The teenage years are incredible, amazing, challenging, and confusing … for teens and for their parents. For teens, they are experiencing things like a brain that is “under construction” with a limbic system that’s growing faster than their prefrontal cortex which is “closed for renovations” leading to some supercharged emotions, not always using their best thinking, and changes in neurochemicals that reduce impulse control. Then throw in hormones and body changes!
And our teens are experiencing all of this while navigating the path to developing their identity, managing academic pressures, negotiating social situations, working out their online life and relationship with social media, and growing up in a very different world to the one we grew up in.
It’s tough to work out who you are as a teen. And it can be tough and confusing to be a parent of a teen going through all the developmental changes. One minute they are asking for independence, and the next asking where their favourite shirt is or can they get a ride to a friend’s house. One of the most confusing things about raising teens can be finding the balance between supporting their growing independence and maintaining connection with them.
Our teens might look like mini adults, but they aren’t adults, and they still need adults.
Teens need us as adults to love them, support them, encourage them, and still keep some guardrails on for guidance as they grow through the teen and young adult years. The way we do this definitely changes as our kids grow older, but they still need us because they can’t do all this on their own. In my work with teens and their families, teen development often features in conversations with parents who are trying to navigate the teen years, and I help with understanding the complexity of individual development and also the importance of relationships, connection, support and guardrails.
This is where both my Psychologist and Family Therapist hats come into play. From a psychological perspective, I talk about individuation as an important developmental task and from a family therapy perspective I talk about differentiation – the balance of individuality and connection.
Individuation: Teens Working Out Who They Are
Individuation is a critical developmental process during adolescence where teens start to form their own identity separate from parents and the family unit. It's a natural part of growing up and involves them exploring who they are as an individual—what they believe in, what they value, and how they want to interact with the world.
During this time, your teenager might start to challenge family rules, express different opinions, or seek more privacy. While this can be difficult as a parent, it's important to understand that this process is not about rejecting you, but about your child finding their own voice and place in the world.
As a parent, your role is to provide a safe environment where they can explore these new aspects of themselves while also setting appropriate boundaries. It's a balancing act between giving them the freedom to grow and ensuring they feel supported and understood. This process helps them develop confidence, decision-making skills, and a sense of independence, which are essential as they move towards adulthood.
Individuation is important to understand, but sometimes I worry that the word can be a bit misleading because it gets some people thinking just about the “individual” part of the “individuation” when actually teens need to both “individuate” and also keep connected relationally to their important adults. No human exists in a vacuum, so teens need to learn to develop their identity and sense of self, and also, learn how to navigate various relationship connections – friends, romantic partners, teachers, coaches, employers, neighbours, parents, and family.
Despite being a teen, no matter how grown up they look, they still need guidance and connection with key adults. They need guardrails, love and a safe place to land in turbulent times as they work out what type of person they are going to be, and how the world works. They need a sounding board, and help navigating changes and challenges.
And here’s the thing, balancing individuality and connection can be tricky for us as parents, carers, teachers and mentors, in young people’s lives. In the words of one of my early Family Therapy mentors, “parents are the rocks upon which teenagers sharpen their teeth”. It can sure feel that way sometimes, and that’s why I am such a big advocate of self-care and self-compassion. You deserve to look after yourself because you are a person, and your teens need you to look after yourself so you can show up for them.
Peers or Parents? Both!
Yes, it is absolutely important that teens spend more time with friends and peers and become more independent. But this cannot be at the expense of the parent-child relationship.
“Absolutely clear is that children were meant to revolve around their parents and other adults responsible for them, just as the planets revolve around the sun.”
Neufeld & Mate, 2019: 19
In their book “Hold on to Your Kids” Gordon Neufeld and Gabor Mate talk about the importance of attachment being at the heart of relationships and social functioning. Attachment is incredibly helpful to children and teens for many reasons related to healthy physical, psychological and social development, and acts as a buffer against stresses in life. Effectively, the attachment figure becomes a compass point, although other important adults are also fantastic to have as compass points and what Maggie Dent calls lighthouses.
The risk with not actively maintaining connection with our teens in the balance of connection and independence is that parents can be replaced by peers as the compass point. Kids need to connect to their peers, but other kids don’t make great compass points. They are still working out life themselves, have their own teenage brain, hormones, changes and challenges, and they don’t have the maturity to provide a safe, secure base with love and guardrails. No matter how great the friendship, a peer cannot provide the consistent unconditional love and sense of being known that a parent can.
“Unconditional parental love is the indispensable nutrient for a child’s healthy emotional growth.”
Neufeld and Mate, 2019: 55
And it’s what gives us the power to influence our kids and teens, a power we need to guide them towards maturing into the best version of themselves.
A Change in Parent-Child Relationship
One way to think about the balance of connection and independence is that it is a change in relationship, not a loss of the relationship. Teens need autonomy and independence…
“If we want to encourage our children to be independent thinkers, problem solvers and highly creative humans, they need to be practising freedom and autonomy as often as possible within their childhoods – not spending hours in a highly orchestrated environment that is shaping the way they think and experience life.”
Dent, 2024: 18
… and they still need us!
“The teen years are when our kids are most easily influenced, either positively or negatively.”
Dent, 2024: 21
So let’s make sure we stay connected in ways that help us influence our teens positively.
Here are my top tips for making the relationship change in ways that support growth and independence and still keep you connected:
1. Shift from Director to Coach
When your kids were younger, they needed more direct guidance and instructions. As teenagers, they’re developing their own critical thinking skills, so it’s important to shift from being the director of their lives to more of a coach. This means asking open-ended questions, encouraging them to think through decisions, and providing support rather than skipping straight to lecturing and bottom line limits.
2. Emphasize Open Communication
Teens need to know they can come to you with anything, without fear of judgment or immediate consequences. Focus on creating a safe space for them to express themselves. Use your curiosity, listen more than you talk, and resist the urge to jump in with solutions right away. This helps them feel heard and respected, which is crucial during these years. If they have messed up make sure you separate their behaviour from them as person, and send clear messages that while what happened was not okay you love them as a person and support them.
3. Respect Their Need for Privacy
Teenagers crave privacy as they work on their identity and independence. It’s important to respect this need while still keeping appropriate boundaries. Understand that their request for privacy isn’t a rejection of you but a natural part of their development. Encourage open communication while also allowing them their space, and encourage their connections with other safe, caring adults in their life. And make sure to check with them before posting photos and information about them on your Socials – this can feel like a huge invasion of privacy for a teen.
4. Set Clear but Flexible Boundaries
While teenagers need more freedom, they also still need boundaries to feel safe and secure. The key is to make those boundaries clear but also flexible enough to adapt as they grow. Involve them in the process of setting rules and consequences, which helps them feel more responsible and invested in following them. It’s okay to still have some bottom lines, but teens need to feel heard and understood and bottom lines will land better if you can genuinely do this, and then explain the reasoning behind your bottom line e.g., your family values, safety.
5. Focus on Connection Over Control
During the teenage years, maintaining a strong emotional connection with your child is more important than trying to “control” their behaviour. Show interest in their lives, spend quality time together, and be available when they need you. This connection will help them navigate the challenges of adolescence while knowing they have your support, and it will allow you to have more influence in their lives.
6. Encourage Responsibility and Independence
Give your teenager opportunities to make decisions and take responsibility for their actions. This could be through managing their own schedule, taking on part-time work, or handling more responsibilities at home. This not only builds their confidence but also prepares them for adulthood. It might be hard for you to watch them experience natural consequences when they mess up but that’s where a safe space to land and a supportive conversation come in 😊and where learning happens.
7. Model Emotional Regulation
Teenagers are still learning how to manage their emotions, and they often look to you as a model. Talk about emotions and show them how to handle stress, frustration, and conflict in healthy ways. This helps them develop their own emotional literacy and regulation skills, which are crucial for their well-being. It’s okay for us to have big emotions, we just need to model appropriate ways to manage our feelings and remember that we set the emotional tone for the home and our interactions with our teens.
8. Be Patient and Compassionate
The teenage years are full of changes, not just for your child but for you as well. It’s normal for there to be bumps along the way. Approach these years with patience, understanding, and compassion for both your teenager and yourself. Remember, you’re both learning how to navigate this new stage together.
By adapting your parenting style to meet the needs of your teenager, you’ll help them grow into a confident, independent, and well-adjusted adult while maintaining a strong and supportive relationship with you.
From an Individual Perspective to an Individual and Relational Perspective: Differentiation
Differentiation is the concept in family therapy that refers to the ability of each family member to maintain their own sense of self while staying emotionally connected to the family. It's about being able to hold onto your own beliefs, values, and feelings even when others in the family might feel or think differently.
For your teenager, differentiation is an important part of growing up. They are learning how to be their own person—developing their own identity—while still being part of the family. This means they might sometimes pull away, push back, or assert their independence in ways that can be challenging.
As a parent, it’s important to support this process by allowing your child to express their individuality while also maintaining the emotional bond between you. This can be tough because it requires you to tolerate some level of conflict or difference of opinion without feeling rejected or losing your connection with them. And yep, you might have guessed it, it requires you to work on your own differentiation – your ability to hold onto your values and principles and stay connected to your teen.
You can find out more about developing your own differentiation in this blog
In a well-differentiated family, each person can be close to others while still being true to themselves. This doesn’t mean everyone always agrees, but that differences can be respected and handled in a healthy way. Encouraging differentiation in your teenager helps them develop into a confident, self-assured adult who can have strong, balanced relationships both inside and outside the family.
Parenting: The Best and Hardest Job in the World
If this balance sounds like a tall order, that’s because it is tricky, and what makes it even trickier is that each teen is a unique individual and needs their own balance of independence and connection.
But the good news is that you don’t have to get it right all the time. As parents we just need to show up and when we get it wrong (we call this a rupture), we get to reconnect (we call this repair). The rupture and repair process strengthens relationships.
So, take the pressure off yourself, practice self-compassion, and start experimenting with the balance of independence and connection. This will help you to be the parent you want to be and the parent your teen needs.
Leonie :)
Dr Leonie White - Clinical Family Therapist and Psychologist
Helping people grow, connect and thrive in life’s unique journey.
Please note - this article is educational in nature and does not constitute therapy advice.
Please seek help from a professional if you require support.
Photo Attributions:
Photos from Vecteezy Pro & Canva Pro
To find out more about the incredible teenage brain check out these blogs:https://www.drleoniewhite.com/post/understanding-the-incredible-teenage-brain-part-1
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References and Resources:
Dent, M. (2024). Help Me Help My Teen: Supporting Our Teens Through Tough Times. Pan Macmillan Australia.
Dent, M. (2021). From Boys to Men: Guiding Our Teen Boys to Grow into Happy, Healthy Men. Pan Macmillan Australia: Sydney.
Geidd, J. (2015). The amazing teen brain. Scientific American, June 2015, 32 – 37.
Hohnen, B., Gilmour, J. & Murphy, T. (2020). The Incredible Teenage Brain: Everything You Need to Know to Unlock Your Teen’s Potential. Jessica Kingsley Publishers: London.
Neufeld, G. & Mate, G. (2019). Hold on to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More than Peers. Vermilion: London.
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