agonyaunt | (no subject)

Dear Annie: My 15-year-old daughter and I used to be extremely close. She was the kind of child who would climb into the car after school and tell me everything before I even pulled out of the parking lot: who sat with whom at lunch, what her teacher said, which friend was mad at which friend and what song everyone was listening to that week.

Now, I feel like I am living with a very fashionable attorney who cross-examines everything I say.

If I ask how school was, she says, "Fine," in a tone that makes it clear the conversation is over. If I ask whether she has homework, she says I do not trust her. If I remind her to bring a sweatshirt, she tells me I am treating her like a baby. If I say nothing at all, she asks why I am "being weird."

Last week, I made her favorite dinner, hoping we could have a nice evening. She came downstairs wearing headphones, picked at her food and answered every question with one word. When I gently asked if something was wrong, she snapped that I was always "making everything a big deal." Then she went upstairs, closed her door and laughed on FaceTime with her friends for an hour.

The part that stings is that she still seems like herself with everyone else. Her teachers tell me she is polite and funny. Her friends' parents say she is a joy to have over. But at home, I seem to get the eye rolls, the sighs and the door-slamming version of her.

I know teenagers need independence. I know I should not take every mood personally. But I miss my daughter. I miss the girl who used to sit on my bed and tell me long, dramatic stories about nothing. I miss being the person she came to first, not the person she pushes away.

I do not want to smother her, lecture her or turn every conversation into a battle. But I also do not want to give up trying to connect. How do I stay close to a teenager who acts like my love is an inconvenience? -- Missing My Little Girl

Dear Missing: Your daughter is not rejecting your love; she is practicing independence on the safest person she knows. Stay steady, keep the door open and look for small moments of connection instead of big heart-to-hearts. Try a car ride, a snack, a funny show or a late-night check-in, when teens are often more willing to talk. Do not chase every mood, but do keep showing up. The eye rolls are temporary, but your calm presence will be remembered.

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I must count myself perplexed. Are these the only sorts of conversations LW is trying to have with Daughter? If so, I'm not surprised she's pulling back. What about talking about what you just read or watched or listened to? Or about your funny anecdote from work? Or, hell, texting her pet images, which is like 99% of our family text chain?

Welcome to having a teenager. This was definitely me at 13. My younger sister hated it, and was even more appalled when she started doing it at 13! I was recent dreading my great niece turning 13, but it turns out only her mom gets it—she’s still lovely with me.

I was going to say something similar. My wife, who taught middle schoolers for years had a whole prepared speech for parents at the beginning of the year about how it goes from chatty kid to sullen quiet kid with parents. And how it isn't them, its the kid and being a teenager/hormones/independence etc. LW is kust learning that their kid is trying to establish some boundaries and independence.

So smart to give the parents the “this is normal” talk!

I was recent dreading my great niece turning 13, but it turns out only her mom gets it—she’s still lovely with me.

I’m going to hazard a guess that you have never appointed yourself Boss Of Her (or Snitch to the Boss Of Her), and so remain safe to confide in.

Yeah, she doesn’t have to rebel for independence from me

Agree that this sounds like...a teenager. Don't make a big deal of it, be on the lookout for the occasions when the teen DOES want to connect (and don't make a big deal of that either, just have a normal conversation), and be patient. If the kid is still doing well in school and the teachers think they're pleasant, then things are probably fine.

Yeah, LW’s daughter is clearly suffering from a clinical case of adolescence. Time and patience are the only medicine. I hope LW can learn to take it less personally - perhaps by casting back to what she was like at 15?

Also this is a good sign? Or in the absence of other bad ones, it is. LW's daughter feels safe enough in LW's love to act out against her.

"My 15-year-old daughter" ... "If I ask how school was, she says, "Fine," in a tone"

LW said the same thing twice here :)

Actually no, that's not quite true. All teenagers need to learn independence, but they're not *always* sulky. Traditional teenage roles really support this dynamic, and it almost always happens a little bit, but it happens less with teenagers who have more actual responsibility and less mothering.

LW can't force a change, but if LW is non-judgemental about the things that annoy daughter, and talks about things daughter likes talking about, they may get more amicable over time.

LW when I got like that as a teenager, it was because I was hiding things from my parents. Not anything worth a parent actually worrying about! But as a teen little things seem bigger than they are, and also part of wanting independence is wanting to have secrets from your parents while at the same time keeping any secrets at all from your parents, no matter how stupid, makes you feel like a criminal. I didn't want to tell them things, and even when I did want to tell them things, they would have needed things I hadn't told them in order to get the context, and then I would have had to delve into why I hadn't told them the other things, and so I told them nothing.

The more open they were as younger kids, the worse this contrast can get.

Anyway, if you wanna have nice conversations with your daughter again, the workaround is to not try to get information out of them they don't want to give, and carry the conversation yourself. They're now old enough to start hearing some of your stupid little secrets you didn't tell them when they were a kid - stuff like "I'm scared of snakes actually but I did my best to hide it so you'd learn better" or whatever - and to be ready to hear stuff like your saga with the manager at work. Don't expect them to fill the role of an adult friend! But they're at the very beginning of transitioning into that, and if they won't talk about their day, fill the silence talking about yours. If you're lucky you'll set them an example of how to share back with you in a way different than a six-year-old would do it.

If I ask how school was, she says, "Fine," in a tone that makes it clear the conversation is over. If I ask whether she has homework, she says I do not trust her.

Once I started struggling with my mental health more (lockdown was HORRIBLE), I stopped being able to tolerate anyone with power over me prying into what I was struggling with, which school was a big part of. In uni, I’ve been more open to questions about my studies since I find the information much more interesting (and I’m physically enthused to have escaped highschool), but I still close up any time I feel bad or tired. My friends do not ask directly about school, so I feel no pressure to say anything in particular or otherwise relive the stress. And, well, they also aren’t in control of my life. That’s always an uncomfortable factor. Not that my parents are particularly controlling, but they easily could be if they wanted to.

Most conversations I have with my parents nowadays are about random tidbits: things we’ve been watching/reading, what my mother’s planning to do in the garden, what my father’s been coding, etc. I think most people prefer conversations that address something personally interesting, and this becomes more obvious once you hit teenage years.

I mean, it’s possible it’s just “teenager problems”, but as someone whose “teenage rebellion” was very much a result of overall unrelated problems that still persist and were only lessened by drastic outside measures, I am not quick to assume hormones are the primary culprit. Not to say this child specifically is like me, of course.

how do parents so quickly forget what their teenage years were like?