Does your teen become confrontational when their immediate need isn’t met? They behave like this for good reason. Teen brains experience increased anxiety encouraging them to control their environment so they learn to be adults. Unfortunately, knowing this doesn’t stop us feeling trapped.
In this second part of our Power of Trust series we investigate the role of predictability in making our teen feel less anxious, making these encounters less stressful for you and them. The key is in our predictability, this reduces the anxiety for our teen because they know what to expect from us, making them more pliable to our negotiations and expectations.
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Show it's important to you and they will calm down
Teen confrontation is driven by anxiety produced in the brain. Showing that they are being listened to calms them down so they can listen better and become more reasonable. Focus on finding out what they want and showing you understand how important that is to them.
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Give it extra time
Teens are still learning how to process frustration. They take much more time than adults, possibly hours or even days. This doesn’t mean you weren’t heard. It means they are still working through it. Make sure you acknowledge this, show appreciation and together work out how you get them a piece of what they wanted.
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It’s OK to press pause and try again
When things are getting really heated and progress stops. We end up causing stress for ourselves and our teen, no one gets what they need and it damages our relationship making the next conversation harder. When you get stuck it’s OK to acknowledge that things are going nowhere, that you are both going to take a pause and try again later.
