“This is what made all the difference in my relationship with my daughter,” says this young mother.
Adolescence is often a difficult period for parents who do not find the words, nor the right time to communicate with them. Young people, generally in their bubble and needing intimacy, wish to preserve their secret garden. Even if adults remain open, there are sometimes certain subjects that struggle to be discussed. Young people are modest, they prefer to confide in a friend, a girlfriend, or even keep for them what bothers them. Even when it comes to telling simply his day, the parents take the risk of taking themselves a monumental “wind” … The college also marks a turning point for many families accustomed until then to listen to their schoolboy to tell them the gossip of the recess or what he learned in class.
“Since my 13 -year -old daughter entered college, a lead silence replaced the incessant chatter which once paced our car trips”tells a young mother in a One Thing column published on the Slate site. At the start, she tried to ask him more questions to make her speak, but she only got it “Annoyed sighs and a black look “. The tension tended to rise, the girl was arguing with her mother, slamming the door of her room … So, the 43 -year -old mother decides to test something else, but that has nothing to do with parental advice suggesting to ask her teenagers of the guy “What made you smile or frown today” … “I imagine the deep contempt that could be read on the face of my teenager if I tried them with her”she testifies.
“”Then I realized: would I want to be questioned at the end of a hard day of work? After an exhausting day to manage social interactions and an intense school program, embellished with team sports, perhaps it just didn’t want to talk. The solution was perhaps, during these car trips, not to ask him at all, “ explains the young woman. When she went to get her daughter, she then just took her in her arms, telling her that she was happy to see her, then taking the road to go home, in silence. When the teenager questions her about this strange atmosphere, her mother explains that she respects her need not to be “Bombed with questions“That she prefers to wait for her to tell her day herself when she wants it.
“Now, apart from the background music, my daughter and I generally come back in silence. He even keeps my hand. Once returned, once she had time to decompress, she is ready to share the good and bad times of her day“. A calm time rather appreciated and which could allow young people to take the time to decompress on the way back. And if it was sometimes a little patience so that our young people speak to us more?