Expert says there is a precise science that can support parents in those ticklish moments with teens.

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Navigating the world of teenage communication is a constant battle for every parent. Despite best intentions, it’s not uncommon to feel somewhat lost in understanding and supporting them through these vulnerable years.

However, Melanie Medland, a neuro-linguistic programming practitioner, doesn’t see it this way – and says there is a precise science that can be applied to talking to teens.

Dominic Bowden sat down with Melanie for WellBeings for her insight into their growing worlds and shed some light on how parents and those with teenagers in their lives can understand and communicate with their blossoming adolescents.

The world we live in, it feels in some ways that it’s getting harder. So, from your perspective, why do you think that is?

There’s lots of reasons. One is that we don’t have a lot of knowledge about some of the things that our teenagers are going through now. The world has changed so significantly from when we were teenagers, so some of the things our teenagers are dealing with, like social media or sexual identity or porn, as parents, we don’t have a point of reference from a direct experience. We don’t get it. While we can understand what they’re going through, we don’t know what it is that they’re going through. So there’s this disconnect and it’s one of the reasons parents can struggle to find the words for some of these conversations.

The big thing you can do is focus on patterns of communication. There are these patterns of communication that just pop out of our mouths, most often when we’re under stress. It’s almost like you’re on default. I don’t know if you’ve ever been in the position of firing back a comment to someone and then thinking later: “Gee, I sounded just like my dad” or “I sounded just like my mom”.

It’s these little, short patterns that often get us into trouble because they paint us as an authority. If we use them all the time, then over time that kind of chips away at a reciprocal relationship. So when our kids are little and we are the person who’s in charge to keep them safe, that’s absolutely 100 per cent necessary and really useful. But, as they get older and they can start to come up with their own solutions to problems, we want to develop those problem-solving muscles as opposed to jumping in and try to fix things for them.

I think every parent just wants to put a Band-Aid on someone’s knee and kiss it better and end a problem. But, when they get to be teenagers, of course you can’t do that. So when your kids are little, it’s more of a vertical relationship. When they’re teenagers, you’re wanting to aim for not quite a horizontal relationship, but something in the middle.

When you talk about this changing world, the big one that jumps out is technology. I was speaking to a friend about this and we were wondering what today’s “Three out of four doctors smoke Camels” will be? In 20 years, when we look back, my feeling is it will be be around technology, and the readily open access that our younger generation have to these things. What’s your take?

For starters, we as parents are on the back foot a little bit already with technology because we are not native users of it, but our kids are. So they’re usually way better than we are when it comes to using technology. So already we are on the back foot. We are trying to get some understanding of what’s going on, and we are coming in trying to control their technology use and the way in which they use it, which in some ways is great. I’m not saying throw out the boundaries, but we’re coming in and setting boundaries without spending some time consulting with them, finding out what their thoughts are, acknowledging what their needs are and where they’re coming from. We’re coming in with our size nine boots on and going, stomp, stomp, okay, here’s this boundary and this is how it’s going to be. So exploring the use of technology is the perfect opportunity for opening up these conversations without using these roadblocks.

A common phrase is: “If you don’t listen to the little things when they’re little, they won’t tell you the big things when they’re teenagers”. Do you believe this? Is there some science behind that?

Yes, 100 per cent. I believe it comes down to listening. The work that I’m doing now is building on something that was around in the 70s and 80s – parenting effectiveness training, which is all about messages and active listening. So some of this work isn’t new at all. It’s been around before, but now it’s backed by more research.

This saying is true because what I hear the most from our young people is just “my parents don’t listen to me”. It’s not that we, as parents, don’t want to listen to them, it’s more that we don’t know how to listen to them to such an extent that our young person feels acknowledged and seen and heard.

We might listen briefly and then we leap in with one of these roadblocks, like with a solution to fix it, or “this is what you should do”, or “this is my opinion”. We might listen and then respond with something that’s a bit sarcastic, or we might listen and come in with a judgement, or we might listen and we might deny it, or, or we might listen and come in with a whole lot of condemnations and this whole pile of rapid fire responses. Those patterns take away the opportunity for parents to sit down and explore an issue when it comes up and see it as a learning opportunity.

I’ve got three kids. My eldest is 21, my twins are 19, and they’re nice kids, but over the years we’ve had some issues that I would rather that we hadn’t. However, it’s the way in which you deal with them as they happen and as they unfold and the learnings that you and your teenager can take out of it. The way that you can use these hiccups to deepen your relationship and to be able to grow some communication there so that, when things go wrong, they know that you’re not going to come in and cut them off; they know that you’re going to be able to come in and listen to them and let them figure things out.

The name for my company, Beautiful Conversations, came from a comment my eldest daughter made after she had this big thing that she wanted to think about and this huge decision to make. We were talking about it and at the end of our talk, which was probably maybe 10-15 minutes long, she just looked at me and she said: “Oh, thanks mom, that was really beautiful.” Then she went off and made her own decision and figured things out – but she just needed that space to sound out. It’s a real privilege to be able to know that, when they’ve got these things to deal with, they actually will come and talk to you.

When your kids were younger, what do you wish that you knew then that you know now?

My number one piece of advice: Close your mouth. Just zip it. We’ve got one mouth and two ears, and we need to use them in proportion. So listen twice as much as we talk.

We don’t know how to process a lot of what’s happening right now, and we look out to the world and there’s just so much going on. It can be overwhelming. It can create anxiety, depression, or a feeling of not having control. When you talk about being a teenager and add all this on top of it, what are the things we can all do, not just for the teenagers in our world but everyone?

So this is quite large and life-changing potentiality, but I think the biggest thing is to understand that you yourself don’t actually have the answers. And especially as parents, we think we know what’s best for our young person and, yes, we know our young person really well, so we are in this beautiful position to guide them – but actually they have the answers.

So if we are able to acknowledge where it is that they’re at and we’re wanting to guide them along, then we just need to listen and hold that space for them to sort their own thoughts out. Then we’re going to be able to guide them by leaving our stuff alone. It’s all about their stuff and they often have really good sensible answers, which will come when they’re listened to.

So it’s almost like I mentally stand myself in a hula hoop. If my feet are standing inside a hula hoop and I look down, I think, well, what are the things that I’m responsible for? What are the things that I can control? My responses are something I can be responsible for.

So instead of just reacting to what they’re telling me, I can choose to take a breath and to listen and to not react, but to be able to respond. There’s a lot of things outside of the circle, but they are not my business. What’s inside the circle is how I respond to what’s going on around me. So some things I can choose to leave out of the circle and other things that are more important, I can take them on board while I’m responding to something.

So just think about what it is that you can control and how you can set things up so that life will flow a bit easier. This is just from the handful of things that are in your control, not trying to solve every problem for everyone.

For more information: beautifulconversations.co.nz