Program: My teen hates me

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Sam: I was waiting and hoping that somewhere in this trip something would click, like it used to, but it just, it just didn't this time.

Bec Sparrow: During the early years, we are the rock stars in our kids' lives. They just can't get enough of us. They follow us around like groupies, demanding our attention, always happy to see us and keen for a cuddle. And then the teenage years hit.

Bec Sparrow: And suddenly the kid that couldn't get enough of us has turned into a surly stranger that doesn't want to know us. So why do teens pull away? How can we deal with the grief of that as parents and carers? And what can we do to reconnect, especially at a time when they actually need us just as much as ever?

Bec Sparrow: Hi, I'm Bec Sparrow, and in this Parental As Anything: Teens, we are talking about what to do when you feel like your teen hates you. Think slammed doors, rolled eyes and a vibe that you're, well, just super embarrassing. Oh!

Bec Sparrow: This mum, Sam, which is the name we're giving all our parents, says that her relationship with her son isn't what it used to be.

Sam: When we went on holidays, often just the two of us, it was a bit of a ritual. We would always go to the museums, to the zoo, to the art gallery. And those times were really quite special to me. And I was very excited because I thought I'm going to take him to the NGV, to the National Victoria Gallery. I thought there were lots of pieces he would normally be interested in, but he just walked straight past them. And we got outside almost as quickly as we could.

Sam: I felt really sad because I saw this as a time when we do things together. So it was something that we had that was ours. And sorry, I'm getting a bit emotional about this.

Bec Sparrow: Yeah.

Sam: You know, it was a connection and a depth and how he felt that I felt just disappeared. And it was a time when he and I would have fun together. It would be fun. Whereas now it wasn't fun anymore. It was distance. I was being a nuisance more than anything else.

Bec Sparrow: Oh, that's got to break your heart. So your teenager is not wanting a bar of you. What can we do to get at least a little bit closer to them and connect?

Bec Sparrow: Dr Justin Coulson has been there. He's a dad of six and a parenting expert who has written books about how to raise happy families. Justin, what is going on for teens to make them pull away from their parents?

Justin Coulson: This is a normal and natural part of growing up in Western society. And it seems even to be part of life for adolescents generally. Kids, as they grow, they start to develop their own sense of identity. The easiest way to prove that you are your own person is to start to differentiate yourself from the people around you, to say no or to simply stop engaging with your parents. That's the easiest way to say, I'm me and you can't make me.

Bec Sparrow: And what age would you say that it usually starts, Justin?

Justin Coulson: Not every child will do this to their parents. It depends on the development of the child. It depends on their peer group. It depends on their relationship with their parents. But it could start somewhere around 11 and it might start as late as 13 or 14.

Bec Sparrow: OK, so pulling away is a normal part of the teenage experience. As parents, though, should we be fighting it at all or should we just be going, 'All right, off you go, soldier, you go your way, I'll go mine'? Or should we be trying to keep them close?

Justin Coulson: Force creates resistance. The harder you push for something, the more your teenager will discover that they have some power over you. If you give them a whole lot of attention and a whole lot of emphasis on, but why don't you do this anymore? And I really miss this. Many kids will say, aha, this is something that is working. This is something where I can differentiate. This is something where I've, I've kind of got the ace up my sleeve. I can leverage this. And unfortunately, that happens a fair bit.

Bec Sparrow: Yeah. OK, so we definitely heard that in Sam's story, where something that she really used to love doing with her son, like going to, I think it was galleries and museums, suddenly became something that her son started to pull away from. So is there any way we can kind of prevent this fracturing from happening in the first place?

Justin Coulson: I was doing a talk at a school. This dad came up to me at the end of the night and he basically said, 'I don't know what happened to my 13-year-old son. We used to be best mates and now he'll barely talk to me.' And I said to him, you're not going to be able to step back into your relationship with your son tonight and expect that one interaction is going to make it all better if your relationship has slowly, but surely, ebbed, you're not going to sit down and have one conversation with the kids and everything come back to normal. It's going to take a sustained effort to rebuild a healthy relationship. And it won't ever be what it was.

Bec Sparrow: So, Justin, what would you say are the biggest mistakes that you see parents making in the teen years in terms of trying to connect with their kids?

Justin Coulson: The first is parents trying to be best friends with their kids. Doesn't work. Not your job. It's wonderful to have a great relationship with your children, but you're not supposed to be their best friend. You're supposed to be their parent. And as a parent, we have got to be their prefrontal cortex.

Bec Sparrow: Oh, my God. The teenage brain is definitely not the one we want making decisions without some kind of parental guidance. OK, so be the parent, not the bestie. What's the second common mistake?

Justin Coulson: There's way too much correction and direction and not enough connection. When I talk about correction and direction, I'm talking about do this, do that. Not just having limits and boundaries, but being on your kids case all the time about those limits and boundaries. That's correction and direction. Connection is a feeling of being seen and heard and valued.

Bec Sparrow: How does that work, though, in practice, in the rush of day-to-day life?

Justin Coulson: We look at our teenager and we keep on getting them in trouble because they can't get up on time or they can't keep their room tidy or they've lost three school jumpers this year. It's not even the middle of winter yet. And so we get on our kid's case about all this stuff because now that they're adolescents, we kind of see them as miniature adults. They're pretty much there now. They should be able to get all this right. They're not there. And the more we hassle them, the more we correct them and direct them, the more the relationship falls apart. What we need instead is connection.

Bec Sparrow: Can I just say I have really struggled with this. Clearly, I've realised I'm a really big correction person. And it's just my personality. So I've had to work really hard on it because over the years, I've given my kids the impression of, I don't know, you haven't done this. You haven't done that. What are you doing over there? And I think about it and like, of course, they're going to make mistakes and stuff up. And you know who wants to be parented by a police officer? Nobody. I'm like an angry police officer at home.

Justin Coulson: Here's the thing, Bec. Kids need limits. They need boundaries, frameworks, structures and systems. But to become a good human requires making a lot of mistakes. Who do I want to have around me when I'm making those mistakes? Do I want someone who pounces on me and tells me that I'm getting it wrong again and that I'm this or I'm that? Or is it going to be more helpful for me if I have somebody who is compassionate and kind who says, you're really struggling. We still have boundaries. We still have limits. But I'm here for you. I've got you. I've got your back. You can trust me.

Bec Sparrow: And I find that focus on connection really hard - I'm just being honest here - really hard in the mornings, right? When it's a mad rush to get out the door and everyone's just a bit frazzled.

Justin Coulson: I love to ask parents, just think about this morning with your teenager. And most people will say, 'oh, it's like 90 percent correction and direction and 10 percent connection'. It's about doing the things that create the relationship. When you get involved in correction and direction to this level, what you do is you undermine trust.

Bec Sparrow: Trust. OK, so what do you mean by that in relation to our kids?

Justin Coulson: My definition of trust is believing that the other person will act in your best interests. And when teenagers are constantly being told what to do and they think, 'you don't get me, you don't see me or hear me or value me. You don't understand me. Therefore, I can't trust you. I don't think you're going to act in my best interests. I don't think you've got my back.' That's the great challenge that we have. Too much correction, too much control, too much command and not enough connection.

Bec Sparrow: I've noticed myself that I'm always, I just feel like I'm always rushing around and my head has about a thousand tabs open. So then for me and probably for lots of other people, it just feels really hard to find big chunks of time to just sit and hang out with my kids every day. And so instead, what I'm doing is I'm looking for moments of micro connection. And that might be listening to our favourite music in the car on the way to school. Or with one of my kids, we have a little ritual of something that we say to each other when he gets out of the car to head off for his day. And one of my other kids, his face lights up if I have his favourite snack in the car when he gets in the car at the end of the day, it makes his day. And I say, yes, as much as I can. Yes, I'll come and look at this drawing. Yes, I'll look at the game you just coded. Yes, I want to hear that joke. Because usually when I say yes, they don't usually want more than two minutes of my time and I can give them that attention.

Sam: We're going on a little holiday together where he's going to have to spend some time with just me. I already tried to see if we could take a friend so that he would have someone to do stuff with because he's really not keen to do things with me anymore. And, you know, I partly expect this to happen, but it's difficult because I don't feel like I know how to connect with him. And I don't know whether just being mum and still just doing the things that I do are the things that I need to keep doing because that's what he knows and that's his mum. And that's a comfort just in itself, even though he finds it annoying.

Bec Sparrow: Justin, Sam is heartbroken about the changing relationship with her son, and it's like grief for parents, isn't it, when a child pulls away?

Justin Coulson: It really is. That's the perfect word for it. I've got three adult children now. I've experienced it. I've watched it happen. I've felt it happen. It really is grief. The beautiful thing is we can restore the relationship. And while it requires effort, the thing that's much harder is it requires humility. It demands of us a willingness to let go of our pride and engage with our children in meaningful ways, ways that work for them. And I'll tell you what, sometimes that's really hard, especially when your teenager looks at you and goes, 'well, I don't care, not interested.' There's deep grief around that.

Sam: I want to keep showing interest in his life. He's just started Year 7, and, you know, it's like 20 questions at dinner time. What's going on for you? What's happening for you at school? What's happening with your friends? What are they like? What are you doing? Sort of thing.

Sam: But I just don't know whether just keep asking those questions, showing him that I'm interested in his life, whether I still do that or whether I need to sort of let that go a little bit so that he doesn't feel like I need to know every little bit of his, what he's thinking and what his life is like. I don't know whether I'm actually pushing him away by doing that or actually keeping him to know that his mum's still interested.

Bec Sparrow: No, I understand completely. It can feel like we're in a one-way relationship with our teen and we're all keen to know about them and to be involved. We're like Labradors and they're just not into us.

Bec Sparrow: OK, Justin, what advice would you have for parents who are wanting to really show that they're there for their kids and to reestablish connection?

Justin Coulson: The first thing that I would say is that you cannot force this. They'll sniff that desperation. And unfortunately, adolescents aren't known for their compassion. When your kids get in the car at the end of the day, don't try to create a conversation that's not there. A lot of parents will say, 'well, the kids just get in the car, and when I ask them how the day was, they grunt. They don't even answer. They just say, hmm. And that's it.'

Bec Sparrow: Oh, I hear you. I have a child who gets in the car and I'm like, how was your day? And they're like, 'yep, good'. This is what I've learned. There's a time and a place isn't there in trying to get our teens to talk to us.

Justin Coulson: When you walk into the house at the end of a long day and your significant other says to you, 'hey, tell me about your day'. Do you look at them at 5.30 or 6.30 at night and say, 'So glad you asked. Let me tell you everything that happened. I'm ready.' Like that's just not a normal response. What we usually do as adults is look at them and say, 'not now. I'll tell you later.' That's kind of all we give them. We need time to decompress.

Bec Sparrow: Yeah. And our kids need the same, don't they? I mean, I can totally relate to Sam peppering her son with 20 questions at dinner time. As parents, we get so desperate for information. We just keep going, hoping they'll open up to us with the right question. But, but there are ways to ask that feel less confrontational for teens. And I find places where you can have conversations without eye contact are great, you know, driving, walking the dog or even starting by asking about their mates can really get them to open up in a way that feels less direct. What else do you recommend?

Justin Coulson: Find ways to connect with them that feel good to them. Maybe you set up a weekly date at their favourite cafe - and just chatting. No agenda. As parents, we always have an agenda. Drop the agenda. Just check in. What's been happening? Love to find out. Here's what's going on for me. And if they don't feel like talking, that's fine. Just sit in silence with them. Sometimes you might literally sit on the couch and watch their favourite show side by side. And now you've got something to talk about tomorrow over breakfast when you say, 'I was just thinking about that episode'.

Bec Sparrow: I love this, Justin, because teens can totally tell. Their radar goes up if they think we're coming in to have some kind of hardcore, deep and meaningful with them. They are instantly suspicious. So I think hanging out with our teen in a no-pressure situation so they can kind of know, you know, oh, we're around. If and when they do want to talk, they can just sort of initiate it with us. That is such a good idea. And we know that what teenagers really want more than anything is time with us. Now, obviously, it doesn't always seem that way. So we need to find ways to sort of get into their world a bit. Even if it's, I don't know, gaming or shooting hoops or something that isn't your favourite thing, but it's theirs and you're doing it together.

Justin Coulson: One night every week in our family, we have a screen free night where we all sit around the table and play games and talk and eat treats and just have fun as a family. This is what we need to schedule, calendar, lock in. And if the kids haven't done it before and they're a little bit hesitant, start really small. It could just be that Friday morning, grabbing a hot chocolate on the way to school and leaving 15 minutes early. So you've got time to talk over that hot choccy.

Bec Sparrow: Justin, what would be your final words to parents who are going through this period of distance or changing relationship with their teen and they're feeling a bit sad for themselves? What would you say to them?

Justin Coulson: There are going to be some times when your children just behave in really frustrating ways, sometimes atrocious ways. Sometimes they'll be disrespectful to their siblings or to you. Sometimes they'll simply ignore you and treat you like you are nothing. My recommendation in these circumstances is to - don't react in the moment. Go for a walk with them or sit on the end of the bed and just share with them how you're feeling.

Bec Sparrow: That is so hard, isn't it? To keep in control and breathe through it when our teens are totally pressing our buttons, especially at the end of a long day. I find that often it can be actually be at the end of the day when teens are lying in bed and it's dark and they've had some time to think and process their day. And that is actually a moment when they really want to talk to us.

Justin Coulson: Then I want you to share with them the three most important words that any kid can ever hear from their parent, regardless of their age. Those three most important words are not what everyone always thinks they are. I love you. It's not what I'm going to say. It's the three words that come next. Look at your child in the eye and say, kiddo, I love you no matter what. Let them know that it's unconditional. No matter how many doors are slammed, no matter how many disrespectful conversations are had, your love is bigger than any of those things. I love you no matter what is the most important thing that you can do for your relationship with your child.

Bec Sparrow: Oh, you know what? I have a little thing with my 10-year-old that we have a sort of a saying that we do. But it's always I love you all the way around the universe, no matter what. Yeah, because I learned that from you.

Justin Coulson: Thanks, Bec.

Bec Sparrow: So if he's screwed up, I'm blaming you.

Justin Coulson: It's all right, I've got public indemnity. I've got liability insurance. It's okay.

Bec Sparrow: I think the no matter what is so powerful.

Justin Coulson: Yeah.

Bec Sparrow: If you are feeling like your teen hates you or like you just don't know them anymore, join the queue, take a number and get in line. This is parenting. Remember, it's actually a normal part of human development when your teen is trying to work out who they are as an individual. And part of that is distancing themselves from us. But you can still actually have a close relationship with them.

Bec Sparrow: Try not - I've got to listen to this one - try not to be the nagging parent all the time or focus on all the things your teens are doing wrong. Instead, what we've got to try and do is try and connect with them in little ways by noticing their positive behaviour, acknowledging that they are having a stressful time and showing them that you care.

Bec Sparrow: Build family rituals, things that are familiar and safe and loving, like grabbing a weekly hot chocolate or taco Tuesdays or Friday family movie night. Those things matter.

Bec Sparrow: Now, even if it doesn't seem like it, our teens just want one thing. Time with us. So persist through those eye rolls. And even if it doesn't feel good between you right now, there will come a time when they will come back. I promise.

Bec Sparrow: Thank you to Dr Justin Coulson for his insight and his tips. And of course, to Sam for sharing her story with us.

Bec Sparrow: And speaking of staying close to our teens, do you have a special hack or idea that you can share with other parents on how you stay connected with your teen?

Bec Sparrow: We're putting together a really special episode, sharing your tips and tricks with other parents. Send us a voice note or an email to teens@abc.net.au.

Bec Sparrow: This podcast was recorded on the traditional lands of the Turrbal and Yaggara peoples.

Bec Sparrow: Parental As Anything: Teens is mixed by Ann-Marie de Bettencor. It's produced by Hannah Reich and Josie Sargent. The supervising producer is Tamar Cranswick, and Alex Lollback is the executive producer. Make sure you follow us on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts.