How to Resolve Parent-Teen Transition Conflict

By Lester Rennard

For many parents, the teen years of their children's lives are a period most fraught with the worst of misunderstanding, miscommunication, misjudgment and conflict. It is a delicate period in which their children who once were adorable angels suddenly seem to be transforming themselves into monsters that the parents can not easily recognize. They tend to be touchy, defensive, rebellious and defiant of the parental authority they once obeyed.

Not only are the parents seeing their teens transforming in characters with much to be desired, but the teens, themselves, are also perceiving their parents in a different light. For many teens who are having difficulty managing their transition from childhood to adulthood, their parents are now being perceived as mean, controlling ogres and ogresses who are on a mission to obliterate the words 'fun' and 'independence' out of their vocabulary and experience.

During this period of growth and transition, teens are desiring to separate themselves from the psychological umbilical cord that still connects them to their parents in search of their own identity and independence. This adventure reorients their interest, attention and sense of loyalty from the family unit to their peers on the outside. While in this state, they struggle with a discomfiting paradox - the need for their parents for their sustenance and the need to detach themselves from their parents to develop their own independence.

While this conflict is brewing in the minds of their teens, parents sense the transformation and the drift and those who do not understand or are unprepared for this sudden phenomenon, react with an application of more control to bring their faltering child back in line. The teen senses this added control as an effort to foil its natural need and desire for independence. At this juncture where the exertion of parental control converges with the teen's efforts to establishing its own independence, the natural result is conflict that can easily descend into open hostility or an unholy mayhem if not properly handled.

To avoid a breakdown in the relationship between parents and teens at this critical period of transition, it is important for both parties to understand the dynamics of the transition itself and their need for mutual adjustment in their perceptions and expectations. On one hand, parents need to understand the natural changes taking place in their teens and rather than perceiving these changes as threatening and thus reacting with more control, they should accept them as a normal process of growth and development and adjust their own expectations and parenting methods to accommodate the process.

On the other hand, teens need to also seek to understand the impact that their transition and the paradox it creates are having on their parents. They should seek to establish a better level of open communication with their parents and help them to understand their new need for independence and self-identity. They may best serve their own interest by learning to negotiate win-win solutions and demonstrate through reassurance and conduct that they truly deserve the accommodations their parents are offering. This can best be done by demonstrating a sense of responsibility and maturity.

By establishing contracts, mutual respect and recognition of rights and responsibilities along with flexibility, both parents and teens may navigate the seemingly treacherous waters of the teen transitional years with a sense of challenge and adventure, rather than seeking to engage the assistance of the peacekeeping forces of the United Nations to keep order in the family.