This past month many parents had an opportunity to celebrate high school graduation. Sitting in a local coffee shop I was listening to parents describe their trial and tribulations related to raising their child through adolescence. These parents shared stories which highlighted their challenges to establish the appropriate balance between adolescent autonomy and monitoring school work, peer relationships and activities. Many parents verbalized that at times over the past four years they didn’t know if their child would successfully complete high school. There were other parents who spoke with amazement about how things were not really as bad as they feared. One woman stated that she had this notion that all adolescents were angry, disrespectful and rebellious and she feared losing her daughter when she turned thirteen.
A significant part of parents’ anxiety about raising adolescents comes from cultural stereotypes portrayed in the media: these difficult, oppositional and irritable creatures that possess our children during the teenage years and totally disrupt the home and threaten our communities.Although some of these perceptions are built upon misinformation, like all myth some parts of the story are true.
With the exception of infancy and toddlerhood, where functional capabilities are just emerging, no developmental time period presents such dramatic changes in physical, emotional, cognitive and social capabilities as adolescence. Adolescents are going through a major neurological remodeling in the number of connections and new insulation in the wiring of their brain. By the end of adolescence their brain will be more efficient and effective in integrating and processing a wider variety of information simultaneously (like all remodeling projects, sometimes things get disorganized before they get reorganized). However, it is also important to be aware that research indicates only about 25% of parents and teenagers report having major problems during this period. In addition, 80% of these families reported that their teenager had problems that first presented during childhood. Only about 5% of adolescents who had positive relationships during childhood will exhibit serious problems during adolescence (Rutter, Grahm, Chadwick and Yule, 1976).
New conceptual models are emerging that suggest that, yes, adolescents will struggle with issues of autonomy but that their healthy transformation occurs within the context of a warm, ongoing emotional relationship with involved parents. The adolescent requires the same commitment from a caregiver that the healthy two year old needs: a balance of support and encouragement to explore and discover their environment and a present, attentive, attuned, nurturing, responsive parent to ensure a safe environment, an age-appropriate level of structure and limits when necessary.
Autonomy, which can be defined as the extent of parental control on the adolescent, is a major area of change during the adolescent period. Steinberg and Silk, 2002, in a chapter on “Parenting Adolescents” distinguish psychological autonomy, the ability to express opinion, feelings and thoughts, from behavioral autonomy, the amount of supervision and monitoring of behavior. Often times the adolescent and the parent struggle separating these issues related to autonomy. The young adolescent expectations are that they should be totally autonomous and they push for increased independence. In reaction, the parent may provide too much or too little autonomy. Research suggests that adolescents benefit from decreased psychological control while maintaining and slowly adjusting behavioral control.
It is also important to remember that the adolescent is not the only one going through a developmental transition. For many parents who watch their adolescent develop physically, cognitively, and sexually, concerns about their own developmental competencies begin to emerge. For the adolescent, who seeks excitement, adventures, romance and whose future is wide open, the parent begins to reflect on their own physical decline and awareness that time is limited to achieve career goals or make changes. This, combined with the task many parents have of taking care of their own aging parents, creates an additional challenge and stress on themselves and their relationships. For some parents, they mange this developmental crisis by competing for control with their adolescent or they may attempt to become peers and try and fit in with the adolescents. Both of these strategies are an attempt to avoid issues the adolescent is perturbing in the psyche of the parent. These strategies may decrease internal distress in the short term but ultimately increase family tension and dysfunction.
The good news is adolescence does not have to be such a terrible experience for everyone. However, like all transitions you have to expect to experience disruption from the equilibrium the family developed during childhood so you can establish a new sense of balance in your relationship with your bigger, stronger, faster, and smarter adolescent. Never forget that even though the adolescent acts like they don’t need you, you are just as important to them as you have been throughout their lives.
