Does your teenager disagree with everything you say? Terri Apter,
Ph.D. author of
"The
Confident Child: Raising Children to Believe in Themselves" and one of
our expert child development columnists, has advice on how to talk to your
contrary teenager.
Dear Dr. Apter:
My 16 year old girl is the most contrary person
you will ever meet. If I say the sky is blue, she will insist it is brown.
If I like a certain type of music, she is sure to despise it. If I like an
outfit for her, she will naturally detest it. She likes to disagree and never
will she just go along with things for the sake of peace and cooperation.
She is quite creative, but much more cynical than I ever was at 16. Help
me please! She is difficult to contend with. Thanks.
Dr. Apter's Answer: The description you have given of your
16-year-old daughter is a perfect description of a normal adolescent. In
saying she likes what you dislike, or dislikes what you like, she is practicing
feeling different from you.
I bet she was a sweet and accommodating little girl? Well, now that
she is aware of herself as growing up, she wants to see what it feels like
to be her own person - and because she is still so attached to you, being
her own person seems like being different from whatever you are.
So when she proclaims her likes and dislikes, I'd suggest letting
her have her say. You might even explore her different ideas and feelings,
asking about them, seeking to understand her point of view.
Her cynicism is part of her being a twenty-first century teenager.
Today young people are more suspicious and skeptical than they were a generation
ago - but they also tend to have strong values and ideals, which are hidden
behind a streetwise manner.
Her arguments with you may seem like rebellion and rejection, but
they are more likely to be attempts to shake you into a new awareness of
the different personal she is becoming - different from the child you knew,
and perhaps different from the teenager you expected her to be.
These arguments are ways of refocusing your attention on her. The
best way of handling them is not to stop them, but to listen to her. Instead
of saying something like, "Why do you always argue/complain/talk back", you
could try finding something in her view to endorse, such as, "I see you feel
very strongly about that," or "You've helped me see this is a different light."
This does not mean, however, that you have to agree with her, or let her
"win" an argument about what she can do and where she can go.
The peace and cooperation you miss in her will eventually
return.
Books Available by Terri Apter, Ph.D:
To
order "The Confident Child: Raising Children to Believe in Themselves" awarded
the 1998 Delta Kappa Gamma Society Educator's Award, published by Bantam,
click on this link.
To
order, "The Confident Child: Raising A Child To Try, Learn and Care" click
on this link.
About the author: Terri Apter, Ph.D. is a psychologist at Clare
Hall, University of Cambridge. She lectures and broadcasts widely, both in
the U.S. and Britain, on family and work issues.
In 1990, she published Altered Loves: mothers and daughters during
adolescence which was hailed by The New York Times Books Review (where it
was listed as a Notable Book of the Year) as `simply wonderful - a fresh
vision that blows away old stereotypes, dated theories, male biases and familiar
patterns of blame. It is a model of lucid research andwriting.' The reviewer,
psychologist Carol Tavris, said , `I heartily recommend Terri Apter's book
to anyone who is, knows, was or will be a participant in [a mother/daughter]
pair...Altered Loves does not minimize the inevitable fighting between parent
and child, but it beautifully illuminates the warmth.'
Her next book, Working Women Don't Have Wives: professional success
in the 1990s (1993) was described by Kirkus Reviews as `a thoughtful analysis
of an extraordinary complex problem, as well as a concise summary of feminist
thought over the past four decades: of appeal to anyone interested in
understanding the feminist revolution,' and The New York Times Book Review
wrote, `she touches a resonant chord...Working Women Don't Have Wives provides
a useful focus on the sources of the enormous resistance that makes change
so difficult.' Even at an early stage, her work on midlife women was seen
to be of enormous importance, and, to conduct her research, she was awarded
the prestigious three year Betty Behrens Research Fellowship at Clare Hall,
Cambridge. The results of this research are revealed in her new book Secret
Paths: women in the new midlife which was described in The New York Times
Book Review as `lively and revealing...Apter also provides insightful passages
on the balance of power as it shifts in midlife marriages; on love and
disengagement in the relationship between midlife women and their mothers;
and on the nature of love and experience as they apply to women at this time
in their lives.' In The Confident Child, Terri Apter focuses on the challenge
of raising children. This book has been described by Publishers Weekly as
a `convincing, well-written and truly helpful guide...Here is a book that
takes the vagueness out of the notion of self-esteem and suggests concrete
ways for parents to help their children like themselves and feel confident
about their abilities to deal with the world around them.' This book won
the 1998 Educator's Prize awarded by the Delta Kappa Gamma Society. Altered
Loves: Mothers and Daughters During Adolescence. Ballantine.
$10.00
Altered Loves is a frank, moving and insightful examination of girls'
adolescence and their continuing, but changing needs for a close relationship
with their mothers. The strife that characterizes this period is actually
the result of trying to renegotiate a valued relationship. Widely acclaimed,
and chosen by The New York Times Book Review as One of the Notable Books
of the Year, Altered Loves explodes conventional myths and theories about
mother-daughter relationships and offers new and valuable insights that will
help mothers remember and daughters understand the delicate, painful and
complex process of becoming a woman.
Secret Paths: Women in the New Midlife. Norton. $15.00 Drawing on
detailed interviews with women in their forties and fifties, Apter finds
that women in midlife undergo a series of changes through which they gain
a newly powerful sense of their own identity. She sees midlife as a time
where women gain greater control over their decisions and a strengthened
sense of their potential. Whereas other writers have seen midlife for women
as a time dominates by biological changes associated with menopause, Apter
looks at midlife passage through women's psychology. She debunks the myths
associated with women's fear of aging and decreased attractiveness. Whereas
once this was thought to cause anxiety and depression, Apter finds that women
deliberately negotiate an acceptance of who they are physically, and resist
cultural images that marginalize them. This resistance can be a starting
point for greater freedom. While "midlife crisis" for some men is associated
with a last-ditch attempt to hold on to their youth, for women it is an attempt
to refocus their energies for the future. Secret Paths is a must for every
woman's journey into midlife and beyond.
The Confident Child: A practical, compassionate guide. Bantam. $11.95
Raising confident, motivated, and caring children is a parent's greatest
challenge. Children who believe in themselves and have confidence are known
to experience future successes, to be less frustrated in learning, to show
overall higher performance. This sage compassionate and practical guidebook
shows parents how to help their children acquire self-esteem building skills
and offers parents a plan for learning how to discipline, communicate and
deal with their children's emotional life. In an accessible style, with
down-to-earth examples of children's lives in the family and in school, Terri
Apter shows parents how to raise a child to solve problems, to be socially
active and understand others, to express feelings appropriately, and to manage
emotions - all of which are crucial skills in developing confidence. Every
parent and caring adult should own a copy of this necessary parenting guide.
A Literary Guild and Doubleday Bookclub choice.
Best Friends: the pleasures and perils of girls and women's friendships.
Crown. $24. Friendships shape girls'development and women's lives - often
as much as parents do, but the impact these significant others have is usually
ignored. But each friendship makes its mark on our psychology. Behind the
most powerful woman is a girl who wants a friend, and a girl who has learned
to be terrified of a friend's abandonment and betrayal.
Recently girls' and women's friendships have been portrayed in idealized
terms. Depicted as caring and nurturing, best friends have been described
as always supportive and loving. But though the closeness and connection
aren't shams, these relationships are often uncomfortable. What we learn
about managing these precious but difficult connections stays with us. We
need to develop a kind of friend therapy to negotiate flashpoints.
This means being able to speak our minds, even when our thoughts
differ from those of a friend. We can then accept conflict and talk it through.
This means accepting that we have to share friends. This means accepting
the slippery connections between admiration of friends, and occasional envy
of them.
This means giving up the belief that we have to wear a mask of
perfection to be liked, or find someone who is just like us, if we are to
be liked.
Girls learn that networks of friendships can set up minefields of
jealousies: "Whose friend are you?" they ask as they monitor these precious
alliances for any sign of change. "Who do you think you are?" they demand
as a friend seems to leave them behind. They want to be like their friends,
and they want to be liked by their friends, and they can be terrified of
her rejection because they see who they are by looking into a friend's
eyes.
Mothers of adolescent girls dread the onset of the friendship wars.
yet find themselves quite helpless in these situations. One reason mothers
have difficulty helping daughters withstand these battles is that they miss
the fact that these issues stay with them. Particularly as women increasingly
work together in organizations, old ways of scuffling for place and recognition,
for love and loyalty seem to pervade the experience of life at
work.
Remembering is hard, because the early experiences of friendship
are so raw with emotion. A woman's understanding of her own emotional journey
through friendship is a valuable asset. It is through these perils and
disruptions that lie the "pure gold" of girls' and women's friendships. A
Book of the Month Club selection. |
