ParentJuice Interviews nationally recognized parenting expert, popular public speaker, author, media commentator.

Q. How can parents develop a more fulfilling relationship and greater communication with their teen?
CK My advice is rooted in the notion that the most significant thing you can do is focus on building a relationship with your teenager. That is not what most parents are about the business of doing. Most parents are frightened, worried and anxious about their teenagers’ behaviors, about who they are becoming, about what they will do that is wrong or dangerous, or will not lead to a good college placement or a happy life. They are about the business of trying to control their teenagers. Build a solid, trusting relationship that will last. Focus on relationship building and drop the need to control them. Trying to control with shame, blame, bribes and punishment doesn’t work.
If you think about the relationship you have with people who influence you, such as your best friend, do they have influence over you because they demand things of you or try to control you? Lecturing, judgment, nagging, and scolding don’t work.

Listen more than you lecture. If you’re really trying to get the result that will lead to a long-lasting, solid, loving, non-judgmental, mutually satisfying relationship with your teenager and later, your young adult son and daughter, you’ve got to ditch the control and focus on the relationship. From that, everything else follows.

Q. How can parents maintain open lines of communication with their teens and still set limits?
CK Trying to forge a stronger relationship with your teenager doesn’t mean you abdicate your role as parent or that you don’t set limits. I’m not suggesting you try to be a cool friend to your 14yr-old. They scream for limits. Kids say to me in therapy, “I don’t need more friends. I’ve got friend. My parents are trying to be cool, to speak like me, and dress like me.”

A lot of parents say, “Okay, I won’t set give them rules.”  I tell them that I’m not suggesting limits shouldn’t be set – they should. Kids say they wish their parents would care what time they came home. But I can’t tell the parents because kids say if I tell them, they’ll never come back. My job is to impart this message to parents without saying, “Danny told me he would appreciate a curfew.” 

Q.  What are some examples of how parents can focus on the relationship and not control?
CK  You have to say the things that need to be said. You have to make sure your teenagers know that you know the details of their lives, as much as they are making them available to you.

You need to be their anchor. Oftentimes during the teen years, the tides are high and ferocious. Another mantra of mine: Life is lived in the details. You cannot be so ignorant of your teenager’s life that all of your questions are the ubiquitous “How’s school?” or “How’s life treating you?” All those questions say you clearly don’t know anything about what’s going on. You have to find out about your teen’s life, not by prying or buying software to track their cyber footprints, but by showing interest in the details of their lives.

Find ways to compliment kids. Most kids are searching for who they are. ‘Should I throw my lot in with the popular kids? Go with this clique, despite maybe having to have my nose pierced?” You have to remind kids of who they are. You need to take their faces in your hands gently or put your arm around their shoulder and say, “You may have forgotten who you are. You are funny, you are full of compassion, you are kind, and you are curious.” They have to have a mirror that never cracks, and you have to be that mirror.

Q.  What are some specifics ways or tips for parents seeking a better relationship with their teens?
CK There are questions that can help parents filter out either helpful or destructive actions and words. Here is a filtration list:

Is what I’m about to do or say the kind of actions or words that will tell my teen that I’m really trying to take care of our relationship? Is what I’m about to say to my kid the same kind of thing I would say to my best friend, who’s going through a tough time? No, a teenager doesn’t need another friend – they need parents. But I often think if we were to treat our teens like we treat our best friends they might get a better standard of care.

• Will this help both of us to get our needs met?

• Is what I’m about to do, ultimately going to make us both feel better about each other?

• Is what I’m about to do going to make it easier or more difficult for us to talk to each other?

• Am I going to feel closer based on what I do next and what I say next? Is this going to make us feel closer?

Parents can redefine what a healthy teenager is. But they have to understand that to truly define what a healthy teenager is, and what a healthy relationship is, they need to redefine success with parenting a teenager based upon not their kids’ accomplishments or SAT scores – they need to redefine it by what kind of relationship they have with their kids. Toss out the report cards. I’m not saying don’t be concerned about their grades, or if they’re struggling in school. But ask yourself: Can you laugh together? Will you at least get some of their problems told to you? Can you have disagreements and make up? Is there an easy backdrop of give and take between you? This is the ebb and flow of a strong relationship with your teen.

For more information, go to http://www.carletonkendrick.com.