Teenagers and their parents experience a daunting and dramatic change as they embark on the journey through adolescence together. A teen’s worldview is drastically challenged. Parents observe their adolescent and wonder how to navigate a successful relationship. The journey of parenthood is suddenly different, with parents frequently feeling overwhelmed by confusion, sadness, anger, frustration, fear and pain. Parents simultaneously feel excited to see their child becoming what can appear to be an adult; yet often have a difficult time relating to this emerging person-hood. Teens seem to be pushing their parents away, while desperately needing closeness at the same time.Parenting today’s teenager is a challenging journey with many opportunities for growth. Most parents desire to foster healthy autonomy and yet yearn to maintain emotional connection. Parents frequently lack confidence in their ability to know how to remain connected like they experienced when their teen was younger. To navigate this developmental stage more effectively, parents need an evidence-based framework congruent with Biblical principals from which to develop a successful parenting style that will help the teen establish separation and autonomy while providing a better emotional connection.
Research in the fields of parenting and developmental psychology has found that authoritative, emotionally-based parenting provides for a more secure attachment between parent and teen, thus promoting the best outcome for adolescents to achieve healthy autonomy. Research documents that authoritative, emotionally-based parenting provides for better emotional breakthrough with adolescents leading to a healthier autonomy. Authoritative parenting promotes emotional openness providing safety in communication that creates connectedness between the teen and their parents. This connectedness is the glue that solidifies a secure attachment, which is the cornerstone for the teen’s ability to navigate adulthood in a healthy way.
Parents and teens struggle to develop and maintain secure attachments. This journey often becomes littered with many obstacles such as teens’ mental health issues and parents’ own mid life transitions. Most Christian families experience some degree of relational strain with their teens. “In conservative Christian families, an adolescent’s assertion of autonomy often stimulates significant relational strain” (Greggo & Mesnick, 2003, p. 317).
Parents of adolescents may seek counseling due to this relational strain between with their teen. This strain is associated with the teen’s developmental task of becoming autonomous and the resulting discomfort between parent and child (Greggo & Mesnick, 2003, p. 317). The teen is attempting to individuate, a natural course of life, often in ways that frustrate parents. Parents may be scratching their heads wondering how to respond to their adolescent. Teens are sometimes depressed and anxious, oppositional, and most certainly stressed. Parents then have difficulty finding ways to cope with their own stress in the relationship. Many have been parented ineffectively themselves. They tend to base their parenting style on their unhealthy family models. During this developmental phase, parents need to be flexible, set healthy boundaries and be emotionally available. This most likely requires a modification of their previous parenting approach. “In Christian families with no model for gradually establishing adolescent autonomy and adjusting the parental relationship, there is an increased risk of an adolescent acting out or developing an internalizing mental health concern” (Greggo & Mesnick, 2003, p. 318).
Parents must deal with their own emotional issues and experience healthy spiritual and emotional development themselves while encouraging a strong emotional attachment with their teen which moves the teen toward greater success in developing healthy individuation and autonomy.
Authoritative, grace-based, emotionally connected parenting provides for a secure attachment between parent and teen. This parenting framework is referred to as Secure-Base Parenting and would be a useful foundation in the development of this parenting curriculum. This concept is described by this quote:
The parent and adolescent attachment system is a goal-directed partnership characterized by a stability of relationship in the midst of new challenges and development needs. Thus, the particularities of the specific regulating behaviors and emotions vary while the quality of relational bonds remains reasonably consistent. (Greggo & Mesnick, 2003, p. 319)
John Bowlby, who is the father of psychological theory regarding attachment, in A Secure-Base, wrote this: “Study after study…attest that healthy, happy, and self-reliant adolescents and young adults are the products of stable homes in which both parents give a great deal of time and attention to the children” (Bowlby, 1988, p. 2). His concept of parenting states:
…the provision by both parents of a secure base from which a child or adolescent can make sorties into the outside world and to which he can return knowing for sure that he will be welcomed when he gets there, nourished physically and emotionally, comforted if distressed, reassured if frightened. In essence this role is one of being available, ready to respond when called upon to encourage and perhaps assist, but to intervene actively only when clearly necessary. (Bowlby, 1988, p.11)
Michael Resnick of the University of Minnesota states that one must think of youth as “resources to be developed, not problems to be solved” (IAV, 2003, p. 49). Connectedness with adults is extremely important to adolescents. Parents need to:
…address their [teen’s] needs for meaning and sexual identity in pro-social ways, including mentoring, rites of passages, opportunities for adventure, exploration and service, discussions about the meaning of fertility, and guidance regarding the appropriate means of managing sexual and aggressive energies. Much more than it is today, adolescence should become a time for adult engagement with, not retreat from, young people. (IAV, 2003, p. 49)
Just as Dorothy notices that the world is different as she steps outside her uprooted, tornado driven house into the world of Oz, so do teens and parents as they embark on the journey through adolescence.I remember the feelings of inadequacy and rejection when my daughter, at age fifteen, firmly told me that she would rather stand with her youth group at a concert without me. One might assume that I would be happy that she had friends with whom she was comfortable. But instead, I was heartbroken, sad, confused and unable to enjoy the music or the event. To this day I can visualize the pants she wore, wide-legged, from Hot Topic with dog collar chains hanging down from the loops. This was before one could buy pants with chains already on them. My daughter was a pioneer who forged the individuation path for other teens. She had gotten dog collars and hooked them onto her belt loops for the effect.
Fortunately I did not insist that she stand with me. I watched as she confidently connected with the friends, while feeling like a lost puppy dog. As vivid as this memory is for me and etched into my brain for life, my daughter has no recollection. It was a non-event for her. For me, I stood stunned in the realization that she in the moment was on her way, her own way. I had been preparing her for this moment, and she had accepted the adolescent task of individuation and autonomy in a healthy normal way. I could applaud her! I was stuck in ambivalence, feeling proud and sad.
So why was I so devastated? Why did I feel like I had no clue what to do next? I wanted connectedness with my teen, but was unsure what that connectedness was supposed to look and feel like, much less how to achieve it. Up until about fifteen, things were fairly easy with my daughter, but now it felt awkward at best.
If I were to ask parents; whether single or couples, if they can relate, I suspect the answer would be yes! My interest in parents’ journey during adolescence developed from my own parenting my twins which has resulted in personal emotional and spiritual growth. The many parents I meet with as a counselor and in seminars echo similar conflicting concerns.
Now is the time for the beginning of a new journey, where ever you are in these challenging years. You have the opportunity to learn new and wonderful things as the Wizard of Oz said to Dorothy and her friends. You may be feeling like Oz is right around the corner and that many obstacles are in the way of experiencing a secure base on which to stand to see the Emerald City. But there is Hope. You have a Heavenly Father who loves you and your teen beyond measure. You can rely on Him to see your family through the toughest moments and pivotal joys in your ever changing relationship. He is the God of restoration and He will give you all you need for life and godliness.
His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. (2 Peter 1: 3-4, NIV)
No matter where this journey takes you, you can be assured it will teach you and your teen valuable lessons. God has your teen and He has you right where He wants you. God also chose you for this task. Don’t ever give up, even though you may frequently feel like it. The relationship with your teen can change and grow as you both change and grow from traveling the journey of adolescence together. The opportunities for connection during this time will provide the backdrop for the future to come.S., PhD. (2008) The Journey of Parenting Teens: Fostering Teens Toward Healthy Connection and Autonomy In Today’s Changing World. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, International University, St. Kitts: West Indies.Resources:
- Miller, Susan
Institute for American Values (IAV). (2003). A Report for the Nation from the Commission on Children at Risk: Hardwired to Connect. New York: Institute of American Values.
Greggo, S., Mesnick, H. (2003) Autonomy, Attachment, and Adolescent-Parent Relational Strain in Christian Families: Assessment as Treatment. Marriage & Family: A Christian Journal, 6, 317-330.
Bowlby, J. (1988) A Secure Base: Parent-Child Attachment and Healthy Human Development. New York: Basic Books, Inc.**Please visit http://www.susanmillerlpc.com/ for more information.
