What do I do when my teenage son starts arguing and there is no way he can listen to me? How do I solve it?
If this situation is familiar to you, this article will be of great interest since it will try to give you some tools so that you can solve these questions.
Why do teenagers argue?
Rather than wanting to be right, teenagers argue because they have a great need to feel freedom . They generally feel suffocated by parents, so they seek to satisfy their need for freedom as a place, and that feeling is not only given by permission to leave, but mainly at the levels of verbal and nonverbal expression.
So when you start arguing with your teenage son, the first essential step is to give him freedom.
What does this mean? It means asking what your opinion or point of view is about a certain situation. Obviously you have to listen again and carefully . It is essential to carry out, what I call, a real listening, with "real" I mean listen to what the teenager is saying and not be thinking about what I have to do next. Teenagers are very perceptive and immediately realize this mental trap that we want to make, so if we are not attentive instead of reducing their discursive euphoria, the latter will increase exponentially, producing the opposite effect to the desired one.
So the keys are: listen carefully and give your opinion a place, that is, give it that valuable space so you can express your point of view. Let us keep in mind that all this makes the construction of your self-esteem and personal assessment.
Sometimes our children are right, but because we are exhausted from the endless succession of events that will come, or maybe because we don't have the time to listen to them then the first thing we do is excuse ourselves ahead of time. For whatever reason, we do not allow the young person to speak . It usually happens that we start an argument without letting them talk which obviously frustrates them more than necessary. Then, taking the proposal of the writer Yordi Rosado, we can introduce a conversation on a subject by saying “I want to hear your version of things”, or “are you willing to listen to my point of view, if I listen to yours?” Or "I promise you not to always try to win as a dad, but I need you either."
This changes the whole equation, since our children will feel valued, respected, heard, useful and intelligent . And this is just what teenagers look for, to feel that the other values me, listens to me, respects me, confirms my ability to reason correctly, gives me a place, gives me existence. It is so simple but so important and difficult to apply that if we would all apply it with our children, many undesirable situations that we see today would disappear. Obviously one will have to work with their own impulses and emotions, and leave them for a while or for their individual therapy (be this therapy a sport, artistic activities, distraction activities, whatever it is)
I've already tried that, but my son keeps arguing and always ends up in the same thing. What can I do?
Well, if this is your case, which is not usually that of the majority, they are usually young people who accuse you of everything and spend it claiming and complaining even about life itself. Usually they take the conversation to the same point and issues that have no logic of being, so the talk itself becomes useless and meaningless. In this situation it is necessary that you be more energetic than him or her and not allow him to continue attacking you, to put punishments or rather that his impulsive behavior has effects that are not to his liking (example that does not use the cell phone for a certain amount of time, etc.) And always be very firm, so that its intensity begins to gradually decrease.
As a dad or mom, you need to learn to give in, too.
Mostly, teenagers usually discuss and manipulate on a regular basis, but ... if you give them the place we were talking about, you can reach agreements. Always taking into account the advice I left immediately above: Give.
It is also essential to be clear that: we must not avoid discussions, that is not the goal, since discussing healthily helps them grow, learn, ask, give their opinion, listen to the other, the times, moments and types of conversations that exist, the possible outcomes and fundamentally teaches them to think for themselves and to negotiate, fundamental in the world in which we live.
So once my son gave his version of things, what do I do?
It is time that you give your opinion of the matter and express how you feel about everything that is happening and the reason why you are upset. If you have respected your son, by letting him talk, he will respect you.
The next step, taken from one of the books of the social communicator Yori Rosadas, is to make a list of ideas on how to solve a problem .
How I do this?
It is necessary that you sit with your son / daughter, take pencil and paper (either can write it down) and go inserting ideas . It is essential that you let them express themselves and write their ideas, you should not disqualify the latter from being the type they are. The idea of making a list is important because it is one thing to speak things, as the popular saying goes "the words are blown away", and another very different thing is when you write on paper, you have them in front, it materializes them in some way, it gives it concrete existence, so it is much better when working with teenagers. It will be a very useful tool and which will help a lot to internalize these ideas.
For example, if the problem is that your daughter wants to invite her friends home and stay late at night.
The list could be something like this:
1- Let them leave at 9 at night (mom )
2- After dinner (daughter)
3- That my brother is not present (daughter)
4- Invite them every five days (ie not every day) (mom and dad)
5- Leave everything as it was after the meeting with friends at home (mom)
6- That they only come on weekends, outside the period of school exams. (mom )
7- Being able to be in the room without being interrupted (daughter)
8- Invite whoever I want and whenever I want (daughter)
Once all the ideas are on the table, you will realize that there are more options than imagined . It is time for you to discard those that are most illogical . Precisely this technique allows a good analysis and its rational sense or it is not very visible and patent for all involved. So it is easier to discard it without hurting the one who formulated it.
This is how many of them are going to be eliminated, and others are going to be mixed, joined. It is important that the dialogue reign and always listen to your son or daughter, always.
It is a situation of mutual learning, in which everyone wins, but in which everyone has to invest, that is, do their part. It is not easy, but it is worth the glory to try, it is very effective if you practice it daily. In addition to doing these simple things that seem to be so easy, but when applying them they are extremely difficult, they are issues that beyond their level and degree of difficulty, are putting together and building the foundations of your son's psychic building . So it is essential to establish in your mind, these behaviors, these presences, this experience of being heard. Situation this last one that carries a subliminal message, this is: if someone listens to me then I EXIST.
REDACTORA: Gisela S., editor of the great family of the White Brotherhood.
SOURCE: Rosado, Y. (2015). SOS Teenagers out of control in the digital age: The most sought answers by all parents of teenagers. Aguilar