The Web address of this
five-page article is http://sfhelp.org/02/kids.htm
Clicking a link below will open an informational popup or full new browser
window, so please turn off
your browser's popup blocker or accept popups from this non-profit site
- no cookies or ads!
Eight
Response-strategies with typical teens, continued from p. 4
Problem 8)
"Duality" - Childish
&
Adult Behaviors
As adolescence progresses, teens shift from child to childish adult
to young adult. Ideally this
multi-year shift results in caregivers supporting the young
adult as s/he prepares to leave home to live indepen-dently. The
challenge here is for adults to accept that for an unknown time,
the young person will act childish one moment, and adult the
next
In important situations, this normal "duality" requires adults
to be aware of who they're talking with at the moment - a child
in the teen's body, or a young adult. As you've seen,
communicating effectively with kids can be significantly
different than with adults. Do you have a way of
relating to two people in one teen body? How well does it work, in
important and stressful situations?
It can help to remember that as a teen slowly shifts toward
adulthood over several years, family adults' authority and
control shift toward influence.
Response Strategy
-
The best thing you
can do with significant duality is empathize with, not
shame, the teen verbally or nonverbally for being
childish or behaviorally inconsistent - because s/he still
is a child! If you scorn the child
for acting "juvenile" or equivalent, your face, eyes, and
body will leak your superior attitude, and will promote the
child feeling guilty and ashamed of who s/he is. Lose-lose!
-
Consider talking openly about
your own (confusing / exciting?) child-to-adult transition, and
asking the child if s/he feels respected enough recently by
you and other family adults as s/he shifts. Did you? A sense of humor
can be a great help here!
Option - if one or more
grandparents, aunts, or uncles are open to it, ask
them to tell the teen about their transition from child to
adult, and how that compares to modern transitions.
-
Option - ask the teen to
describe what it feels like to go from child to adult so
far, and how s/he will know when she has attained
stable adulthood. Be prepared for "I don't know."
Respectful dialog is better than expecting or
demanding a clear answer. This is like someone asking you
"How will you know when you're 'old'?"
-
Ask the teen to say whether some
of her or his same-age friends are adults yet - and how s/he
judges that. Ask how her or his friends' parents are
handling the shift.
-
Avoid assuming that
a teen magically becomes a functioning adult at age 18, or
when he or she is able to have sexual intercourse.
More realistically, define your specific criteria for "adult
man or woman" and patiently encourage the teen to meet the
criteria at his or her own pace. How old were you when you
knew you really were an adult? Usually that occurs gradually
over many years - yes?
-
If either of you feel confused
about what the teen needs or expects from you during this
gradual shift - ask! That might sound like "How can I
help you make the shift from child to adult?" Then
listen. The child may not be able to articulate
"respect," "genuine empathy," "patience," and "guidance" and
"affirmation." Could you have said those things to your
family adults as an older teen?
-
Ask other family adults about
how they feel about the teen becoming sexually active. Adult
awk-wardness or anxiety about this can be misunderstood by
teens as scorn or displeasure - which can increase their
confusion, reactivity, guilt, and secrecy.
Some parents -
specially Dads - have difficulty admitting their daughters
are able to conceive a child, and are no longer "my little
girl." This major loss merits healthy grieving - and
celebration!
Bottom line - acknowledge
the teen's "duality" period with empathy, and talk
openly about it - including changing expectations,
responsibilities, and family roles. Enjoy affirming the
teens' gradual progress towards adulthood, and your own role
in helping them make the transition safely.
Special Considerations for Divorcing-family and Stepfamily
Adults
Typical teens whose parents are
courting, or
committed to a new partner (i.e. a steppar-ent) have many
special adjustment needs - and
so do their adults. These special needs can affect com-munication
among all family adults and kids. These adjustment needs are concurrent with
kids' normal developmental
needs, and can feel overwhelming if the adults aren't
offering sensitive, informed support and guidance.
Each family and child is unique - and there are themes you
should be alert for in communica-ting with such kids:
Divorce strongly suggests that mates, their ancestors, and their
kids are significantly
and
This usually means they have trouble communicating effectively
inside and outside the family.
Suggestion -
pay special attention to
these requisites in
trying to improve communication with kids raised by typical
unrecovering
(GWCs).
Parental separation,
divorce, and
cause many
tangible and
invisible losses (broken bonds).
Accepting and adapting to them requires a steady
environment for
kids and adults. That's why
exists here. Often, adults mistake grief for depression, and
try to medicate it. Expert family grief counseling is far
more helpful - ideally with someone who understands child-devel-opment,
divorce, and
stepfamilies.
Suggestion - be specially empathic with significant
confusion, sadness, hurt, resentment, and anger in minor and
grown kids of such families. Also...
Kids and adults in divorcing and
families are more apt to be confused
and anxious about the many changes in their lives. These can
span a new
roles, rules, rituals, perhaps a new home and
locale, new schools, churches, and boundaries, new and
altered relationships, new personal and
-
and all these changes are happening at once.
Suggestion - be
specially alert for confusion, volatility, and
in
communicating with all members of these families - not just kids.
Finally...
Members of typical divorcing and step families are particularly
vulnerable to many stressful concur-rent
conflicts and relationship triangles.
Few wounded, unaware adults and no kids know how to recog-nize
and manage these three relationship dynamics.
Suggestion - in communicating with member of these (and
all
families and
organiza-tions, make sure
you know how to recognize and manage each of these stressors.
Can you do so yet?
Bottom line - consistently
with
kids of all ages is a high-reward challenge. Effective
communication with preteens and teens in divorcing and step
families can be specially challen-ging!
Recap
Premise - any behavior in one person that causes a significant
effect in another is communication. Intentional
communication tries to diminish current discomforts
("problems.") This five-page
article
exists because our ancestors and society haven't taught average
adults how to communicate
- in general, and with typical children.
relies partly on adults' abilities to com-municate "well," and
teaching those abilities to their kids and grandkids.
The article offers specific guidelines to promote win-win
outcomes for typical adult-child communi-cations. It proposes (a) a
definition of effective communication, (b) key adult-child
differences that affect communications
with all kids,
pre-teens, and typical teens; and (c) requisites for
mutually-satisfying adult interaction with kids.
Key
requisites are...
-
your true Self
of your personality,
-
learning to apply
effective-communication basics
and seven specific
and...
-
staying empathically aware of
the significant differences between adults and kids in calm
and conflictual situations.
The article offers specific adult communication response-strategies for
all kids,
pre-teens, and eight common adult
communication problems with average teens.
The article ends with several suggestions about special
communication themes with kids and adults in typical divorcing
families and stepfamilies.
For more perspective and guidelines, see these
Project-2 and Project 10 (co-parenting)
articles, and this framework for
analyzing most relationship problems.
+ + +
Pause, breathe, and reflect - why did you read this article? Did
you get what you needed? If not, what
you need? Who's
these questions - your
or
