One Key Tip to Avoid Arguments with Your Teen (From the Adolescent Perspective)

We’ve all been there: It’s already been a long and busy day, and to top it off you’ve found yourself in another parent-teen argument over something you just can’t seem to reach each other on. Beyond frustrating, right? But to tell you the truth, I personally can’t even imagine what it’s like to argue with my own teenage child, and that’s precisely the point of this article. I’m a twenty-year-old adolescent, and I’ve never been a parent. How could I possibly see things from a parent’s perspective when I’ve never known the feeling of having a child and all the deeply-rooted protective instincts that accompany being a parent? 

In this post, I hope to underscore the importance of being aware of the life experience (or lack thereof) that informs your teen’s perspective. While another parent may have no trouble seeing your side of an argument with your teen, when it comes to your kids, expecting empathy may be a bit of a stretch.

Think of this difference in understanding like driving a car---you can spend years watching others drive and learning all about the techniques and habits that make a good driver, but until you actually do it yourself you simply can’t grasp what it’s like to be the driver. On the flip side, experienced drivers do have the ability to remember what it was like to not know how to drive. 

I still remember what it was like to not understand how to “brake gently” (and I’m guessing my father, my lucky first passenger, does too). My first-ever 20 mph to 0 stop probably took around 0.0001 seconds. Whoops! 

More on my driving soon, but the point is that now, as an experienced driver, I can still empathize with the perspective of someone who hasn’t driven yet. Similarly, parents have the capacity to use their own teenage experience as a reference when interacting with their kids. But, much like you can’t expect a non-driver to understand driving in the same way a driver does, teens (and older adolescents like myself) simply don’t have the capacity to understand where parents are coming from. Even if you explain yourself really, really well, and even if your teen seems to understand what you’re saying, intellectual understanding is no replacement for real experience. You don’t let someone on the road without driving experience, even if they understand all the rules. 

Let’s take a specific example from my life. Many arguments my parents and I got (or get) into stemmed from a difference in risk tolerance. Adolescents are biologically programmed to take more risks than adults---and while it may drive you, as a parent, crazy, taking risks is a natural part of development. Teens are driven to take risks, parents are driven to protect their kids from danger, this is a recipe for conflict. 

Back to my career as a driver. Ever since I got my learner’s permit (when I was 16) I have had the habit of frequently flipping through radio stations while driving. This drives my parents crazy. What seems to me a relatively harmless behavior has been a long-standing pet peeve of both my parents. To me, I’m willing to take the risk of splitting my attention briefly between the road and the radio to be able to enjoy the music I’m listening to while driving. To my parents, this notion is ludicrous, and this difference in risk tolerance has sparked many on-the-road arguments.

The fact is that my parents’ concerns have never had much of an effect on me. Until I have my own children, I’ll never be able to understand how unsettling it is to witness behavior that could have a potentially disastrous effect on my child. And yet the problem remains: While I recognize that my parents’ worries are genuine and natural, I remain convinced that the risk is low enough to justify the reward. Naturally, arguments continue.

How can these arguments be quelled? Setting aside the fact that arguing with my parents also makes it more difficult to focus on the road, arguing is unpleasant. I wish my parents and I could lay this issue to rest once and for all. 

One solution in this particular case could be a compromise. Perhaps the resolution would be that I only use six preset radio stations as opposed to turning the dial to any station. And while this compromise doesn’t completely eliminate risk, it certainly mitigates it to an extent. 

An end to arguing sounds great, but an important point to consider is who would propose the compromise? I’ve just taken the Teen Brain Trust course on how to motivate teens and adolescents so now the idea of proposing a compromise sounds natural. But most parents can’t expect their kids to take these kinds of courses.

Given parents’ ability to empathize with what it’s like to be a teenager, it logically follows that parents should aim to take the lead in offering collaborative ends to the conflicts that arise. In the radio example, should I be expected to initiate a compromise when I have no genuine understanding of my parents’ perspective? From my perspective, from the teen perspective, touching the radio is so low-risk that it shouldn’t even warrant discussion. In most cases where the teen’s risk tolerance is higher, where they don’t even see a problem, it should be the parents who take the lead. 

Surely, my parents can recall doing the same exact thing when they were my age, and perhaps can even imagine how ridiculous the idea of stopping their car radio use would seem to their adolescent selves. My parents could use this perspective to inform their proposed resolution to the issue---telling me to stop completely doesn’t work, as they know it wouldn’t work on them when they were my age. While my paying any attention to the radio buttons isn’t ideal for them, as they’d prefer I not be distracted at all, my parents can use their ability to empathize with my worldview to realize that I can’t see the risk the way they do. With this understanding, they can at least meet me halfway.

In the case of the radio dispute, the end result could be that my parents and I work past the arguing caused by my inability to see their side of the argument. If we come to a compromise and work together, I’ll feel less inclined to disappoint them by still turning the dial despite their wishes. Think of it like a team sport---blowing the game for yourself and your teammates is an awful feeling, as you’ve let everyone down. So in my mind, if my parents worked with me on a compromise, I’d feel like it would be letting the entire “team” down if I broke my promise to only use the preset buttons.

Now, the fact is that certain disagreements simply can’t end in a happy compromise that works for everyone. Regardless of the end outcome, however, it is important to remember the crucial fact that your teen has never raised a teenager themselves. We adolescents lack that innate protective instinct that sets off all kinds of alarms when it comes to risky behavior. By keeping your teen’s inability to empathize with your parental instinct in mind, you can at least learn to find new, more effective approaches that have a better chance of resonating with your child.