Author: jenny.warwick27@gmail.com

Being a parent is hard, and it doesn’t get any easier when your kids hit adolescence. There’s a saying that you’re only ever as happy as your unhappiest child and sayings are often true. It certainly causes a lot of distress to parents when their child is distressed. It’s easy to feel shame, hopelessness and a lack of control, as well as feeling that you are being judged. This can impact on your mental health leaving you feeling stressed, overwhelmed, anxious and depressed.

Try not to compare yourself with other parents! There’s always someone who’s got it easier than you but there’s always someone who’s got it harder than you, too.

We can’t always ensure our teenagers’ happiness

When our kids are little it’s easier to problem solve, but this gets harder the older they get. Accept that you can’t solve or fix their difficulties, but you can support them – try and step away from a problem-solving stance. It’s important to recognise that no one is happy all the time – it’s not realistic to expect our kids to always be happy.

Look after yourself first

As a parent, you’re looking after other people and, as a result, parents’ mental health can often get neglected. Focusing on your own well-being is essential – you must look after yourself first. If you don’t look after yourself, and you feel like no one is looking out or caring for you, it’s hard to give the people who need you what they need.

Counsellors often use the analogy of self-care being like an oxygen mask – you

need to put it on yourself before you put it on other people, otherwise, you’ll be no good to anyone.

Plus, if you’re running on empty, you’ll end up feeling rejected, angry and resentful which is also no good for anyone involved. The aim is to thrive not just survive! And this goes for you as well as your kids!

Looking after yourself shows those around you that you are also important and you need to be cared for, too. As a bonus, you’ll be a role model of self-care for your tweens and teens. If they see you relax and recharge your batteries, they’re much more likely to do it for themselves. They’ll see you feel better about yourself and be more able to cope.

Have boundaries

You don’t have to be available to them 24/7. You don’t have to be up all hours with them or be immediately available to them for every little thing – this protects you as the parent but also helps your child. Remember that you do not hold all responsibility for everything your tween or teenager is doing, your child is a separate entity from you.

Adolescence is the time when your teen is absolutely supposed to be becoming more independent. Let them be responsible for getting to school on time, and getting their homework done, for example. You help them by providing a space for them to do their work and in a routine. They need to learn to take responsibility and to know that you trust them to make good decisions.

There are no quick fixes

It’s a long process. Try not to catastrophise – the worst-case scenario does not always happen. And, take it from a school counsellor, young people are brilliant at bouncing back. Get them to work with you and be part of finding solutions together. It’s much more effective to look for solutions together than just focusing on the problem and remind them (and yourself) that, if you can’t change the situation, you can always change how you react to the situation.

Fill up your cup

It’s OK for you to find the small things and little pleasures that make you feel a bit better. Work out the things that are in your life which make you feel good. Think of the people that make you feel better and hang out with them. Be aware of the people that push your buttons (the ones on social media who make their parenting look easy, for example).

Set aside time in your day/week/routine to fill your cup. Some ideas you could do regularly could be:

If these ideas sound hard, think about what gets in the way – if it’s practical, like time or money, then talk to your family or people around you to find a solution.

Do you feel like you don’t have the time because you’re overwhelmed with doing every little thing in your home? Are you taking on responsibilities that aren’t actually yours, such as doing their homework, for example? Emotional barriers can also be hard to break down – feeling like you don’t deserve to have time out, or that putting importance on your own needs is selfish.

I can help you to see the parenting wood for the trees. Counselling will give you a different perspective as well as practical coping strategies. We’ll work together to help you set boundaries and learn how to make healthy choices that will impact you and those around you for the better.

If this has resonated with you, why not get in touch HERE to see how I can help. I’m based between Brighton and Eastbourne in East Sussex but I work online so you can have the therapy you need in a place that is convenient for you.

Teens need around eight to 10 hours of sleep each night, but few are getting even the minimum. So, although this is the time of life when they need sleep the most, they just aren’t getting enough.

What are the effects of lack of sleep?

Lack of sleep has a real impact on our mental health and well-being. It makes us more irritable and lowers our mood, making it harder to manage the ups and downs of life. Stress is harder to manage, leading to feeling anxious or depressed and impacting our mental health. It also makes it harder to regulate our emotions which, in turn, makes conflict more likely. Circadian rhythms are our body’s internal clock, running every 24 hours or so and disruption of this rhythm can lead to an increase in aggression.

As their brains mature during puberty, your tween and teenage children can stay awake for longer. Their body clock changes, making them more inclined to stay up late. When you add this to their need for connection with their peers, no wonder they aren’t sleeping. Feeling a need to be accessible to their friends 24/7 plus fear of missing out leads to constant checking and use of social media.

Nighttime is when we are all more prone to overthink what has happened during the day. This is even more prominent in young people, giving them a tendency to overthink and worry at night. How often have you found yourself lying awake replaying something you’ve said or done, only to wake the next day wondering why it felt so overwhelming? If you can give them space in the day to talk about what’s troubling them, it can help them get a more realistic perspective.

Your teen has access to social media 24/7 and they will need your help to establish boundaries around it. If they have a phone in their room at night, they are going to be using it!

I know the thought of reducing their screen time can feel impossible, but making a rule of having no phones in the bedroom at bedtime (this goes for the adults too) will benefit everyone.

As they get older, changes to how they catch up with friends, chat online, and parties mean staying up late. This can make it difficult for them to move from being practically nocturnal over the weekends and holidays and then having to be up on weekdays for school or college. I have spoken to so many parents and young people who barely saw the light of day over the lockdowns and this had a huge impact on their mental health.

It really is worth you taking some time to ensure you safeguard your teenager’s sleep.

Be a sleep role model for your child.

You can do this by:

• winding down before bed,
• reducing your screen time before bed,
• managing your stress levels 
• reducing your use of stimulants like caffeine before bedtime.

Help them to manage their own sleep schedule –

Guide them to finding their solutions and problem-solving. The most effective support comes by helping them to create their own personalised sleep habits, rather than laying down the law for them.

There may well be some trial and error while they work out what works best for them, and you might want to talk to them to work out a reason that makes sense for them as to why they want to sleep more. For example, better sleep will make concentration better, meaning they can get their school work out of the way, allowing more time to socialise. Or better sleep meaning they’re more likely to look refreshed.

Practical tips to help sleep

1. Getting outside and physically active – the natural light of day helps our body produce the melatonin (the sleep hormone) it needs at the right time for sleep.
2. Avoid caffeine after about 3pm – this includes tea, coffee, energy drinks and cola.
3. Don’t sleep during the day – The odd 20-minute nap is fine but more than this and sleeping at night becomes harder.
4. Wind down before going to bed – read a book, have a warm bath or shower, and listen to some music.
5. Try to go to bed around the same time each night.
6. Their bed is for sleeping – falling asleep on the sofa is not.
7. Keep electronics out of bedrooms – I know this feels like an impossible dream, especially for older teens, but it will truly make a massive difference! Get them an old fashioned alarm clock.
8. Keep a regular wake up time – this means on weekends getting up within about two hours of the time they’d get up to go to school.
9. Let the sunshine in! Open the curtains – sunlight reduces melatonin helping to wake up and feel alert.

Is their problem sleeping getting in the way of them being able to function in their day to day life? If not, don’t worry about it too much. Remember, young people are brilliantly resilient! If it is, you might want to consult your GP.

Being a parent or carer as your child hits their tween and teenage years is hard and can leave you feeling stressed,  anxious and depressed. Speaking to a counsellor about parenting can help to improve communication and make relationships stronger both in and out of the family. If this has resonated with you, why not get in touch HERE to see how I can help.

Full disclosure here: my name is Jenny and I’m an overthinker. 

Do you find these thoughts constantly running through your head? Am I doing this right? Should I be doing it? What do they think of me doing it? Was there another way of doing this? Isn’t it exhausting and overwhelming?! You might find it impacting your relationships. 

Every one of us overthinks at times but, for some, it feels like we do it more than others.

Why is this? It can be due to clinical anxiety but that certainly isn’t the case for everyone. 

It can often be confused with problem-solving – after all, you’re going through an issue and coming up with potential resolutions. If you stop and think about it, you might see that you’ve just been playing the issue around and around in a loop in your head. You aren’t getting anywhere!

It can also easily change into catastrophising – thinking that the worst-case scenario is actually very likely. Everyone will find out I did this. They’ll all hate me. No one will speak to me again. I’ll get fired. They’ll leave me… Phew!

The trouble is, by going over and over something in your head, your brain can decide that there really is something to fear. This is where a part of the brain called the amygdala gets involved. The amygdala is the lizard or downstairs part of your brain that gets those feelings of anxiety and fear going; heart pounding, feeling tense, a bit sweaty and not so great. Like a great, big, vicious circle, the more you worry about something, the more you tell your brain there really is something to worry about, which could lead to mental health issues such as anxiety or depression in the future.

A pink elephant

Unfortunately, simply telling yourself not to think about the issue is not going to work. If I tell you not to think of a pink elephant what are you thinking of now?

Yep.

You need to replace the thought, so if you don’t want to think about a pink elephant, think about a blue monkey holding a banana.

See?

So how does this translate to real life?

Self-awareness is key here; get used to paying attention to your thoughts and feelings. When you notice that your thoughts are going round and round:

• Stop and say to yourself “Ok I can feel that I’m a bit anxious and on edge right now.”
• Give your brain a bit of a break – just for a minute or so.

You could do this by taking some deep breaths or you might even go for a walk around the block. Anything to get yourself out of your head, and into the real world, in real-time.

We are living in stressful times right now and there are definitely a lot of worries out there, but do you have the power to resolve all of them yourself? No.

Do you have the power to stop your thoughts from going into overdrive? Yes, you do.

Overthinking is like procrastination. Neither one actually gets anything done.

Replace the pink elephant with the blue monkey

Remember you need to replace the pink elephant with the blue monkey – swap overthinking for bringing your attention back to the present, to now.

1. Notice when you’re overthinking, ruminating or worrying excessively.
2. Replace this by bringing yourself back to the present moment – bring yourself back into the room.
3. Take some big, deep belly breaths.
4. Release yourself from past mistakes (your own and others).
5. You could try whispering to yourself ‘I choose to let go’.
6. Show yourself some compassion.

You won’t ditch your overthinking pattern overnight; you’ve more than likely been doing it for many years; it’ll take a bit of time to manage but you can do it – you just need to keep practising. Working through this with a counsellor can really help. 

Work on your tendency to overthink and live more in the here and now. You’ll feel calmer, happier and you can really be present for the people around you.

Counselling therapy can help. If you struggle with overthinking and are ready for change, contact me now HERE

Getting your teen or nearly teenage child out of bed in the morning can feel like an impossible dream but it is possible – it might take a little time to work out but you will get there.

Sleep is vital to well-being, so if there’s one thing you need to safeguard, it’s your teenager’s sleep. Just experiencing all the changes of puberty is exhausting. Teenagers are going through physical, emotional AND hormonal changes – all at the same time. Being a teenager is HARD and sleep is where they process all this activity. Add the increased pressure around their education, the expectations that they need to work out what they’re going to do and who they’re going to be as they grow up leaves them with a LOT to cope with.

Do talk to them to see if there are any issues or worries you might not be aware of. Let them know that you can discuss and resolve these issues together.

Hormones and body clocks

Did you know that most brain functions are not fully formed until we are at least 25 years old? This means that your teenager is working with a brain that is still under construction. This reorganisation or rewiring of our brains happens during sleep, so given all that is going on in puberty, it makes sense that teenagers need 10-12 hours of sleep each night.

This rewiring also means that your teenager’s body clock runs slower than adults, making the day seem longer. They also start staying up later as they get older, making that 10+ hours of sleep each night even harder to find.

There’s been some discussion that students would function better if the school day started later and some middle and high schools in the US have implemented later start times for students. This hasn’t happened here in the UK yet, so teens and tweens still need to get up and get to school on time! 

Children aren’t born with the self-regulation skills that adults use to help plan, focus attention, remember instructions and multi-task. You can help by showing them how to establish their routines and by role-modelling having a routine yourself.

Social media

Social media is everywhere and your teenager has access to and access from it, 24/7. Don’t assume they aren’t on their phones at night!

Artificial or ‘blue’ light, which is given out by phones and other electronic devices, can disrupt sleep patterns in all of us. When natural light dims, melatonin (the sleep hormone) is produced in our bodies, which tells us it’s time for sleep. When this is disrupted by artificial light, our bodies are tricked into staying awake. 

How to make mornings easier

1. Try to encourage them to stick to a routine even on weekends and holidays. Lie-ins and late nights just disrupt the body clock further.
2. Encourage them to get their clothes and what they need to take with them to school or college ready the night before.
3. Get them outside in the daylight. Exposure to natural light affects when our bodies get tired and ready to sleep naturally.
4. Avoid morning lectures. There’s no point in telling them off in the morning when they’re just waking up, it’s already happened, it won’t make them get up faster and it will just antagonise them (and you!). Remember that they can’t help being tired at that point. 
5. Let them stretch their problem-solving skills – let them take responsibility for getting themselves up. Let them set their own sleep schedule around school. 

Allow the natural consequences of sleeping in

Young people need to learn how to get themselves where they need to be, at the right time. Making the switch of seeing this as their responsibility and not yours can be difficult for parents to do. Remember that a fundamental part of our job as parents and carers is to help our kids grow to become responsible, happy, fully functioning adults. If they’re constantly late because they struggle to get out of bed, they need to learn how to fix this and to make healthy choices for themselves. 

Let them know that you trust them to work these things out for themselves. Get out of thinking that it’s your responsibility to get them up in time and change to “I know you know this”.

Here are some practical tips you can use to help your teenager get up in the mornings:

1. Get an old-school alarm clock, and put it just out of reach.
2. Open their bedroom door and let the household sounds and smells of the morning in. Let the pets in their room, let their younger siblings go in. There’s no need to tiptoe about in the morning. There is also no need to make extra noise like banging a spoon on a saucepan (no matter how tempted you might be!). 
3. Open the curtains – sunlight reduces melatonin (the sleep hormone) which helps us feel more alert and to wake up in the morning. 
4. Take them in a glass of water – it’s a good start to anyone’s day and teens need to drink more water! 
5. Be a positive sleep role model for your child. Have a good night-time routine yourself. Take time to wind down before bed, reduce screen-time before (and in) bed, relax and manage your stress, and reduce your intake of stimulants, such as caffeine before bedtime.

Counselling for parents can help you with this

Being a parent to a teen or nearly teenage child is hard! Speaking to a counsellor about family issues such as this can help to improve communication and make relationships stronger both in and out of the family. 

Are you ready to make this positive change with therapy? Get in touch here to see how I can help. I’m based in Peacehaven, East Sussex and work online.

No is such a tiny little word, so how come it can so often feel overwhelmingly impossible to say?

It’s all about boundaries

Our ability to set a boundary – or to be on the receiving end of one – may come from a belief we are not even aware of. Experiences from when you were a child, past trauma or the way your parents treated you, could well be being played into. Perhaps you feel that you aren’t good enough, or fear you’ll be rejected if you say no. You worry that other people will think you’re not a good person when you act as yourself with healthy limits and that you’ll lose them. 

Speak up for what you need. Show that you are someone who has healthy limits. Constantly putting all your energy into worrying you’re letting other people down and that they’ll somehow think less of you is exhausting and gets you nowhere.

Weak boundaries can feel like:

• You’re giving a lot and not getting much back.
• You’re exhausted, tired, burned out.
• You’re being misunderstood or unheard.
• You are taken advantage of.

Humans are social beings. We worry that by saying no, we might upset people. We can worry that everyone else is doing something that we might be missing out on (FOMO anyone?). Decision-making is hard, so it feels easier to say yes. 

No wonder saying no is difficult

You want to say yes, not necessarily because you want to say yes, but because it feels rude to say no. The problem with being a people-pleaser is the only person you aren’t making happy is yourself. It can really impact on your mental health leading to anxiety or depression. It’s time to start putting yourself back in the central position in your life.

Remind yourself that you are not powerless anymore. Use your voice and exercise your boundary muscle. And if someone gets angry that you’ve said no, it doesn’t mean that you should have said yes.

Some ‘go-to’ no phrases you can use

Starting with ‘thanks’ can make it feel easier. Such as:

• ‘Thanks for thinking of me… but I won’t be able to come.’
• ‘Thank you, that sounds lovely, but I won’t be able to… maybe next time.’
• ‘Thank you. Let me think about that and get back to you…’ (This buys you some more time, so can be handy in you understanding how you really feel).

Or how about a simple, ‘No, thanks’?

Boundaries are good for you and the people around you. No doesn’t mean rejection, it just means ‘not now’. It reflects your current situation, not how you feel about them.

Practise setting boundaries and saying no

Boundaries can be hard to set, but the more you do it, the easier it gets. And if things don’t go as you might have wanted them to, then that’s OK too. Taking one step at a time is often all it takes to feel unstuck.

If people aren’t used to you saying no, that’s OK too. They’ll get used to it.

When you feel like you want to say no but don’t speak up, consider this a chance to learn. What might you do differently? Did you want to say no but felt too overwhelmed? If you could turn back time, what would you say differently? Have that in your mind and practice saying it to yourself. 

Please don’t beat yourself up!

You can feel stuck in the moment and it might be easier in the short term to say yes. The truth is, saying yes can come at a cost if you end up doing something you don’t want to. It may be you’re stuck in a pattern of avoiding your feelings and needs. And the result of this can be a cost to your mental health and wellbeing. 

Think of the consequences of saying yes to something you don’t want to do

Will this lead to me feeling resentful, angry, anxious? Or that the other person now ‘owes’ me. Will it make it more difficult for me when this person next says no to me? How will saying yes when I’d rather say no, impact the other person and our relationship? Is it really worth it?

If you see saying no as a way to help to strengthen your relationship, it might make it easier to do. It also means the things you do say yes to you’re likely to enjoy – quality over quantity – which will help you feel calmer, happier and better able to engage and be present with people. This means that it’s easier to be there when your loved ones need you to be there for them.

Think of being able to say no as your superpower! 

Seeing a counsellor can help you by talking through patterns of pleasing people you might have.

It will help you get a better understanding of yourself. Counselling is also an opportunity to delve a little deeper into where these patterns have come from and how putting boundaries in place are good for you and your family.

If this has resonated with you, why not get in touch HERE to see how I can help you. I’m based in East Sussex but I work online so you can have the therapy you need in a place that is convenient for you.

Practising being more present and mindful helps you manage stressful situations and tricky emotions when life gets complicated. And if it helps you feel better, it will also help your kids, no matter how old they are.

What does being present mean? It means that you aren’t thinking about what might happen in the future, or worrying about what has happened in the past. Instead, your focus is on now, where you are and who you are with. 

The key to being mindful is practising one baby step at a time – you need to practice to get used to it. Apparently, to be an expert in something you need to practise it for 10,000 hours! You don’t need to be a Mindfulness Master but any small step you take will add up and is so worth it.

Why do you want to be present?

You might be sitting next to your teen or tween but you’re not really with them. You may be with them physically but emotionally you might as well be a thousand miles away.

You might be:

• scrolling through your phone
• thinking about what to make for dinner
• or about a difficult conversation you had a work
• or your endless to-do list

Put it down! Just for a minute.

Do what they want to do – even if this means sitting and watching a YouTube video about Minecraft with them. I promise it will be worth it in the long run.

Being present shows your teen or tween that you care

• You are showing an interest in them and what they’re doing.
• It lets them know that you are aware of how they’re feeling.
• It shows them how to manage their own emotions and to stay regulated.
• When you are feeling safe, secure and grounded, they feel more safe and secure.
• It shows them that you are their safe base, not just physically but emotionally.

Think about the quality of time with them, rather than the quantity. It might be a cliché, but it rings true here.

Small gestures add up

It is ok to build this slowly, especially if it is new. You don’t want to force them to spend time with you. Think about this being more about changing how they see you as a parent. It’s not about changing them.

Some helpful pointers for being mindful are to:

1. Acknowledge feeling moments when you are being mindful – when you feel truly present. These may well be just moments, and they all count.
2. Notice when you are struggling to keep your attention and name it – apologise and acknowledge that you weren’t paying attention very well then.
3. Put your phone away. Don’t just have it on the table and think that you won’t touch it, actually have it in another room – they are made to take our attention. Work out when to engage airplane mode.

Other ways to help you prepare for being mindful:

• Research shows that the more mindful a parent is, the less stressed the kid is.
• Stop, take a breath (or three) and respond when you are ready.
• Verbalise what you are doing, for example, ‘I’m feeling a bit stressed, I’m going to take a couple of deep breaths, have a think and then I’ll get back to you’.
• Let them know that you will put your phone away to have a chat about this.

If it feels too hard to do, use the time when they’re in the car with you (often a good place for conversations) or when they are getting a drink or something to eat. Ask them about what they are doing or watching.

It means that when you need to have a more serious conversation with your tween or teen, they will know they have your full attention and time.

Some useful ways you can bring yourself back into the present are:

• pause and take three deep belly breaths
• clench and unclench your hands and fingers
• wiggle your toes
• tap your feet and feel the ground
• pick four items you can see in front of you and name them three or four times
• be quiet for one minute and notice all the sounds you hear

This time in your child’s life will be gone before you know it – even if it doesn’t feel like it just now.

Whatever you do, don’t beat yourself up when this doesn’t work out. Being a parent is hard, remember? There is always another chance to take some time to be truly present with them.

Speaking to a counsellor about family issues and parenting can help to improve communication and make relationships stronger both in and out of the family. 

Are you ready to make this positive change? Get in touch here to see how I can help. I’m based in Peacehaven, East Sussex but work online so we can talk wherever you are.

Being a parent is hard – there is so much pressure on mums and dads to be perfect parents. Parenting is not an exact science. Your job as a parent is to raise kids that are happy, kind and resilient. Just as you don’t expect your kids to be perfect, don’t put unrealistic, unattainable pressure on yourself. Stop beating yourself up! Your kids will turn out to be great even if you yelled at them this morning.

Social media does not help. It makes us feel like we need to do more and to do it better; we compare ourselves against each other and end up feeling like we’re not living up to our expectations.

Raising children has always had its challenging moments. It can be messy, noisy and unpredictable but also full of joy, heart-warming and fun.

How to be a good parent

If you are reading this, you have already shown that you are a good enough parent. We all worry that we might not be getting it right and that we’re messing our kids up. We all think that we need to be better at parenting, but all your kids need is for you to be good enough. Give yourself a break and permit yourself to trust your instincts.

If you break a promise you made to them, or you’re late picking them up, you apologise, learn from it so it doesn’t keep happening and then you move on. Children and young people are remarkably resilient. They will have an opportunity to experience disappointment and to resolve their problems.

It takes a lot of energy and effort to be any more than good enough, leaving you exhausted, frustrated and feeling like a failure. If it isn’t making you happy, it’s not making your kids happy.

The reality is that children and young people do so much better when we back off and let them do things for themselves. If you are reading this as an adult, you survived your childhood and adolescence. Let your kids do the things kids do, that we did when we were kids, mistakes and all.

What triggers your parental guilt?

Parental guilt might feel like; you’re not doing enough as a parent, you’re not doing things right, or that you’re making decisions that may ‘mess up’ your child in the long term. Is it when you realise you’ve been sat on your phone rather than connecting with your child? Or when you snap at them when they ask for something?

We feel that we’re being judged on our parenting but that is not the case. Equally, don’t assume that everyone else has it together because *spoiler alert* they don’t!

So what can you do?

• Lower your standards – there is nothing wrong with being a bog-standard, mediocre parent!
• Boundaries! – Do less and say no sometimes – don’t worry about trying to impress other parents; they’re too busy trying to parent their own kids to care
• Trust your instinct – you know your kids, there’s no need to look for the approval of other people
• Stop beating yourself up and give yourself a break 

The research says that good enough parents raise pretty great kids (honestly, just Google ‘good enough parent’).

Let them do more of the things you think they are capable of – let them make their own lunch, get themselves ready for school – so they have their own sense of responsibility.

You and they are going to make mistakes – that’s called being human. The important thing is to acknowledge, apologise, learn from it and then move on. Don’t let the guilt creep in; it just gets in the way. Accept the good, the bad and the difficult as part of the journey.

Counselling can help you with issues you are facing around your family. Speaking to a counsellor about parenting can help to improve communication and make relationships stronger both in and out of the family.

Online counselling can help you get the support you’re looking for. It gives you the choice of working with the right counsellor for you, regardless of where you are.

Get in touch here to schedule your free ‘getting to know you’ call to help you discover whether you feel able and comfortable for us to work together. Working with me can give you the space to work through the things you’re worrying about, so you know that you aren’t ruining their chance at a happy fulfilled life and that you are doing a great job. I can help you to let go a bit, give yourself some headspace and allow you to see the wood for the trees.

Being a parent can be hugely rewarding and it can also be overwhelming. This can increase as your child enters adolescence. Speaking to a counsellor about parenting can help to improve communication and make relationships stronger both in and out of the family.

Being a parent is one of the most important jobs any of us will ever do and yet, despite libraries full of books on the subject, many feel that they are not prepared to do it well. This feeling can increase as your child enters adolescence.

The move from childhood to adulthood is one of the quickest and most sudden stages of development. The changes that happen may seem to be universal, but the time and speed varies a lot among and even within individuals. External factors like getting the right type and amount of nutrition or being exposed to an abusive environment will also have an impact on these changes.

The years between childhood and the start of adolescence (typically the ‘tween’ years between around 9 and 12 years old) see all sorts of challenges that can seem to merge into one. Moving from being the ‘big kids’ at primary school, for example, to becoming small fry again at a potentially larger and more impersonal secondary school. The onslaught of hormones and their changes to body development can be really challenging to the young person. Adolescence is a time for young people to establish their own individual identity where they’re more likely to be spending more time with and connecting more closely with their peer group than their family. 

A matter of biology

So what’s happening to your child developmentally? While there are individual differences, overall, biological maturity is reached before psychosocial maturity. The limbic system (responsible for pleasure-seeking, emotional responses and sleep regulation) changes before the area of the brain (the pre-frontal cortex) which deals with decision making, forward planning, organisation and impulse control. This means that, until the pre-frontal cortex catches up with the limbic system, the desire to seek short-term rewards and social pressures from peers override rational thinking. 

What does this mean?

As their ability for decision making is still developing, younger adolescents can be especially vulnerable at just the time they are starting to look outside their family. Some adolescents are especially vulnerable, for example, those growing up in poverty, where there is family violence, where the adults around them have issues with alcohol and other drugs. Certain health issues that may appear during adolescence such as mental health issues or issues around substance misuse reflect both the biological changes of puberty and the social setting in which young people are growing up in. These health consequences can continue to impact throughout adolescence and into adulthood.  Young people and the adults around them need to understand the processes that are occurring during adolescence. Not all young people are the same.

Communicating with your adolescent child

If you are reading this and you are over 25 years old – congratulations, you survived adolescence! Whilst your adolescent child may be happy to hear about your values, opinions and your experiences as a young person no one appreciates being judged or talked down to.

Make the effort to listen without judgement and really try to hear what is being said. Jumping in with an immediate reaction will present a real challenge having a meaningful discussion. Lectures are not heard. A young person who is upset or in crisis will not be able to absorb information unless it is delivered in a really concrete, specific way that they can follow.

Young people may express and exaggerate fleeting feelings, hating someone one day and being best friends with them the next. Empathise but first and foremost, be a sounding board. If you blast the friend they had the fight with you will be in the wrong when they are the best of friends again the next day.

Establish open and loving communication with your child but be consistent. Young people need boundaries and limits and whilst they will push these let them know that, if they do, there will be consequences. Give specifics, so ‘If you do… the consequences will be… but you can still come to me if you are ever in trouble.

Looking after yourself

Finally – look after your own well-being. Parenting through the early years of adolescence can be particularly stressful. Parenting babies and toddlers is recognised as a time when mental health issues, anxieties or depression can become an issue and it is easy to feel overwhelmed. These feelings do not necessarily end when your child turns two. Create a support network rather than depending on the other parent – your relationship will not need the additional strain. Prioritise your feelings and make sure you are getting the love and support you need as well as giving it to children and loved ones. 

Counselling can help. If you are struggling with your relationship with your adolescent child and are ready for change contact me here now to see how we can work together.