The DHX: The Doughtie Houses Exchange

Get Out of My Life, but first could you drive me and Cheryl to the mall? by Anthony E. Wolf

“You need confidence, and not confidence that you are making the right decision — nobody can do that — or that you are always in control of the kid — nobody can even come close to doing that. Rather, you need the confidence that you are the right person for the job and that your efforts are definitely not in vain.

“You must understand that what you say does have an impact on your teenager, despite much evidence to the contrary. You must know that you need not be perfect, that you can make mistakes.“ — from the Introduction

This is a great, great book. It’s been on my shelf for a while now waiting to be read since we’re almost into two teenager territory here in Doughtie-land. Last week I got just sick enough to lay around in bed catching up on my reading, and once I started reading this book, I tore right through it.

It talks about the things teenagers do to create distance and assert their independence, and the things they do to maintain dependence — and how and why they swing heavily back and forth. It talks about the baby self and the adult self that are tugging back and forth inside teenagers, and about why parents so often get to see the challenging teenage baby self, while the outside world gets more of the adult self:

“Parents see their children act immature, irresponsible, lazy, and demanding, because the home is the natural realm for expressing the dependent, babyish mode of functioning.

But there is the other self beginning to develop slowly — the independent, mature self. This self reaches out and seeks gratification from meaningful interaction with the world. It sets forth to accomplish something, to develop competence. It is willing to deal with stress, to take on responsibility. It is even willing to hang up coats — but only at school, or at Grandmother’s house. It is usually on view only away from the home, unseen by parents. . .

Ultimately, [teenagers can] act nice toward their parents. But not during adolescence! Then, they very much remain children when they are home. And often, rather nasty children. This is a crucial point: operating in baby-self mode is a way not to separate from the parents.” — from the chapter “What Is Adolescence?

It talks about boys who disappear, whether by retreating into their rooms, staying out all the time, or just laying around doing nothing — literally nothing. It talks about combative girls. (According to this book, fighting with and lying to parents are most common with girls, and disappearing is most common with boys.) It talks about how to exercise and maintain a realistic level of parental influence — how to let them know what’s acceptable and what’s not without getting pulled into out-of-control drama. It’s about teaching and guiding and providing a safety net, while also gently, gently starting to let go.

This is the only book I’ve read so far about parenting teenagers. The main gift this book gave me was a sense of perspective. The kids are great, but I’ve been known to get my feelings hurt by what I’m starting to see is really normal teenage behavior that serves a purpose developmentally for teenagers and has nothing — nothing — to do with me. As a stepmom who is still growing into a sense of security and acceptance in my family this is reassuring. It makes my insecurities start to drain away. And it helps me think about what I can give the kids if what they’re going to be needing over the next few years is to be held very lightly and loosely — if what they’re going to need most from me is freedom — not to have to worry about me feeling rejected. If what they’ll need is to feel the edges of their independence, crash emotionally at home, and then go back out to try their independence again, I may need to shore myself up with lots of unconditional love and affection from other sources, so that I’m not trying to get it from them at the time in their lives when they most need to be striking out in the world and feeling space between themselves and their families. I may need a dog.

Does anyone else have any favorite books they can recommend on the subject?

Tags: teenagers