Consider two common war cries of the adolescent age: "You can't make me or stop me!" "I don't care what you think!" Both are declarations of independence.
With the first war cry, the teenager lets parents know that she alone makes her decisions. This is true. Parental commands and prohibitions will only work if the teenager decides to cooperate with what they want. Compliance with their wishes requires her consent. While they are still in authority, she lets them know that from here on she is firmly in self-control. The cost of this assertion is not just more conflict with parents over to what degree she is going to live on their terms, but a scary realization that she is now at the mercy of her own inexperienced decision making. She has more freedom of choice than she can safely manage, and she knows it, which is why she continues to give so much consent to the family structure parents impose?for her own protection.
The second war cry is more complicated to honestly give because emotional independence of parental opinion and approval is harder to come by. "I don't care what you think!" is easier to say than to truly feel. Spoken in anger, this statement is an effort to emancipate the young person from the tyranny of pleasing parents that she felt bound by in childhood, a tyranny she must to some degree overthrow when she enters adolescence and needs to start doing more as she independently pleases.
Adolescence takes courage because the child must court and endure a greater degree of parental disapproval than in childhood. Driven by needs for separation (less communication), opposition (more argument), and differentiation (more experimentation), the adolescent begins redefining herself and her relationship to parents by letting the "bad child" out. "Bad" doesn't mean immoral, evil, or unlawful, but simply more abrasive to live with than in childhood.
The adolescent statement "I don't care what you think!" is an attempt to ease the heartache over parental approval that is necessarily sacrificed as she pushes against and pulls away from them to assert more independence and develop more individuality?the twin tasks of adolescence.
Unwittingly, when parents test the adolescent statement about not caring what they think by saying something critical, they get an even more explosive response: "I hate it when you criticize me!" Wonder the parents: "If she doesn't care what we think, how come she hates it when we criticize?" The answer is that she wishes she didn't care what parents think, but deep inside, the defiant adolescent still harbors an abiding desire to shine in parental eyes.
It is hard to gather the courage to sufficiently overthrow the tyranny of pleasing parents that was embraced in childhood, and the mutual admiration society that was once enjoyed, so that the more disenchanting work of adolescence can begin. The desire to strive for parental approval and to avoid parental disapproval is very hard to entirely dislodge. So in counseling I hear teenage complaints like "I wish I could stop wanting to please my dad!" "I wish I didn't hate it so when I displeased my mom!"
This conflict between pleasing parents and pleasing oneself can be acute. For example, an adolescent only child, usually closely attached to parents and dependent on their good opinion, often finds it very hard to stop working to be the child they want him to remain and to start working on the older person he desires to become.
Parents tend to think the teenager is just harder to live with for them. What they fail to grasp is that the teenager is also harder to live with for himself. By provoking more conflict with them, he feels more embattled. By making more unwise decisions, he makes more trouble for himself. By taxing his parents' tolerance and patience more frequently, he invites more of their displeasure. As he lets his "bad" side out, he becomes his own worst enemy, to some degree alienating the parents who used to feel so positively close.
Growing up is a lonely journey for the adolescent. He can't undertake it without offending the very people whose approval still matters most, his parents. With this understanding in mind, they must avoid personal criticism, be constant in their caring, find ways he and they can enjoy each other's company, and praise him whenever and wherever they honestly can. Should they fail to do this, not only is he likely to work harder at convincing himself that their good opinion of him doesn't matter, but he will be more prone to seek admiration from wayward peers with whom alienation from family may be a common bond.
When the adolescent says he doesn't care what parents think, they should not believe him. What he often means is that he cares too much to let his caring show, he misses the good standing with them he has lost, and wishes that he didn't care so much.
For more about the power of parental approval, see my book, "The Connected Father." Information at: www.carlpickhardt.com
Next week's entry: Adolescence and the Harm of Asking
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