7 Ways to Get (and Stay) Closer to Your Teen

As your children grow older and start to push away from you in an effort to assert their independence, you may be wondering: How do I ensure I have a good relationship with my teen? New York area experts share tips to help you get and stay close to your teens to improve the parent-teen relationship.

Here’s what it felt like to me.

There was a time when I couldn’t do a thing wrong in my child’s eyes, and I often found myself thinking, “I don’t deserve this sweet, forgiving kid.”

Then, in a twinkling, I couldn’t do a thing right in my child’s eyes, and I often found myself thinking, “I don’t deserve this...kid.”

And I’m far from alone. As Nanci Kenny, a mom of three in Suffolk County, puts it about her 15-year-old, “the teen years are truly a tough time for both of us. I feel so distant from my daughter, even though I know she needs me.” 

There is a reason why the teen years are notorious for being tricky for parents to navigate, but you’ll be happy to hear it’s got nothing to do with terrible parenting. “The task of adolescence is to be more independent, to develop satisfying relationships outside of your family unit, and to develop one’s identity and personal moral code,” says Kashmira Rustomji, M.D., M.P.H., a psychiatrist at the Mount Sinai Adolescent Health Center in Manhattan. And that completely natural and beneficial struggle for independence causes the friction. “Teens alternate between a wish to be autonomous and their wish to be taken care of,” Dr. Rustomji explains. So, the way most teens act defiant, or at least indifferent, is them trying to fight off their feeling of being dependent on you, which they, on some level, know will keep them from having a successful life.

While it can be all too easy for teens and parents to drift apart, the good news is it doesn’t have to be that way. Here’s what to do to stay close to your aspiring adult.
  

Pick your battles.

Decide what is and isn’t worth fighting over and stick to those lines in the sand. You might start by identifying which behaviors your teen is exhibiting are annoying, as opposed to those that are in opposition to your family’s most important values or, of course, a safety concern. Wanting to dye his hair blue? That would be the former. “To thwart fatigue and feelings of anger, pick your battles and combine warmth and responsiveness with firmness—especially on your core values,” Dr. Rustomji says. “Adolescents still need rules but set your limits and be clear about your ‘no’s.” Kenny has found that allowing her daughter slack, when it’s reasonable, has helped their bond. “I stay close to her by giving her some freedom to make her own decisions and become her own person,” she shares. “And when she does need me, I give her my full attention, listen to her, and guide her with a gentle hand.”
  

Resist judging your teen and his friends.

This may be a bit harder than you think. As you may have noticed, teens are super-sensitive to your conveying disapproval—even non-verbally. “You have to learn how to have a poker face when talking to a teen about their life,” urges Justine Carino, a licensed mental health counselor at the Family Institute of Westchester in White Plains. That goes double for anything having to do with her friend group. A teen’s biggest priority is fitting in with friends, Carino explains. That ties back to the healthy adolescent urge to develop strong relationships beyond family. “If they start to tell you something about their friend that you have a negative reaction to, try your best to put your feelings aside,” Carino suggests. Instead, “ask your teen how they feel about their friend’s decision, instead of right away telling them why you think it’s wrong.”

Dr. Rustomji agrees: “Ask their opinion on things rather than lecturing. It comes down to being respectful of them, as you expect them to be of you.”
 

Let your teen's personality be your guide.

Think of your teen first and foremost as a unique individual. Siblings may share DNA and have been raised in the same home, but an approach that elicits a positive reaction from one may not have the same effect on the other. What you should be looking at most are how your child communicates, tolerates stress, and shows emotion, Dr. Rustomji notes. How should your teen’s gender affect your approach? It probably shouldn’t influence it too much, our experts agree. Personality should be your touchstone. That said, “there is some limited evidence that girls tend to express more internalized emotions, such as anxiety and sadness, and that boys express more externalizing emotions, like anger,” Dr. Rustomji says. The most prominent difference between genders is girls mature faster than boys, says John E. Mayer, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist specializing in treating families with adolescents and the author of Family Fit: Find Your Balance. “Parents need to be mindful of that and adjust their expectations accordingly,” he adds.