Parenting a teenager is one of the hardest things a parent faces. The changing moods, the fluctuating hormones, and yes, the attitude problem, where they think they’re the best at everything and tell you how “dinosaur” your thinking and way of doing things is are just among some of the challenges. It definitely takes a lot of time, education to learn how to handle those difficulties. Trust me, it’s taken me countless therapy sessions, seminars, and books to help me adjust to their changes. And I’m still learning. There will be heated moments where we both lose it, and then we calm down, apologise, and make up with hugs.
But the hardest thing for parenting a teenaged girl, especially for mothers is going through the grief of losing the affection she used to give us, that she needed us, that she wanted to be with us, that she’d give us a hug and say “I love you” almost every day. That we have to accept the truth that teenagers will love their friends more than us, that they’d rather spend time with their friends. They value and trust their friends’ judgement more than yours however good your intentions are. They quit everything they used to love, that you used to love doing it with them because none of her friends do it, and it’s weird to be excluded. I think that’s where a lot of the anger and the fights were rooted , in the love and attention we thought we were losing.
After the cry that I had in my therapy session, over the attention and love I was craving from my teenaged daughter, I felt more relieved. We fight less. I give her more space to do things on her own.
Maybe we just need tears of grief, maybe we just want someone to reassure us that ‘the love will come back’, ‘she will come back’. Maybe it’s time for us, all mothers of teenagers, to find something we’ve always loved to do, to care for, to ‘baby’ a new hobby until they come back.