If you were a fly on the wall in any school cafeteria, study group of students, mall hangout, or other place where teenagers gather collectively, you might hear this statement, "My parents just don't understand.
" It's true.
There's really no sense in debating its accuracy.
But it also is true to say amongst groups of parents, "My kids just don't understand.
" Both are valid, truthful, and honest assessments of the parent-child condition.
So what's a family to do? In discussing this with an expert in the field, my 15-year old daughter, whom I am delighted to say I get along with beautifully, we came up with some common issues worthy of being addressed if you want to "understand" one another.
First, there is the issue of reasoning that must be addressed.
Parents, I have news for you.
You are older.
Emphasize the word "older" when you say that.
That means that you have outdated your ability to "get it," whatever "it" is for your teenager.
On the one hand, you could see yourself as spoiled milk.
From the perspective of the average teenager, you are past your date.
So, from the viewpoint of your teenager, no matter how smart you are, or how incredible you might have once been at a time long ago in a galaxy far away, you are now unable to reason with a young mind.
That's true.
But on the other hand, from the perspective of a parent, why would we want to reason with a young mind? A young mind has not yet seen what there is to see, or done what there is to do, or known what there is to know, so we are unable to go back and reason with less experiential knowledge than we possess.
We cannot undo what we have learned and experienced.
So reasoning without experience makes no sense to us.
That is where the second issue comes in.
It's an issue of relating to one another.
Because we cannot reason the same way, parents and teenagers often struggle to relate to each other.
Face it, as parents, you are dealing with mortgages, taxes, putting food on the table, and the like, and that's a pretty time consuming job.
Teenagers are dealing with school work, what kind of person they are going to be, how they are going to fit in, and how far away their college can be..
..
Our viewpoints are different, so we struggle to connect.
This leads into the third issue - relativity.
You see, parents, you have no past history with your kids.
Did you know that? They have no background on what experiential knowledge you have and how that might have formed and shaped you; they only have this current and relative time to "see" you.
Remember the game where you spelled out words on the calculator by typing in numbers that when flipped, spelled words? The most famous one was, "7734.
" On a calculator, to the one person it's a number, but flip it, and it spells, "hell.
" The relative position is what makes the difference, and that's true for your children.
They don't want you to tell them what you used to be like, and they definitely don't want you to recreate it by acting like a teenager again.
They need to see the impact in your life.
The authenticity of why you do what you do, and how you do it, need to be evident in the "flip" side of your life.
But, and here's the catch, parents, if you want to understand them, you will need to see the flip side of them too.
You will need to see the why and how of what they do, and ask about their reasoning - not with judgment, but with genuine curiosity.
So, do you understand your kids? They might have a different answer than you do.
Do they understand you? Maybe.
Maybe not.
But, if you want to change this, you will need to actively and intentionally approach your children with reason, relationships, and relative living in ways that are demonstrated, not just talked about, taken into perspective with their understanding, and frequently looked at from the flip side.