Triggered by your teen? Grab yourself an open question.
Dr Hannah Ryan
Two Leaves Therapy
Picture the scene. You've had a shitty week. You slept poorly last night, your back hurts, and you have a dull ache behind your eyes. On the way home, you had a call with a family member that stirred up some low-level childhood rage. You open the door, wanting nothing more than a glass of wine and the sweet release of sinking into the couch, but you remember you are in charge and have mouths to feed. You are naively optimistic that someone will have switched on the lamps and fed the dog, but your hopes sink when you open the door. Dirty dishes are piled high, and you can hear two teenagers upstairs on their tablets, taking no responsibility for the poor dog, presumably starving, as he wags his tail suggestively toward an empty bowl. You drop your bags, take a breath, and heroically muster the courage to not scream, roll up your sleeves and start chopping a courgette and frying some salmon into a pasta dish.
Your teens scuffle downstairs on the third attempt at calling them, and you place the bowls on the table. You feel a quiet sense of pride that you have pulled the place together. You are forming questions about how was drama and how was the maths exam when your son wrinkles up his face and exclaims, "Not pasta agaiiiinnnn. Noah's parents cook Mexican food and Thai curries; why do we always have to have the same thing?"
Your face flushes. Your heart takes off. You might actually scream. Or cry? Or rant and rave. Something primal might occur, and it's unclear whether you have control over it. So what should you do?
Well, the first thing to say is that you're human. This is a really shit moment, and all parents have been there or will be at some point. Just when you need a bit of maturity, sensitivity and thoughtfulness, it feels like your kid pulls back and kicks you right in the gut. And it hurts. Badly.
So if you snap in this moment, know that it's forgivable. It should be forgivable by me, you, and the legions of parents worldwide and throughout history who get it. If you snap, you can repair this, and it's not the end of the world. To learn how, watch Dr Becky Kennedy's TED talk on repairing with kids, a video whose anecdote inspired this one.
But if you have a modicum of heroism left in the tank, you might manage to grab a tool. I wrote about biting your tongue with kids last week; you can read that here. This article is about another tool once you've mastered that one: the art of the open question.
(1) Ask an open question: oh yeah? Tell me more about that?
There are many knee-jerk responses to the above scenario, which would be perfectly understandable:
"Oh yeah, well, if Noah's parents are so bloody perfect, why don't you go and live with them! See if they'll have you!"
"Not pasta again?! Why don't you make your own dinner? And while you're at it, clean up after yourselves, and make your own doctor's appointments and do your own laundry and...!"
"Do you have any idea how incredibly hurtful that is? How could you be so cruel to hurt me like that?! Do you know how long my week has been and how I have been up to my eyes with stress?"
"Do not speak to me like that! How dare you be so rude and ungrateful!"
Any of these reactions and more would be understandable, yet they are not likely to be helpful, and I don't need to spell out why. If you give in to the impulsive response, your bad day and your kid's bad day are about to get a lot worse. Your kid will feel shitty about themselves, and you will feel shitty about yourself as a parent. You might get an immediate release of tension, a rush of power or a change of dynamics as they look scolded and mutter a sheepish "I'm sorry", but nobody wins here.
Instead, if you have the energy, you can ask some open questions. This might sound like:
Oh yeah? Sounds like you're disappointed. What is it about pasta that you don't like?
What kind of Mexican food did they have at Noah's house?
What's your favourite meal nowadays?
What would you choose if you could pick any food to have right now?
What would you prefer to have tomorrow night?
How was the rest of your day?
You might not get much traction here, but that's not the point. Asking questions isn't about getting the right answers and it’s not about pretending you don't have feelings, either. It's about slowing things down and preventing an escalation of hostility between you and your child that you will both likely regret. You don’t need to force fake curiosity; you probably won't feel genuinely curious, and that's okay (see above: you're human, you're triggered, and that's understandable). Instead, it's about buying yourself time so that your heart rate can steady, your face can cool, and your thoughts can slow down. It's about preventing relational damage that would worsen everything when things are already pretty shit. It's about parenting on autopilot when you're triggered and have nothing left in the tank other than the vague memory of a parenting tool to keep you afloat for a few minutes in a sea of bubbling emotional lava.
(2) Part 2. Regulating yourself.
Once you're on your own again, your job is to do what you can to regulate yourself as close as possible down to an emotional baseline. You can shortcut this with wine if you like, and there is no judgment if you do. But if you want to take the scenic route, here's how to do this with self-compassion.
Notice what's coming up for you. That's mindfulness. Try to label any feelings (you've got to name them to tame them). Sure, there's anger, but what's underneath? Maybe you're feeling hurt. Maybe you're feeling rejected. Perhaps you're feeling inadequate and not good enough. Maybe you're feeling envious and bitter towards Noah's perfect parents. Perhaps you're feeling shame. Just name the emotions. Now, name any physical sensations. The tightening in your chest, the fast heart rate, the urge to cry. Scan through your body and mind and name whatever is going on with words.
Name that it hurts, and remember that you're not alone. That's shared humanity. You might say, "This is hard; any parent would find this hard", or "anyone in my house, brain and body would find this a tough moment". Try to bring to mind an image of the globe and picture the thousands of parents struggling with their teenagers right now. You can say something like, "I'm not alone. Many other parents are struggling with similar feelings".
Send yourself a wish or a gesture of kindness (ideally both). That's self-compassion. You might not feel this organically, but you can say something like, "May all of us struggling with our teenagers have a better day tomorrow" or "May I feel compassion, may I feel relief from this shitty day, may tomorrow be better". Try to put a pin in thoughts that pull you into the "I have to" and "I should". Park it. Do something, anything for yourself in a way that offers care to you. The intention matters - saying, "I did a seven-step skincare routine because I look old and hideous and need to banish these wrinkles" does not count as self-care. Saying, "I'm going to sit down to watch TV and let go of my To Do list for tonight because I deserve to rest" definitely counts.
These three steps are proven by Dr Kristen Neff's research institute as the 3 steps of self-compassion that can help bring our dysregulated systems into a more regulated state. It's not about getting rid of feelings because feelings are a part of life; it's about offering ourselves some soothing kindness and support whilst we ride them out.
(3) Part three: having a 'deferred discipline' conversation with your teen.
The word discipline originally meant to "teach". Biting your tongue and asking open questions does not mean you need to let your adolescent walk all over you or speak to you in ways you find unkind. However, nobody can learn when two triggered brains are shouting across an angry void.
This is why, when we genuinely want to teach and not punish, it is best to "strike while the iron is cold" and decouple discipline from being cross. In other words, wait until you and your teen are completely emotionally regulated (what's that, you ask?). Okay, wait until you are as close to your emotional baseline as possible to have a teachable conversation about what you want to be different ("good enough calm"). A few other conditions must also be met for this to go smoothly. You and your teen need to genuinely have goodwill between you. Do you feel warmth, compassion, playfulness, and curiosity towards them? Or are you still driven by anger, hurt and resentment? Second, your teen needs to be in a regulated enough place to talk to you. If they are in the middle of a Snapchat war, have had a terrible day, feel anxious about a pile of homework or appear low in mood, this is not the right time. If you try to have this conversation and it goes wrong, it's not that the approach didn't work; it's probably that one of these conditions was not met.
Finally, it's important to communicate using the four C's.
Clarity
Compassion
Conciseness
Curiosity
Here's an example:
"Hey, I need to talk to you for a minute; I can wait until you are finished your conversation. How long do you need? It's nothing bad, and it won't take long. Okay, I'll come back in five minutes when you've finished texting your friend".
"So, earlier, when we sat down for dinner, you said something along the lines of, "Not pasta again". I get it; it's disappointing to have the same food over and over again. Maybe you were hoping for something more exciting. It hurt my feelings a bit though, and I take responsibility for my feelings; don’t worry, I am not here to shame you. I also know you didn't mean to hurt me and that you are a good kid. But next time, I'd appreciate it if you could phrase it differently. Maybe you could say something like, "Thanks, Mum, for making dinner. I am feeling a bit disappointed that we're having pasta again, and I just needed to name that". How would that sound?"
"Is there anything else you need me to understand about your perspective?"
"Okay, I promised to keep it short and sweet, so that's all I had to say. Thanks for listening; I really appreciate it. Do you want an extra blanket? Can I hug you goodnight? See you tomorrow. Love you".
So why does this work? Because it induces guilt but not shame in your child. We can learn from healthy guilt; it's an uncomfortable but bearable emotion that teaches essential life lessons. It is a message that says “I am good and loved and accepted but my behaviour needs to be different”. We cannot learn from unhealthy shame; this makes us feel like a bad person, a bad kid, and we shut down and withdraw.
As always, it is much easier said than done. I write out these scenarios in an "ideal" way so that you can hold them in mind, but if you can get close to 50% of this, you are absolutely smashing it.
Parenting teenagers is hard, especially when juggling 5 million and 1 things, and when you have little to no support with several million of them. If you would like to explore options for therapeutic support, you are welcome to check out my therapeutic services page.
Sources and References
The anecdote was inspired by Dr Becky Kennedy's TED talk The Single Most Important Parenting Strategy: Becky Kennedy: The single most important parenting strategy | TED Talk
The concept of biting your tongue ("zipping it") and "striking while the iron is cold" comes from a parenting approach called Non-Violent Resistance developed by Haim Omer. Here is a video on Haim Omer explaining Non-Violent Resistance.
For Dr Dan Siegel's short neuroscientific explanation of what happens to the brain when we "flip our lid" (lash out in anger) and why we should find ways to manage this, check out this video.
For Dr Dan Siegel's short neuroscientific explanation of why we should name emotions to tame them, check out this video.
For more information and resources on self-compassion, visit Dr Kristen Neff's website.
