Common Separation Tensions Between Parent and Adolescent

Carl Pickhardt Ph. D.

While parenting a young child requires holding on and securing the girl or boy in the constancy of their care, parenting an adolescent increasingly demands more loss and risk from letting go.

Now the challenge is staying socially connected as the push for youthful independence and individuality creates growing separation between them. Love is not lessened, but getting along can now become challenging on three fronts as youthful separation sets parents and teenagers more socially apart. Consider three alterations.

Three changes

1. Distance can create loneliness: “We’re not as close as we were.” Now parents must respect more youthful privacy and expect less confiding. “As our adolescent grows older, we increasingly lead lives apart, less told about all that is going on.”

There is an intimacy shift. As the more private (and independent) adolescent does less personal sharing with parents as primary company, she or he does more with peers. In response, parents need to keep offering family companionship and affirmative communication, while sometimes missing the easy closeness that used to be.

2. Diversity demands adjustment: “Differences are harder to get used to.” Now parents must accept more cultural contrasts to live with: “As our adolescent grows older, we must get used to lifestyle and value changes that contrast with what we have known.”

There is a commonality shift. The adolescent identifies more with a youth culture that provides an alternative model for self-expression and self-definition to admire and copy. In response, parents must bridge growing differences with interest to stay connected with their changing teenager: “Can you help us better understand?”

3: Disagreement creates opposition: “What we want is often not the same.” Now parents must engage with more youthful objections to demands.

There is an authority shift. As youthful individuality and independence assert themselves, following one’s own interests and inclinations becomes a more pressing and guiding order of the day. In response, parents accept the young person’s leadership responsibility: “We respect your right to decide.”

Adolescence is estranging

To some functional degree, adolescence can feel estranging for parents as young people lead increasingly distinct lives. Thus, the abiding relational question that continually needs answering for the parent and teenager is, “How can we manage to stay close as adolescence grows us more apart, which it is meant to do?”

On all three counts, adolescence is an abrasive process, gradually wearing down the old dependence of childhood so more independence and individuality can grow. So, how can the parent stay connected as their child’s adolescence increases separation between them?

Three connections

1. To keep adolescence from becoming alienating, parents can continually express their caring. “Let me tell you what I love about you,” is a good beginning.
2. To keep adolescence from becoming estranging, parents can bridge growing differences with interest: “Can you help me better understand,” is a good beginning.
3. To keep adolescence from becoming antagonistic, parents can treat conflict as informative. “Now we have a difference worth discussing,” is a good beginning.

Come adolescence, it takes steadfast communication for parents to stay well-connected with their growing, changing child. They must make more effort.