How to Talk So Teens Will Listen & Listen So Teens Will Talk Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish As parents, our need is to be needed; as teenagers their need is not to need us. This conflict is real; we experience it daily as we help those we love become independent of us. —DR. HAIM G. GINOTT, Between Parent and Teenager (THE MACMILLAN COMPANY, 1969) Contents We’d Like to Thank … How This Book Came to Be Authors’ Note One Dealing with Feelings Two We’re Still “Making Sure” Three To Punish or Not to Punish Four Working It Out Together Five Meeting the Kids Six About Feelings, Friends, and Family Seven Parents and Teens Together Eight Dealing with Sex and Drugs Next Time We Meet… Additional Reading That May Be Helpful To Learn More … Index About the Author Other Books by this Author Copyright About the Publisher We’d Like to Thank… Our families and friends, for their patience and understanding during the long writing process and for being nice enough not to ask, “So when exactly do you think you’ll be finished?” The parents in our workshops, for their willingness to try new ways of communicating with their families and for reporting their experiences back to the group. The stories they shared were an inspiration to us and to one another. The teenagers we worked with, for everything they told us about themselves and their world. Their honest input gave us invaluable insights into their concerns. Kimberly Ann Coe, our amazing artist, for taking all our stick figures and the words we put in their mouths and transforming them into a wonderfully varied cast of characters who bring the words to life. Bob Markel, our literary agent and dear friend, for his enthusiasm for our project from the very beginning and for his unwavering support as we worked our way through the endless drafts that shaped this book. Jennifer Brehl, our editor. Like the “perfect parent,” she believed in us, affirmed our best, and respectfully pointed out where we might make “good” even better. She was right—every time. Dr. Haim Ginott, our mentor. The world has changed dramatically since his passing, but his conviction that “to reach humane goals we need humane methods” remains forever true. How This Book Came to Be The need was there, but for a long time we didn’t see it. Then letters like this began to arrive: Dear Adele and Elaine, HELP! When my kids were little, How to Talk… was my Bible. But they ‘re eleven and fourteen now, and I find myself facing a whole new set of problems. Have you thought about writing a book for parents of teenagers? Soon after there was a phone call: “Our civic association is planning its annual Family Day Conference and we were hoping you’d be willing to give the keynote address on how to deal with teenagers.” We hesitated. We had never presented a program that focused exclusively on teenagers before. Yet the idea intrigued us. Why not? We could give an overview of the basic principles of effective communication, only this time we’d use teenage examples and demonstrate the skills by role-playing with one another. It’s always a challenge to present new material. You can never be sure if the audience will connect with it. But they did. People listened intently and responded enthusiastically. During the question-and-answer period they asked our views on everything from curfews and cliques to back talk and grounding. Afterward we were surrounded by a small group of parents who wanted to talk to us privately. “I’m a single mom, and my thirteen-year-old son has started hanging out with some of the worst kids in the school. They’re into drugs and who knows what else. I keep telling him to stay away from them, but he won’t listen. I feel as if I’m fighting a losing battle. How do I get through to him?” “I am so upset. I saw an e-mail my eleven-year-old daughter received from a boy in her class: ‘I want to sex you. I want to put my dinky in your cha-cha.’ I don’t know what to do. Should I call his parents? Should I report it to the school? What should I say to her?” “I’ve just found out my twelve-year-old is smoking pot. How do I confront her?” “I’m scared to death. I was cleaning up my son’s room and found a poem he wrote about suicide. He’s doing well in school. He has friends. He doesn’t seem unhappy. But maybe there’s something I’m not seeing. Should I let him know I found his poem?” “My daughter has been spending a lot of time online lately with this sixteen-year-old boy. At least, he says he’s sixteen, but who knows? Now he wants to meet her. I think I should go with her. What do you think?” On the car ride home we talked nonstop: Look at what these parents are up against!… What a different world we live in to-day!…But have times really changed that much? Didn’t we and our friends worry about sex and drugs and peer pressure and, yes, even suicide when our kids were going through their adolescence? But somehow what we had heard tonight seemed worse, scarier. There was even more to worry about. And the problems were starting earlier. Maybe because puberty was starting earlier. A few days later there was another phone call, this time from a school principal: “We’re currently running an experimental program for a group of students in both our middle school and high school. We’ve given a copy of How to Talk So Kids Will Listen to each of the parents in the program. Because your book has been so helpful, we were wondering if you’d be willing to meet with the parents and conduct a few workshops for them.” We told the principal we’d give it some thought and get back to her. Over the next few days we reminisced with each other about the teenagers we once knew best—our own. We turned back time and summoned up memories of our children’s adolescent years that we had long since locked away—the dark moments, the bright spots, and the times we held our breath. Little by little, we reentered the emotional terrain of yesteryear and reexperienced the same anxieties. Once again we pondered what made this stage of life so difficult. It wasn’t as if we hadn’t been warned. From the time our kids were born we heard, “Enjoy them now while they’re still small”…“Little children, little problems; big children, big problems.” Over and over again we were told that one day this sweet child of ours would turn into a sullen stranger who would criticize our taste, challenge our rules, and reject our values. So even though we were somewhat prepared for changes in our children’s behavior, no one prepared us for our feelings of loss. Loss of the old, close relationship. (Who is this hostile person living in my home?) Loss of confidence. (Why is he acting this way? Is it something I’ve done … or haven’t done?) Loss of the satisfaction of being needed. (“No, you don’t have to come. My friends will go with me.”) Loss of the sense of ourselves as all-powerful protectors who could keep our children safe from harm. (It’s past midnight. Where is she? What is she doing? Why isn’t she home yet?) And even greater than our sense of loss was our fear. (How do we get our kids through these difficult years? How do we get ourselves through?) If that was the way it was for us a generation ago, what must it be like for mothers and fathers today? They’re raising their kids in a culture that is meaner, ruder, cruder, more materialistic, more sexualized, more violent than ever before. Why wouldn’t today’s parents feel overwhelmed? Why wouldn’t they be driven to extremes? It’s not hard to understand why some react by getting tough—why they lay down the law, punish any transgression, however minor, and keep their teens on a short leash. We can also understand why others would give up, why they’d throw up their hands, look the other way, and hope for the best. Yet both of these approaches—“Do as I say” or “Do what you want”— cut off the possibility of communication. Why would any young person be open with a parent who is punitive? Why would he seek guidance from a parent who is permissive? Yet our teenagers’ well-being—sometimes their very safety—lies in having access to the thoughts and values of their parents. Teenagers need to be able to express their doubts, confide their fears, and explore options with a grown-up who will listen to them nonjudgmentally and help them make responsible decisions. Who, other than Mom and/or Dad, will be there for them day in, day out, through those critical years to help them counter the seductive messages of the media? Who will help them resist the pressure of their peers? Who will help them cope with the cliques and cruelties, the longing for acceptance, the fear of rejection, the terrors, excitement, and confusion of adolescence? Who will help them struggle with the push to conform and the pull to be true to themselves? Living with teenagers can be overwhelming. We know. We remember. But we also remember how we hung on during those turbulent years to the skills we had learned and how they helped us navigate the roughest waters without going under. Now it was time to pass on to others what had been so meaningful to us. And to learn from this current generation what would be meaningful to them. We called the principal and scheduled our first workshop for parents of teenagers.