Living with a teen can be a trial. Your teen might not seem to listen to you, is disrespectful, and argues with you constantly – at least when she’s not giving you the silent treatment. You feel sometimes like you’re walking on eggshells around your teen and it makes you crazy. What’s going on?

Here are some clues to what might be getting between you and your teenager, and how you can get along better than you are now.

Clue #1. Teens are deciding what to believe and that can make them rude and unpleasant. Whether it’s religion, politics, or just what was the best movie of 2014, teens are testing out different points of view and trying to figure out what’s what. They have in mind your views that they grew up with, of course,  but they are actively seeking input from their friends, the media, what they learn in school, and from their own heads. Some of what they think now they will abandon later as silly or impractical. But the process of figuring out who they are and what they stand for is important, even if it’s loud and argumentative.

Clue #2. Your teen’s friends are important to him. These are the people he’ll be living with all his life and he wants their appreciation and respect. So when you dismiss your teen’s friends and say unkind things about them, that makes him sad and angry. Of course, he feels forced to defend them and to defend himself as well.

Clue #3. Teens know they might make mistakes and they understand a lot about the dangers they can get into. So they don’t need you to harp at them all the time. But they do need your support and friendly advice if it doesn’t come with a lot of criticism. Your teen recognizes that you might have good ideas to share but she doesn’t want to feel that you’re treating her like a child.

Clue #4. Your teen needs to know you’ve got his back. It used to be that trouble was just trouble at school or with the kids in the neighborhood. Nothing serious. Now the kinds of trouble your kid can get into are things that put people in jail or in the hospital. It’s a scary world and even though your teen seems tough, he still needs a helping hand. He really does still need a parent, and he knows it.

These things are true. But so is the feeling that the gulf between your teenager and you is so wide and deep it will never close. Here are some tips to keep the connection intact until your child grows past this point.

1. Keep conversations with your teen civil and polite, even if you’re the only one being civil and polite. Don’t argue and don’t try to be too controlling. Recognize that your teen needs to assert her independence and support that with at least courteous interactions.
2. Get to know your teen’s friends. Find their good qualities. Be interested in them and what they’re thinking. Don’t criticize them to your teen. Remember that their parents might be wondering the same things about your child!
3. Realize that things will go wrong. Mistakes will happen, and there will be things that will need to be fixed or accepted. Your child is no longer four years old and under your complete control (if she ever was). Avoid being too disappointed.
4. Be there when your teen needs you. There’s a difference between enabling bad behavior by making excuses for your kid and throwing your child to the wolves because you think he should have known better. When the going gets tough, stand with your teen. Your support in hard times is the foundation of the future you and your teen will share.
5. Be unconditional. Don’t extort your teen’s compliance by saying, “If you loved me, you would do as I ask,” or “If you want me to love you, you have to do as I say.” Extortion is a crime, not the basis for a solid relationship. You and your teen will have differences of opinion. These differences might persist forever. So be it. You can still enjoy each other’s company and be nice to each other.

If you are the best parent you can be to your teen, and if you support her in her journey to adulthood instead of trying to hold her back, she will come around. Things will get better. The loving child you remember from elementary school is still there, as long as the loving parent still exists too.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Look for free downloads on Dr. Anderson’s website at www.patricianananderson.com.

I have two sons, who, thankfully, are no longer teenagers. But I feel a certain post-traumatic stress as I recall some of my kids’ reactions back then to events that appeared to be not such a big deal. Teens then and teens now tend to over-react. They are emotional and quick to escalate the importance of events. Now we know why. Teen brains – especially teen boys’ brains – predispose kids to act badly.

A recent review of research into risky behavior among teenage boys established the neurological basis for three annoying reactions adolescents are liable to.

1. Teen boys show greater activation of the emotional centers of the brain when in a threatening situation than do younger children or adults. Even when the boys in one study were warned of an upcoming emotional event and were told to not react to it, their brain scans showed a high level of emotional arousal. Teen boys are more emotional than everyone else.
2. Teen boys are pretty much unimpressed by threats of punishment for bad behavior when those are countered by the possibility of large gains from the same behavior. For example, boys who were threatened with sanctions for gambling gambled even so if they believed the odds were in their favor. Punishment doesn’t deter a male teen’s inclination to have fun!
3. Teen boys are less able to recognize dangerous situations because a molecule necessary for developing judgment of risk is less active in adolescent males than in other people. Teens’ brain chemistry is different from adults’ in ways that increase their daring behavior.

Keep in mind that these studies examined only boys’ brain activity and chemistry, because boys tend to land in trouble more frequently than girls. But parents of girls recognize that their daughters also can be highly emotional, take what seem to be unreasonable risks, and make poor decisions. While it’s clear that there is a biological basis for teen boys’ behavior, it might well be that the same basis underlies teen girls’ behavior too.

So what is the take-away? If this is how teens’ brains work, is there nothing you can do? Well, here are some suggestions.

1. Support your teen in learning how to regain control when his emotions get out of hand. Practicing yoga, tai chi, or martial arts can help a teen develop self-awareness. Learning techniques for self-calming (like taking deep breaths, counting to 10, and so on) can also be helpful.
2. Reduce unnecessary stresses in your teen’s life. Limit extracurricular activities that overload your teen’s schedule and contribute to hurry and anxiety. Avoid picking fights with your teen and being too demanding and restrictive.
3. Encourage your teen to live a healthy life. Brains run on chemistry and good nutrition is essential for good chemistry. Adequate sleep is necessary for efficient brain function. Help your teen to get all he needs to keep his brain working well.

Keep the lines of communication open by being a supportive listener. This is the way to have input into teens’ decision-making. If you are insistent, directive, and disrespectful your teen will not want to talk things over with you.

Teens eventually grow into adults and develop adult brains that function sensibly under stress and in danger. The trick is to get through this time with body and heart safe and your relationship together intact. Knowing that there are biological reasons for your teen’s erratic actions helps you to take the long view.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Look for free downloads on Dr. Anderson’s website at www.patricianananderson.com.

Punks. Losers. Sex-crazed. Dumb. Do your teen’s best friends raise your eyebrows and lots of red flags? What can you do if the kids your own kid hangs out with seem sketchy and scary?

The reason why our teen’s friends worry us is that we realize these people create a mirror image of our own child. If he likes these delinquents doesn’t that mean he’s a delinquent too? Well, yes, maybe. It’s unlikely that your teen chooses friends very different from himself, or that kids very different from him choose him as a pal.

Which should be a relief, actually. You know your child and you know that sometimes she dresses strangely and sometimes she says things you’d love to silence but that she’s really a good kid. She’s an ordinary teen, trying to establish her own way of thinking and being and she’s doing not that bad a job of it. Chances are that the very same can be said of your child’s friends. Just like your own kid, other people’s teens might seem more unsavory than they really are.

But maybe this is not a relief but a wake-up call. If you see really unacceptable behavior in your teen’s friends – shoplifting, vandalism, bullying, drug and alcohol use – then it’s a good bet your child is a participant, in a small way if not all-in. If this is the case, then it’s time to stop blaming your teen’s friends for being a bad influence or carping at your child to find friends you think are more acceptable. It’s time to realize that this is who your own child has become, right under your nose.

How can you tell which is the true situation? How can you tell if your child’s friends are really as sweet as your own kid is or if your own kid is just as out-of-control as her friends?

The first thing is to get to know your teen’s friends better. Do you even know who your teen’s friends are or what they like to do? See how many of these questions you can answer:

1. Who is your teen’s “best friend”?
2. Which kids does your teen spend the most time with?
3. Where do these kids live? Are they nearby or a distance away?
4. Is your teen a member of some clique or group?
5. What do your teen and his friends do for fun?
6. What is the riskiest thing your teen and his friends have ever done
7. What is the riskiest thing your teen and his friends do pretty regularly?
8. On a Saturday night, where are your teen and his friends?
9. How often do your teen and his friends skip school? Are his friends often absent or tardy?

The second thing to do is to have a conversation with your teen. This has to be a pleasant talk, in which your attitude is that of a person wanting to understand better, not the attitude of a criminal investigator. You can express your concern about your teen’s friends and listen while he defends them. You can ask him to be aware of behavior you see in his friends that makes you anxious. Avoid making threats, forbidding him to see someone, or raising your voice. If you stay calm and listen respectfully, you’ll learn more.

Here’s the thing: your kids will live in a world populated by their peers. It’s their peers they must connect with. Eventually they will move beyond the family sphere and make their own families and their own lives. They’ve already started this move. There’s nothing you can do to stop it or to keep your teen under your total control.

So keep the lines of communication open. Be supportive of your teen and of her friends without being permissive or trying to be one of the group. Be clear about your expectations. And be patient. The bumpy road you and your teen are on right now will smooth out as she and her friends leave adolescence and become more mature.

Above all, don’t dislike your teen’s friends. Disliking his friends means you dislike him. That’s how he sees it.

© 2014, Patricia Nan Anderson. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Look for free downloads on Dr. Anderson’s website at www.patricianananderson.com.