Teens & Communication: OMG!
A new TV show my wife and I have come to enjoy is “Parenthood”: Well acted, funny, serious and enjoyable. And: lots and lots of “drama and angst” between befuddled and scared parents and their teen aged children.
In the most recent episode, mom and dad are reviewing their 15 y/o daughter’s cell bill and are angry at the several hundred dollar total – with the discovery many calls and texts are to one number. They call the number and are appalled to hear a youthful outgoing message laden with the hip slang popular with kids but foreign – and threatening – to these parents. Filled with fear and protectionism, they burst into their daughter’s room, hack into her computer and discover she’s “Facebook Official” with a young man whom she’s been secretly dating for a month.
They confront their daughter and reveal all this information, leading her to decry this invasion of privacy. She accuses them of going “Homeland Security” on her. They ground her, she sneaks out of her room, they track down the boyfriend’s home to “check out the parents”, etc., etc.
A key scene is when dad finds his daughter and is driving her back home. Not unexpectedly, a “battle royale” ensues, something along the lines of:
“I can’t believe you sneaked out like that. You are grounded. No computer. No cell phone.”
“What! You invaded my privacy! You have no right! And, you haven’t even met Steve!”
“You have been dating him a month without telling us!”
“It’s my life!”
“We’re your parents!”
“What you did with my computer is illegal! It’s my room!”
“You’re living in our home!”
Does this conversation sound familiar? Parents full of real fear and concern for their children’s safety and well being. Kids feeling their parents don’t understand them, trust them and respect them. Problem is, those underlying feelings, worries and anxieties are not being expressed and are not being heard. So, the positional and confrontational “discussion” fuels and reinforces the daughter’s anger and belief her parents have no clue and don’t respect and trust her. Dad can’t understand why her daughter doesn’t see the potential danger in what she’s doing and that he and mom are doing all this “for her own good”.
There is a free mediation program provided through the City of Bellevue called “Parent-Teen Mediation”. Real parents and real teens are trained to co-mediate disputes, disagreements and difficulties between parents and their children. The program recognizes the difficult challenges that accompany the transition of children to adolescents. The mediators listen to the parents and the teens without blaming or finding fault, around issues related to school, home, rules, dating, etc.
You can find more information about this tremendous program here.
This is what mediators do: help people get below the surface anger and accusations, to authentic listening around fears, interests, concerns and anxieties. Only then can a bridge be built to true communication!
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