Then, have your short list of absolutes. For example, you’re not going to be drinking, you’re not going to be out at 1 in the morning, whatever your no-gos are. And have your other list of things you might entertain. Say, “These are my nonnegotiables, but these are things I can be flexible on.”
When it comes to points of contention, ask yourself, “Is this my hill to die on?” Is this where I’m going to put my energies, is this worth my relationship with them? You might not need to squabble with them about coming out five minutes late from practice, but if you get a call from school that six assignments aren’t turned in, you’re going to have that conversation. Figure out what is worth that relational debit.
How do you help parents manage phone use at this age?
Setting boundaries outright helps. Are they allowed to have a phone? Are they not allowed to have a phone? Does it need to be in their room at night? Could I pick up their phone and look at it? Can the two of us sit down and look at this text string that caused a big hullabaloo? They have this phone and this freedom, but here’s what it comes with.
In the ‘80s, my mom said nothing good happens after midnight, and I think that’s true for phones. That’s usually when pictures get sent that shouldn’t, and mean chatter starts. Downtime should probably be from midnight to 7 am [at minimum]. You don’t need to be on your phone then, you need to be sleeping.
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There’s a lot out there in terms of digital literacy that the schools do that you can echo at home. Telling them what they do online actually is permanent, it can come back to them, it is a big deal. Their words in print do matter. We can convey that to them as much as possible. That is their social world. Their social world has moved onto the phone, whereas you and I hung out at the movies.
What are the repercussions of being too involved or too restrictive when it comes to socializing and phone use?
It puts undue anxiety on the parent and the kiddo. It’s a tale as old as time – for thousands of years this has been a developmental time that is meant for gaining autonomy, and we as parents are trying to fight against it. That’s why it’s so hard – it’s somewhat inorganic. It’s hard to flourish in that environment.
It helps to create an illusion of independence, an illusion of control. Have your list of where they can get good growth and make good, reasonable mistakes that aren’t catastrophic. If we think of what is actually a catastrophic mistake at that age, it’s a short list.
What if your kid is set on doing something that you think is a really big mistake – quitting a job, leaving school, starting a problematic relationship – and they’re an adult?
Think through what is really doomsday. The worrisome relationship would be a bigger thing for me than quitting a job. Urge them to think it through, not overly pathologizing it, and ask them if they would want to talk it out with somebody.
If they won’t hear it from you, maybe they will hear it from an aunt, uncle, or school counselor. It’s really good to have lots of grown-ups who love your kids in a lot of good ways. That insulates you.
On the flip side, how do you recommend dealing with kids who are too reliant on their relationship with their parents and struggle to be autonomous?
I’d think through small ways the kid can extend themselves to realize their own sense of agency. Maybe it’s doing a club they might not otherwise do, maybe it’s a job, maybe it’s expanding their friend group.
It’s a lot of parent-sanctioning. Like, “I know you can make this choice about which sport to play. I know you can do it.” And really celebrating when the sky doesn’t fall in.
What about kids who are disinterested in their relationship with their parents at this age? How do you get them to open up?
A kid saying, “I want to do my own thing and I’m not going to pour my heart out to you every night” isn’t in itself concerning to me. That might be healthy and totally within developmental range, unless you’re noticing other clinical things that make you worry, like being withdrawn, lack of engagement with friends, risky choices, disrupted sleep or appetite. If you do feel like there’s something to be concerned about, your first stop would be your pediatrician or PCP.
These topics are so fraught. Tempers can run hot. How do you manage fights with kids this age?
If you can stay nice and regulated and calm, great. The reality is, most of us have a hard time doing that, and everybody’s going to boil over and say vile things to each other. There’s only so much you can put into the container of your relationship before it boils over, plain and simple.
Allow a lot of grace and space for the fact that fights happen, and know that you have a lot of time to repair. You guys can come together and be like, “Man, I really lost my cool. I didn’t like the things that I said to you.” The fight is only one part of it. The good work is in the repair.
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What would you say to parents who are in the throes of this difficult stage?
It does get better. It’s a tale as old as time. Remind yourself that you’re going to get through this. You’re not doing anything wrong. They’re not doing anything wrong. This is the nature of it.
You need good support, good friends, a good partner – people around you to commiserate with. Parents need other places where they can feel successful, so all of their success doesn’t hinge on parenting. Having a work life, volunteering, working out, completing a race, finishing a book or a craft – find other places that you can feel okay will help. If you’re just looking to feel good about yourself based on your relationship with your teen, you’re not going to feel good about yourself.