If your teenager cannot connect with you on a relationship level or if that relationship is too stressful, painful, or difficult, there are plenty of other places your teen can connect. Even if your relationship is merely strained and not broken altogether, your teen has plenty of options for connection, validation, acceptance, and support apart from you.
You are in competition for your teen’s connection. You are competing with peers and with technology because many of those other options for connection are only a cell phone or keypad away. It used to be that you punished a child by sending her to her room. Now, that may not bother him at all because it just means he can communicate all he wants with whomever he wants, without your knowledge or interference. Just because your teenager is in your house, in his room, doesn’t mean he’s alone.
Most teenagers have cell phones. A current study by the Pew Research Center says that 72 percent of them do. Of those kids who have one, 88 percent of them use it to text. Texting, not email, has become teens’ preferred means of communication. This means that cell phone you provided as a way to keep track of your teenager or for your teen to have in an emergency is also one of your biggest competitors for the affection of and connection to your kid. If teenagers don’t feel they can connect with their parents, they’ll link up over the cell phone with someone else.
I think most parents would be surprised by how much connecting their kids are doing over those cell phones. Here are a couple of the summary points from that Pew study, which I encourage you to read:
– Teens are more apt to text their friends than call them up and talk to them.
– Of the vast majority of teens who text, over half of them send 50 or more messages per day. One-third send more than 100 message per day, and 15 percent send more than 200 messages per day.
– There is a difference between girls and boys when it comes to texting. Girls send and receive an average of 80 messages per day, while for boys it’s an average of 30 messages per day.
– Teens do more with their phones than just text or talk. They also take pictures (83 percent) and share those pictures (64 percent), play music on their phones (60 percent), and play games (46 percent). They go online (27 percent) and access social networks (23 percent).
Teens say they like texting because it’s easier and more convenient than talking. In other words, they are in charge of if who they text, what they text, and when they text. Interestingly, teens say they will avoid answering their cell phone in order to train people to text them instead of call them. This has forced parents to take up texting, even when they don’t really like it, because it’s the only way to get their teens to answer them back. It also means that if a teen has a cell phone, he or she has access to other people, to other connections. Fifteen percent of teens say they’ve gotten a text message with a sexually suggestive, nude, or nearly nude picture of someone they know. Of someone they know! This isn’t surfing general porn; this is intentional, directed sexual pictures of someone they know sent to them. In a room of a hundred kids, that’s 15 of them with those kind of pictures on their phone. How many kids are in your teenager’s school? Do the math.
All of this is happening on a device so small they can carry it in their pockets, a device with the ability to be set on silent so you never know it’s ringing, a device supplied by parents whose primary reason for getting it is safety. Welcome to our brave new world.
This is just one recent reason to add to the age-old mix of reasons why it is so important you maintain a connection to your teenager. You are going to have to be like a tenacious rodeo rider. To me, navigating this time of transition is like being on the back of a bucking bronco. You’re going to do a lot of shifting and moving in order to stay ahead of the twists and turns of your teenager. There are times you’re probably going to feel like losing your lunch, but you’ve got to hang on. You’ve got to be the parent and stay the parent. You’ve got to keep the lines of communication open and available.
Be aware of how you’re reacting to your teenager and why, including reasons that have nothing to do with your teen and everything to do with you. Avoid the tendency to blame, and look for ways to understand what and who are responsible for difficulties in the relationship. Come clean about your own past mistakes and shortcomings and work toward forgiveness. I’m not talking yet about forgiving your teenagers. I’m talking about you. Seek to forgive yourself, accept responsibility, and take positive steps to change and improve.
It is an amazing phenomenon that once you are able to forgive yourself, it is easier to forgive others. Remember, you are still your teenagers’ role model in what it means to be an adult. They may outwardly dismiss you, but you’ve been center stage in their lives since they were born. You may have been knocked down a notch by their friends, but you’re still vitally important. When they’re in trouble and need help, you want to be the one they connect with, no matter the personal cost.
The above is excerpted from Chapter 4 of my new book, The Stranger in Your House. I’ll be posting more excerpts from it here in the weeks to come, but you can receive a FREE copy of the book itself between now and December 15, 2011. To participate in this book giveaway, simply share some of your own thoughts or experiences about raising teenagers – in the comments section of this or future blog posts about the book.