How to Talk So Teens Will Listen & Listen So Teens Will Talk

by Adele Faber

  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 our
selves 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.

  Authors’ Note

  This book is based on the many workshops we’ve given around the country and those we’ve run for parents and teenagers, separately and together, in New York and Long Island. To tell our story as simply as possible, we condensed our many groups into one and combined the two of us into one leader. Though we have changed names and rearranged events, we have been faithful to the essential truth of our experience.

  —Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish

  One

  Dealing with Feelings

  I didn’t know what to expect.

  As I ran from the parking lot to the school entrance, I held on tightly to my blowing umbrella and wondered why anyone would leave a warm home on such a cold, miserable night to come to a workshop on teenagers.

  The head of the guidance department greeted me at the door and ushered me into a classroom where roughly twenty parents sat waiting.

  I introduced myself, congratulated them all for braving the bad weather, and distributed name tags for everyone to fill out. As they wrote and chatted with one another, I had a chance to study the group. It was diverse—almost as many men as women, different ethnic backgrounds, some couples, some alone, some in professional attire, some in jeans.

  When everyone seemed ready, I asked people to introduce themselves and tell us a little about their children.

  There was no hesitation. One after the other, parents described kids who ranged in age from twelve to sixteen. Almost everyone commented on the difficulty of coping with teenagers in today’s world. Still, it seemed to me people were being guarded, holding back, making sure they didn’t disclose too much too soon to a room full of strangers.

  “Before we go any further,” I said, “I want to assure you that anything we discuss here will be confidential. Whatever is said within these four walls remains here. It’s no one else’s business whose kid is smoking, drinking, playing hooky, or having sex a lot earlier than we’d wish. Can we all agree to that?”

  Heads nodded in assent.

  “I see us as partners in an exciting venture,” I went on. “My job will be to present methods of communication that can lead to more satisfying relationships between parents and teenagers. Your job will be to test these methods—to put them into action in your home and report back to the group. What was or wasn’t helpful? What did or didn’t work? By joining forces, we’ll determine the most effective ways to help our kids make that tough transition from childhood to adulthood.”

  I paused here for the group’s reaction. “Why does it have to be a ‘tough transition’?” a father protested. “I don’t remember having such a hard time when I was a teenager. And I don’t remember giving my parents a hard time.”

  “That’s because you were an easy kid,” said his wife, grinning and patting his arm.

  “Yeah, well maybe it was easier to be ‘easy’ when we were teenagers,” another man commented. “There’s stuff going on today that was unheard of back then.”

  “Suppose we all go back to ‘back then’,” I said. “I think there are things we can learn from our own adolescence that might give us some insight into what our kids are experiencing today. Let’s start by trying to remember what was best about that time in our lives.”

  Michael, the man who had been the “easy kid,” spoke first. “The best part for me was sports and hanging out with friends.”

  Someone else said, “For me it was the freedom to come and go. Getting on a subway by myself. Going to the city. Getting on a bus and going to the beach. Total fun!”

  Others chimed in. “Being allowed to wear high heels and makeup and that whole excitement over boys. Me and my girlfriends would have a crush on the same guy, and it was, ‘Do you think he likes me or do you think he likes you?’ “

  “Life was so easy then. I could sleep till noon on weekends. No worries about getting a job, paying the rent, supporting a family. And no worries about tomorrow. I knew I could always count on my parents.”

  “For me it was a time to explore who I was and experiment with different identities and dream about the future. I was free to fantasize, but I also had the safety of my family.”

  One woman shook her head. “For me,” she said ruefully, “the best part of adolescence was growing out of it.”

  I looked at her name tag. “Karen,” I said, “it sounds as if that wasn’t the greatest time in your life.”

  “Actually,” she said, “it was a relief to be done with it.”

  “Done with what?” someone asked.

  Karen shrugged before answering. “Done with worrying about being accepted … and trying too hard … and smiling too hard so people would like me … and never really fitting in … always feeling like an outsider.”

  Others quickly built upon her theme, including some who only moments before had spoken glowingly of their teen years:

  “I can relate to that. I remember feeling so awkward and insecure. I was overweight back then and hated the way I looked.”

  “I know I mentioned my excitement over boys, but the truth is, it was more like an obsession—liking them, breaking up with them, losing friends because of them. Boys were all I ever thought about, and my grades showed it. I almost didn’t graduate.”

  “My problem in those days was the pressure I was under from the other guys to do stuff I knew was wrong or dangerous. I did a lot of stupid things.”

  “I remember always feeling confused. Who am I? What are my likes? My dislikes? Am I true or am I a copycat? Can I be my own person and still be accepted?”

  I liked this group. I appreciated their honesty. “Tell me,” I asked, “during those roller-coaster years, was there anything your parents said or did that was helpful to you?”

  People searched their memories.

  “My parents never yelled at me in front of my friends. If I did something wrong, like coming home really late, and my friends were with me, my parents waited until they were gone. Then they’d let me have it.�
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  “My father used to say things to me like, ‘Jim, you have to stand up for your beliefs … When in doubt, consult your conscience … Never be afraid to be wrong or you’ll never be right.’ I used to think, ‘There he goes again,’ but sometimes I really did hang on to his words.”

  “My mother was always pushing me to improve. ‘You can do better … Check it again … Do it over.’ She didn’t let me get away with anything. My father, on the other hand, thought I was perfect. So I knew who to go to for what. I had a good mix.”

  “My parents insisted I learn all kinds of different skills—how to balance a checkbook, change a tire. They even made me read five pages of Spanish a day. I resented it then, but ended up getting a good job because I knew Spanish.”

  “I know I shouldn’t be saying this, because there are probably a lot of working mothers here, including me, but I really liked having my mother there when I got home from school. If anything upsetting happened to me during the day, I could always tell her about it.”

  “So,” I said, “many of you experienced your parents as being very supportive during your adolescent years.”

  “That’s only half the picture,” Jim said. “Along with my father’s positive sayings, there was plenty of stuff that hurt. Nothing I did was ever good enough for him. And he let me know it.”

  Jim’s words opened the floodgates. Out poured a torrent of unhappy memories:

  “I got very little support from my mother. I had a lot of problems and needed guidance badly, but all I ever got from her were the same old stories: ‘When I was your age…’ After a while I learned to keep everything inside.”

  “My parents used to lay these guilt trips on me: ‘You’re our only son …We expect more from you … You’re not living up to your potential.’ “