After working as a therapist with teens (and their parents) for over two decades, I believe that collaboration is the best strategy to use when parenting a teenager. After all, if a main goal of adolescence is to become an autonomous, competent grown person (i.e., an adult!), then both teens and their parents have to transition away from their previous parent-child relationship. By collaborating, parents and teens can redefine both their relationship and themselves.
For collaboration to work
You must first have a bond with your teen. This can feel especially hard when your teen seems to pride themselves on how rude they can be! (Don’t take their disrespect and rudeness personally; they do it only because of how their teen brain works and what they need.) Even though they push you away, they still need to feel connected to you.
Teens want support and love from parents—but only when they want it. This means that parents need to remain accessible and present, ducking in and connecting when the teen is open to it, then standing back when the teen needs to feel separate and autonomous.
The bottom line: do your best to preserve the connection with your teen. It will help you (and your teen) get through their adolescence.
What is collaboration?
Think of collaboration as a mindset. If both you and your teen want them to become an autonomous adult, start treating them like one, but only to the extent that your teen can manage it. (More on this below!)
Collaborating means putting aside your goals and prioritizing what your teen wants. In fact, ask them what they want, and tell them your goal is to help them get it. For example, let’s say they want their own car but you know they’re not ready for one—they need money (a job?) to buy the car and pay for insurance, they need to be make better choices and adhere to rules, they must be able to resist peer pressure, etc., etc.
Your goal is to help them get a car when they’re responsible enough to have one. Rather than taking on a parental role and telling them they’re not ready for a car, help your teen recognize this themselves. Help them develop their own reasonable goals for owning a car. Then make a plan for achieving these goals.
When you collaborate, you are acting more like an equal than a parent. Instead of telling your teen what to do, you’re only curious what they think. Rather than you having all the answers, you’re inviting your teen to come up with reasonable ones.
Many parents struggle with stepping back, especially when they have advice to give and a lifetime of experience to share. “How can I let my kid make a really dumb choice?” a parent once asked me. “Is there a point when I stop collaborating and start parenting?”
When to stop collaborating and start parenting
If you feel your teen is heading towards making poor decisions, you can still ask questions such as, “If you do XYZ, what do you think will happen?” If your teen shrugs away the question or can’t accurately predict what will happen, they likely aren’t ready to make their own decisions. It’s then necessary to gently step into the parenting role, pointing out what you think they’re missing.
But avoid taking charge and controlling what your teen does. Your discipline options are very limited, and trying to have power over your teen is a losing battle.
With teens who are not yet mature enough to make well-considered choices, you will need to be a collaborative guide in which you walk the fine line between being the in-charge parent and the impartial collaborator.
Being a “collaborative guide” means first inviting your teen’s ideas. Help them brainstorm options without ruling out anything. Then, when you reflect on these options together, you can share your perspective and insight.
The goal here is to help your teen reflect rationally on their ideas, problems, solutions, etc. You are guiding them through the process, which is still collaborative, yet you are inserting your adult wisdom when it’s needed.
The bottom line: meet your teen where they are at
An immature teen needs parental presence and guidance whereas a mature teen doesn’t need or want your parental input. The trick is to assess what your teen is capable of. How well can they reflect upon their problems and their potential solutions? How reasonable are they? Can they control their impulses? What is their current capacity to be autonomous?
Where “your teen is at” is also a moving target. Teens can be inconsistently responsible and rational. You may have to change how much you step up or step back depending on the day.
Similarly, at times your teen may not want to collaborate with you because doing so jeopardizes their feeling autonomous. If that’s the case, step back, and know that your teen may have a completely different opinion (and need) a week or two later.
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