FOUR

Contending with Adult Authority

You know the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Toto pulls back the curtain and reveals that the great and powerful Oz is just a guy frantically pulling levers behind a curtain? If we put your daughter in the role of Dorothy and you, my friend, in the place of the Wizard, the scene perfectly explains why girls start to challenge adults, break rules, and engage in other forms of rebellion once they become teenagers. Before adolescence, girls don’t see behind the curtain; they respect their elders and usually do as they’re told. Children do push the limits, but they tend to go along with adults, especially if we get mad. When the curtain is pulled back, girls see that we aren’t infallible, omnipotent Wizards. In fact, we sometimes abuse our office and issue arbitrary rules. Once they’re armed with this insight, it’s hardly surprising that girls stop acquiescing to age-given rank and start questioning our authority.

It’s humbling to lose the absolute power that comes with being the Wizard, but your daughter’s new perspective is actually a good thing. Figuring out how best to contend with authority is one of the developmental strands of adolescence. We’re not looking to raise sheep who give in to threats or do everything they’re told. By the time they’re adults, we want our daughters to know how to evaluate authority figures while making thoughtful, even tactical choices about when to resist orders and when to toe the line. This chapter will help you guide your daughter’s sudden inclination to contend with adult authority, even as she challenges you, your rules, and the wisdom of most grown-ups.

Seeing Behind the Curtain

What pulls the curtain back? Why do girls follow our rules one week then scoff at them the next? Our answer comes from Jean Piaget, a towering figure in the field of psychology who, in the mid-1950s, was the first to describe the dramatic mental shift that occurs at the end of childhood. Somewhere around age eleven, girls stop seeing the world in strictly concrete terms because they develop the capacity for abstract reasoning. Before then, children can only reflect upon specific events that they have, or could have, actually observed. In other words, if you ask a ten-year-old, “What would make someone throw a cell phone out of a moving car?” she could likely assure you that the phone would be a goner, but she probably couldn’t imagine compelling reasons for why a person might toss the phone. By age eleven, however, girls start to think in abstract terms. They weigh theoretical concepts like retribution, reflect on their own thoughts, and make inferences about what might drive someone else’s actions. An eleven-year-old could imagine any number of plausible explanations for phone throwing, even if she had never been tempted to try it herself. Perhaps the phone was tossed to bring a dramatic (and stupid) end to a frustrating conversation. Or maybe it was chucked by an exasperated parent making an expensive point to a teenager. The eleven-year-old might tell you that she couldn’t really know, but still be able to come up with a list of possible motives.

What does abstract reasoning have to do with questioning authority? Everything. When teenagers start thinking in abstract terms, they make stunning inferential leaps. In the words of one insightful fifteen-year-old, “I realized that if I can be dishonest with adults, that means they can be dishonest with me.”

With the curtain pulled back, teens watch adults closely and soon notice that many of our edicts are, in fact, hypocritical, nonsensical, or simply self-serving. Of course some of our rules make tons of sense (and we’ll address how you can continue to enforce them once your Wizarding days end), but plenty of our rules don’t. I recently caught myself making a totally meaningless rule when my older daughter grabbed a pen to write a reminder on the back of her hand. Before I could stop myself I said, “What are you doing? Get some paper!” But really, there are very few reasons not to write reminders on the backs of our hands and plenty of good reasons to do it. I’ve come to admit that, like all other parents, I regularly call my own authority into question by citing “laws” that are merely preferences.

How will you know when your daughter has seen behind the curtain? Oh, you’ll know. Your first hint might be when she serves up a trenchant, even funny, critique of adults and the beliefs they hold dear. My favorite example is the girl who announced at dinner, “You know, Odysseus was kind of a dick.” She captured a truism (Homer’s hero does, in fact, specialize in deceit) while using her choice of words to communicate that she was prepared to discuss classical literature with adults but would be doing so on her terms. And if she hasn’t already, your daughter will call on the two signals girls most commonly use to let us know that they are questioning our authority: rolling her eyes and taking a sassy tone.

Sometimes girls recruit eye rolling, tone taking, and other nonverbal cues to express their dissent while still following the rules. When you ask her to change into an outfit that’s appropriate for dinner out as a family, she might roll her eyes or issue a sharp “Fine!” before stomping off to her room to change. This scene should feel familiar because you’ve been around this block before, back when your daughter was a toddler. Teenagers and toddlers have a lot in common—I’ve heard some parents refer to their teens as “toddlers on hormones”—with a key commonality being their need to establish that they are an independent state while still submitting to the laws of the reigning government. When your daughter was a toddler, this took the form of loudly refusing to take a bath while simultaneously stripping down and heading toward the tub. As a teenager, she rolls her eyes or takes a tone while doing what you asked her to do. Though your daughter’s resistance will almost certainly irritate you, consider letting it slide. More than that, you could silently admire the impressive defying-while-complying solution that allows her to be a good kid even as she expresses her opposition.

Periodically, your daughter’s eye rolling or tone might strike you as provocative and rude—designed to jerk your chain more than solve a dilemma. At these times, you might ask her to communicate her dissent in a more mature way. You could say, “I can’t stop you from rolling your eyes at me, but I think it’s rude. If you can tell me what’s wrong, we could talk about it,” or “I’m not okay with your tone—try again,” or “I’m open to negotiating, but not when you’re acting like that.” Your daughter is letting you know that she disagrees with you, and that is certainly her right. And it’s your right to expect that she will be civil while objecting. As we know, it takes girls time to learn to be assertive. Don’t miss the opportunity to invite your daughter to practice her assertiveness skills on you.

The End of “Because I Said So”

Having figured out that adults routinely create arbitrary rules, girls determinedly undertake the massive task of testing the established regulations. Your daughter will test plenty of rules on her own time. She’ll blast music while driving, watch movies you’ve banned, go out in the cold with wet hair, and see for herself that the world does not, in fact, come to an end. And she’ll test plenty of rules on your time. It’s truly exhausting when your daughter questions nearly everything you say, but you should honor her newfound insight by having real conversations about your rules.

So how will you respond? At times, you’ll stick to your position while nevertheless acknowledging that yours is one of many valid perspectives:

Attending church as a family is important to your mom and me, so we expect that you’ll come with us. When you move out, you can make your own choices about going to church.

At other times, you’ll offer a fuller explanation than you have in the past:

Here’s my problem with the way you keep your room: I hate to see the nice clothes we’ve paid for thrown all around. I don’t feel comfortable buying you anything new while good stuff lies on the floor.

At still others, you’ll negotiate:

I don’t want you to put a streak in your hair because your grandma will be visiting next month and I’m not up for hearing about it from her. If you’ll hold off until after that visit, I’m open to it.

Occasionally, you’ll see her point:

You’re right, I’m wrong. Go ahead and write on your hand. And pass the pen when you’re done.

When your daughter questions your authority, take her seriously and offer an explanation, a compromise, or your agreement. As one teen told me, “There’s nothing better than beating an adult in an argument.” If your daughter has a point, recognize it. If she’s right and you’re wrong, grant her the joy of changing your mind. The best way to maintain your daughter’s respect will be to welcome her budding insight. When it comes to engaging with your daughter as she questions your authority, there are many ways to get it right. And there are two things you should not do: don’t insist that you are still the Wizard, and don’t give up.

A particularly painful example of what happens when a parent insists that he’s still the Great and Powerful Wizard showed up in my private practice. For several months, I worked with Chloe, a poised, artsy teen whose parents divorced when she was twelve. When Chloe was seventeen, her father—a man with an impressive track record of insensitive behavior—married a woman who prided herself on her cooking. Chloe, a vegetarian who enjoyed a terrific variety of healthy foods, spent Tuesday evenings and alternate weekends with her dad and stepmother and on her first visit to their new home, Chloe’s stepmother served chicken cacciatore. Chloe quietly focused on eating her vegetables until her father (but, interestingly, not her stepmother) pressed her to share in the main course. Despite Chloe’s protest that she hadn’t eaten meat in over a year, her father insisted that she was being rude to her stepmother by refusing to eat what was served and threatened to take her phone if she didn’t give in. Chloe stood her ground. Her father took her phone.

I’m sure that I don’t have to tell you that taking a teenager’s phone, especially at age seventeen, amounts to a very severe punishment. Chloe hung in for two weeks until she could no longer get along without her phone. She choked down a few bites of meat on the nights she ate at her dad’s house, got her phone back, and toughed it out for a month until she turned eighteen. The divorce agreement did not require Chloe to stick to the visitation plan once she became an adult in the eyes of the law, so after her birthday, Chloe packed her bags, moved out of her father’s house, and stayed full-time with her mother. Chloe’s mom empathized with Chloe’s position, all the while worried about the harm her ex-husband had done to his relationship with their daughter.

Sad as this story is, I was thankful that Chloe had a way out. When teens are trapped with parents who would rather flaunt their power than negotiate on even minor points, it doesn’t always end so well. These parents don’t just damage their relationships with their daughters, they can also provoke girls into proving that they will not be controlled. Under such conditions I’ve seen girls sneak around to do things that are frighteningly out of control. It’s far better for your Dorothy—and your relationship with her—for you to come out from behind the curtain, even when doing so gives rise to a series of tough negotiations.

And don’t give up.

I think here of Veronica, a fifteen-year-old referred to my private practice by a school counselor who received a desperate Monday-morning call from her parents. They told the counselor, then me, that on the preceding Saturday night Veronica had gone to a party with some older teens who offered to pick her up and bring her back home. Though reluctant to let her go, Veronica’s parents set an early curfew of ten thirty, figuring that she couldn’t find much trouble before then. When she wasn’t home at eleven, they started calling her phone but got no answer. At midnight Veronica finally rolled in. Remorseless about being late, she flippantly explained that she had “accidently” turned off her phone.

As I got to know Veronica—a smart, disaffected girl—and her parents, the rest of the story came out. When she was thirteen, Veronica started to break small rules. She began by playing music loudly in her room. When her father asked her to turn it down, she’d grumble, comply, then soon turn the music up again. Before long, her father gave up and asked the rest of the family to put up with the noise. Next, Veronica started wearing black lipstick that her mom hated. Her mother asked her to save the lipstick for Halloween, or at least for the weekends, but Veronica wore it to school every day. Several contentious mornings later, her mother gave up about the lipstick, figuring that even if she made Veronica take it off before school, she could put it back on while riding the bus, so there was really no point in fighting about it. In one of our meetings, Veronica’s mom, a soft-spoken woman with a worried face, told me that she nearly blew up when Veronica got in the car wearing the lipstick to go to church on Easter Sunday. She was hurt and offended (and knew this wasn’t lost on her daughter) but bit her tongue because she feared their relationship was already under too much strain and, on top of that, she didn’t want to ruin the morning for the rest of the family.

Teens are eager to contend with adult authority and they often do it by testing the adults closest to them. In my experience, teenagers usually start with small stuff. They do things that annoy us but that don’t really have the potential for negative and lasting consequences. Adolescent misdemeanors reflect teens’ creativity, interests, and knowledge of what will push their parents’ buttons. Girls leave dishes in the sink when they’ve been told not to, listen to offensive music, read off-putting novels, wear weird clothes, lobby for a nose piercing, decide to become Democrats if their parents are Republicans (or the other way round), and so on.

When girls don’t find the friction they’re looking for with adults on the small stuff, they sometimes ramp things up by moving on to the predictable list of things we really don’t want our daughters to do—things that could matter down the line. Unable to get her parents to stay toe-to-toe with her about her loud music and her lipstick, Veronica ups the ante and does something that’s harder to ignore.

Why do teenagers move on to risky business when they don’t meet resistance on the small stuff? Because teens want to know where the lines are and that they’ll be called out of bounds if they cross them. It’s daunting to be a teenager and have access to tempting but dangerous attractions; it’s terrifying to think that no one is watching. As one of my clinical colleagues commented, when teens like Veronica act out, they are posing the question, “So what does a girl have to do around here to get the grown-ups to act like grown-ups?” If Veronica had to sneak her lipstick out of the house and apply it when she got on the bus, she might have felt comforted by the presence of rules, even as she broke them, and left it at that. Indeed, research has long established that teens whose parents are highly permissive—whether they are indulgent, neglectful, or just reluctant to step in—are more likely to abuse substances and misbehave at school than teens whose parents articulate and enforce limits.

I saw this principle in action early in my training when I spent a graduate school summer staffing a psychiatric unit for teenagers. These adolescents lived in the inpatient setting because they were too troubled to be cared for outside of a hospital. Many of the teens were defiant and belligerent—as staff we spent a lot of time preventing physical fights—so there was an elaborate system of points, rewards, and penalties designed to control, and hopefully improve, their conduct. Early in my days on the unit I made a rookie mistake: while supervising a group of teens I didn’t know well, I let a few infractions slide in the hopes of securing the group’s good behavior by establishing that I was friendly and easygoing. Bad idea. When I didn’t tell the first teen to take her feet off the table, a second teen turned on the radio without asking permission. Then a third would bicker about the station selection. Before long, a wise supervisor pointed out what was happening. They weren’t just misbehaving—they were scared. They were looking for reassurance that I would keep things under control and I wasn’t providing it. So they kept looking. A rookie no more, I put myself on high alert for the first misdeed committed in any new group of teens. I quickly and publicly (but still nicely) docked the proper number of points from the offending teen’s tally and watched the whole group breathe a sigh of relief.

So make it easier on yourself and safer for your daughter by engaging with some of her annoying behaviors. What you oppose and how will be unique to you and your family. You don’t have to resist each bothersome move your daughter makes (having a teenager, after all, can help us grow in our acceptance and flexibility), but you shouldn’t ignore every small thing. If she won’t turn her music down after being asked, ask again. If it’s still loud, stand in her doorway and make that face she hates until she turns it down. And even when you can’t really control the outcome, go ahead and have the fight. Remember Andy, my globe-trotting friend who gamely withstood the teasing dished out by his daughter Grace? When we were in high school, Andy wore his favorite T-shirt to school most days despite being forbidden by his mother to wear it outside of the house. She was right. The shirt was so worn that Andy could hide it by jamming the whole thing in the back pocket of his jeans, which he did most mornings as he left for school. He changed into the threadbare shirt before he got to the end of his block and headed off secure in the knowledge that the adults hadn’t given up or rolled over.

I encouraged Veronica’s parents to go ahead and challenge some of the small stuff she did, even if that meant increasing the friction around the house. At times, Veronica rudely told her mother to stop talking, and her mother had fallen into the habit of obliging. With my support, Veronica’s mom started to push back and say, as calmly as she could, “Hey, that’s rude. I don’t speak to you that way, and you shouldn’t speak to me that way. If you’re angry, let’s talk about it.” Veronica never took the bid—she usually walked away in a huff—but she didn’t escalate the situation either.

Veronica’s parents had adopted an uncomfortable pattern of avoiding their daughter and her snarky attitude. They didn’t enjoy her and she didn’t enjoy them so I recommended that they look for new ways to connect. When Veronica asked to join a drama program in a neighboring community, they signed her up and used the long drive to rehearsal to discuss her growing interest in theater. Gradually, Veronica’s attitude toward her parents improved for two reasons I could see: she felt comforted by the knowledge that they would respond when she misbehaved, and their support of her theatrical interests had put money in their shared relational bank. In other words, when she wrangled with her parents, as she occasionally still did, it now came at the expense of the generally pleasant time they were having with one another.

Perhaps most important, the lines of communication had reopened between Veronica and her parents. As a clinician I’ll take friction over a stalemate any day. Here’s why: your daughter will be given many opportunities to do hazardous things while she’s a teenager, and you want to be talking with her about the risks teens take. You can’t have these all-important conversations when you’re in a standoff.

Framing Danger

Parents of teenagers must live with the painful truth that teenagers can and do engage in dangerous behavior—behavior that goes way beyond wearing questionable lipstick or a banned T-shirt. You’re not alone if you’ve lost sleep worrying that your daughter might get hurt if she and her friends decide to try out some of the careless things that teenagers sometimes do. More than a few parents secretly wish that they could lock their daughter away until she’s an adult or follow her around all weekend as her personal (and profoundly unwelcome) bodyguard.

Our fears about teen safety aren’t crazy. Statistically, people take more risks as teenagers than they do at any other time of life. Reckless driving, drug use, and unprotected sex all peak during adolescence. Yet contrary to popular belief, research doesn’t support the myths that teenagers push limits because they are highly irrational, think they’re invulnerable, or can’t calculate risks. Rather, when something bad happens to a teenager, it’s usually because her capacity for wise decision making has been swept away by powerful contextual factors. Remember the video game study in chapter 2 that showed young drivers throw caution to the wind when their friends are nearby? That’s what we’re talking about here. A teenager’s wish to connect with her friends and be seen as cool in their eyes can readily trump her better judgment.

But even under the sway of social influence, teenagers don’t disregard the issue of rules completely. In my experience they still think about it, but in the wrong way. Instead of reflecting on why we have rules, teens focus on trying not to get caught while breaking them. I’ve got Sasha, a fun-loving high school junior, to thank for this insight.

One Thursday afternoon Sasha, whose parents initially sought my help because she was routinely cutting class, brought herself to our regular appointment at my practice. Excited to share her plans for the weekend, she dropped her book bag on the floor of my office, plunked down on my couch, and happily began.

“So, listen to this! There’s a guy at school who I sorta know who asked me to a sleepover on his parents’ houseboat this weekend. From how he asked, I can’t tell if anyone else will be there. He said that he knows where his folks keep the keys to the boat, so we won’t have any problem getting in. My mom would never be okay with this, so I’m gonna tell her that I’m sleeping over at Julia’s.” Julia was Sasha’s best friend and sometimes accomplice. As I listened to Sasha’s plans, my heart rate skyrocketed and my mind left its psychologist mode and switched fully to “I’m a mother too!” mode. All I could think was, “Forget your confidentiality, kiddo, I am so calling your mom.”

I should note here that many excellent therapists refuse to work with teenagers because they don’t want to deal with the challenges that come up when teens talk about risky behavior in therapy. As clinicians, it’s our job to protect our clients’ confidentiality. But it’s also our job to keep teenagers safe, so we must break confidentiality if we think a teenager might do something truly dangerous. A lot of what teens talk about in therapy falls into a tricky gray area that requires us to make a judgment call about whether we should alert parents to potentially harmful behavior, even if that means damaging our relationship with a teenage client.

In telling me this story, Sasha was clearly counting on my confidentiality. She must have sensed my discomfort about what I was hearing because next she said, “This should totally work because I have thought it all through. Yep…thought it all through.” From there, Sasha described the elaborate scheme she and Julia had crafted to keep her mom from figuring out where she really was. Listening, I realized that by “thinking it all through,” Sasha meant that she’d given a lot of thought to figuring out how to make sure she wouldn’t get caught. I collected myself and got back into psychologist mode.

Assuming that every teenager has a wise, mature side (even if she does a great job of hiding it), I spoke to that part of Sasha and said, “Look, you and I both know that getting caught by your mother is the least dangerous thing that could happen to you this weekend.” Thankfully, Sasha’s mature side suddenly surfaced and spared me an awkward (and borderline unethical) phone call to her mother. Once I suggested that there might be some genuine risks to consider, Sasha named them for us: she didn’t really know this boy, she might be alone with him off some dock on Lake Erie, if something went wrong she’d be on her own, and so on. To my enormous relief, she talked herself into canceling her plans.

When our daughters assess risk, we want them to assess the right risks. We want them to focus not on escaping adult detection but on the real dangers they might face. How do you make this happen? To begin, think carefully about your response when your daughter tells you about her peers’ risky behavior. As frightening as these tales can be, consider each and every one of them a gift. News of what so-and-so did gives you an open invitation to have critical conversations with your teenager—the kind of conversations that would come off as unwelcome lectures if broached directly.

If she mentions a friend who texts while driving, resist your impulse to say something such as, “That’s horrible—if I were her parent I’d ground her indefinitely!” and use the opportunity to comment on the actual perils of what you’re hearing. Consider, “Yikes! Can you help her stop doing that? I’d hate for her to hurt or kill herself or someone else.” If she tells you about a classmate who uses her cell phone to lie about her location when calling home to check in, you might say, “I hope she’s also focused on making sure she’s somewhere safe and not just thinking about how to throw her parents off her trail.”

Similarly, make good use of the hypothetical situations your daughter puts before you. If she asks, “What would you do if you caught me smoking?” talk with her about nicotine’s highly addictive chemistry and the lethality of lung cancer. Don’t tell her that you’d routinely search her room for cigarettes and give her a close sniff every time she walked through the door. Parents who threaten their daughter usually come from a well-meaning place—they don’t want anything bad to happen to her and hope that they can scare her straight. But parental threats focus a girl’s attention on avoiding the short-term menace posed by the rules, not the long-term damage that could result from the risks she’s considering. It’s logistically impossible to supervise teenagers all the time and with cell phones, cars, and friends like Julia, teenagers can get away with all kinds of dangerous mischief. If you set up the game as “don’t get caught by me,” your daughter can win that game, even at her own frightening expense.

Come out from behind your curtain and offer the real reasons for your rules. Frame conversations about dangerous behavior in terms of the bottom-line risks your daughter might face, not what will happen if she gets busted. And as you take this tack, know that the research is on your side. A long-standing area of study in academic psychology demonstrates that teens with authoritative parents—parents who are warm yet firm and emphasize the reasons for rules—consistently take fewer risks than the teens of authoritarian parents who simply lay down the law and try to gain compliance through punishment. In chapter 7 we’ll discuss in specific terms the risky things girls sometimes do, how to talk with your daughter about those risks, and how to respond if your daughter takes them. For now, our aim is to encourage our daughters to consider the actual hazards of risk taking, not the logistics of defying authority.

Rupture and Repair

I’m at lunch with a close colleague—a psychologist who treats adults and who, like me, is the mother of two girls. Her daughters are eight and eleven, and when we get to talking about the older daughter’s impending adolescence my friend apprehensively says, “I think we’ll be okay…we’ve got a really good relationship right now, so I’m hoping that we won’t have a rough time with each other when she’s a teenager.” To which I reply, “Well, you will get into rough times with each other, what matters is how you get out of them. We both want to help our girls build their emotional intelligence, and having healthy fights with you will help your daughter grow that intelligence.” We got refills on our coffees and kept talking about what we mean when we say emotional intelligence and how the right kind of conflict can build it.

Emotional intelligence is a widely used term, but there’s no consensus among psychologists about its definition. I favor the approach of Peter Fonagy, the head of the Clinical, Educational and Health Psychology Department at University College London and director of the Anna Freud Centre. Dr. Fonagy and his research team describe emotional intelligence as the capacity to reflect on our own thoughts, feelings, and actions and to be aware of complex mental states—the wishes, beliefs, and feelings—of the people around us. We are using our emotional intelligence when we wonder, “What’s gotten into me? Why am I so short-tempered today?” and our daughters are using their emotional intelligence when they think, “What’s up with Mom? Did I do something that ticked her off?” In other words, it’s both “seeing ourselves from the outside and seeing others from the inside.” Often, emotional intelligence is just common sense; we use it all the time without even noticing. Almost everyone comes wired for emotional intelligence, and some people have more of it than others. But it’s also a skill, and like any other skill, emotional intelligence can be developed.

What does emotional intelligence have to do with telling my psychologist friend to go ahead and fight with her soon-to-be teenager? Research demonstrates that emotional intelligence requires the collaboration of the two areas of the brain we’ve considered before: the lower, primal portion of the brain (the limbic system), which processes emotional information and generates emotional reactions, and the upper, outer area of the brain (the cortex), where rational thinking lives. When we feel threatened or when our feelings are running high, the limbic system can take over and send us into an attacking or defensively self-protecting mode. This is especially true for teenagers whose brains, as we know, are in the middle of a renovation project that upgrades the limbic system before bringing the higher-order, rational system fully online.

Teenagers are prone to having strong emotional reactions that override their better judgment. They become all emotion and no intelligence. And what’s likely to trigger this unfortunate state of affairs? Coming into conflict with you. But there’s good news: working your way through a conflict with your daughter brings her brain back into balance and builds her emotional intelligence.

Let’s consider an invented interaction between a father and his teenage daughter.

Father: “Hey, it’s time for you to set the table for dinner.”

Daughter: “Shhh! I’m in the middle of my favorite show and I’ve been waiting all day to watch it.”

Father (firmly): “Doesn’t matter. Set the table. Now.”

Daughter (snotty): “Geez! Doesn’t a girl have the right to watch television around here? Last I looked, kids were no longer considered chattel. If the laws have changed, someone should have let me know.”

Father (now mad): “Stop acting like a lazy freeloader! Set the table now or forget about using the car this weekend.”

Daughter (stomping off to her room): “Screw you!”

After cooling off for twenty minutes, the father knocks on his daughter’s door, gains permission to open it, and stands in her doorway to calmly say: “I don’t like what just happened between us, and I want to apologize for my part in it. I’m not okay with how you acted, but I know your days are long and that you love your show. That said, you need to find a better way to respond when I ask you to do something you’re not ready to do. On top of that, you shouldn’t have taken that tone with me and when you do, you know I’ll get mad. Regardless of what you said, I shouldn’t have called you a lazy freeloader—that was mean and untrue. I had a long day myself, but that’s just an explanation, not an excuse. We’re going to eat soon—please come on down and set the table.”

If the daughter rolls her eyes, says nothing in response, resentfully sets the table, and sits silently while she eats, I’d still call this exchange a terrific step on the path toward building her emotional intelligence!

Research done by Dr. Fonagy and his team shows that we build emotional intelligence in teens when we help them consider their own, and other people’s, mental states. By wondering if his daughter’s long day might have contributed to her testy reaction, the father encouraged the kind of self-reflection we want girls to develop (“seeing ourselves from the outside”). In apologizing for his bad behavior, the father reminded his daughter about how he reacted to her snotty tone and connected his harsh words to his own long day. Laying out what unfolded in his mind as the conflict escalated gave his daughter a window into his mental state (“seeing others from the inside”) and an impressive primer in emotional intelligence.

But wait, there’s more! In our invented interaction, the father didn’t just build his daughter’s emotional intelligence, he helped to rewire her brain. Emotional intelligence requires the integrated functioning of the prefrontal, rational parts of the brain with the limbic, emotional parts. This is what happens when we think about feelings, whether they are our own or someone else’s. In a gross oversimplification of how the brain works (but a terrifically catchy phrase), “what fires together wires together.” The repeated practice of reflecting on the patterns of her own mental states and your mental states will help your daughter bring her frontal cortex more fully online and pave her path toward an emotionally intelligent adulthood.

Don’t expect your daughter to thank you for your efforts to talk with her about your mental states and to appreciate hers. That would be weird. But do expect that, over time, these conversations will help your daughter to be curious about where you (and others) are coming from and to think about what drives her own thoughts, feelings, and actions. And honoring your daughter’s complexity while reminding her of yours will keep the lines of communication open when you need them most.

You may be all for building your daughter’s emotional intelligence but still wonder, “Must we fight? Can’t we build emotional intelligence while we’re getting along?”

Not really.

When we’re getting along, we only need junior varsity levels of emotional intelligence. If you and your daughter want to listen to the same song, you don’t really have to think about your inner state (as in, “Why do I want to hear that song? And is it immature of me to say it’s my turn to choose the music?”) or your daughter’s (“Perhaps she’s had a bad day and would feel better if she listens to music she likes”). Only when we are at odds with each other do we start to build our varsity grade emotional intelligence skills. When we reflect on competing mental states—when what I want isn’t what you want, but I’m holding both of our perspectives in mind—we start to become emotional geniuses.

You may be on board with the idea of supporting your daughter’s growing emotional intelligence and rewiring brain, yet you’re still thinking, “But must she fight with me? Can’t she get the same mental workout fighting with someone else?”

Actually, no.

It has to be you, or some other emotionally intelligent person who really knows and loves her. Because it’s not the fighting that builds your daughter’s emotional intelligence; it’s the path toward resolution where the magic happens. The repair that occurred when the father spoke to his daughter after their blowout depended heavily on the unique bond between a parent and child. To start, he used a calm tone to communicate that the fight was behind him and that they were back in a safe, familiar place with each other. We know that emotional intelligence first grows in the context of loving relationships in which people feel secure. It’s almost impossible to ponder our own mental states, much less anyone else’s, when we feel threatened. Next, the resolution the father offered involved his past knowledge of his daughter (wondering if her insolence was because of her long day) and her past knowledge of him (“you shouldn’t have taken that tone with me and when you do, you know I’ll get mad”). Emotional intelligence skills grow when we use our insights about each other to find a way back across a breach. In order to have emotional-intelligence-building relationship repair, you have to have a rupture with someone who cares and knows enough to make it right.

This might seem like a lot of work just to get a girl to sit begrudgingly at the dinner table, but believe me, it’s worth it. Every healthy relationship your daughter will ever have depends on her emotional intelligence. When you tune in to your teenager’s mental states and help her tune in to yours, you send a strong message. You let her know that she deserves to be in relationships with people who are interested in her perspective, can reflect on their own, and are willing to do the hard, humble work of using conflict to deepen and improve a connection. She may never step back to think about the emotionally intelligent relationships you are working to create at home, but her positive experiences with you will encourage her to steer clear of anyone who doesn’t treat her with the same dignity.

What if the father hadn’t worked toward repair? What if he had let his daughter seethe in her room while he stewed through dinner? He certainly had a right to be mad—her words and actions were out of line—and he could have reasonably expected, even demanded, an apology. But the father left the conversation on a shaming note (“Stop acting like a lazy freeloader!”), and shame is one of the last places we, as parents, want to land with our kids. Indeed, the capacity to shame a child is one of the most dangerous weapons in our parenting arsenal. Shame goes after a girl’s character, not her actions. It goes after who she is, not what she did. Shame has toxic, lasting effects and no real benefits. Once shamed, teens are left two terrible options: a girl can agree with the shaming parent and conclude that she is, indeed, the bad one, or she can keep her self-esteem intact by concluding that the parent is the bad one. Either way, someone loses.

Teenagers can be reactive, they can be rude, and we already know that their intense emotionality can provoke adults to act in ways they later regret. If you say something you don’t mean, if you use shame or throw your power around when in conflict with your daughter, apologize. It’s the right thing to do, and it’s the first step in the critical process of repairing relational ruptures. Don’t worry that owning your mistakes will reveal flaws your daughter hasn’t noticed before. She already knows you’re not perfect. In fact, she can probably list your faults better than anyone.

Crazy Spots

Every parent comes with limitations and, with the curtain pulled back, teenagers can see our limitations clearly and become adept at naming them. This doesn’t mean you deserve every criticism your daughter levels at you—you’re not parenting very well if your teen agrees with all the decisions you make—but don’t rush to dismiss your daughter’s critiques of your character. Painful as it can be, there will be times when she names your shortcomings and irrational behavior—what I like to call “crazy spots”—with astounding accuracy.

Some parents know their warts and will not be surprised when their daughters see them, too. If you spent years in therapy mapping the landscape of your neuroses, you’ll be impressed when your daughter lays it all out for you in three blunt sentences. Other parents can’t tolerate the idea that they have shortcomings. They deny their faults and get defensive when their daughters try to point them out. Most of us fall somewhere in between.

How will you know when to take her critiques seriously? Your daughter is probably on the right track when she’s accusing you of something you’ve been accused of before. Perhaps you’re irrational about money, perhaps you aren’t as reliable as you should be, or perhaps you have strong reactions to small mistakes. She may also be on the right track if you feel hurt by her accusations. For most of us, the critiques that sting are the ones with some truth to them.

Our daughters have a good reason to point out our limitations: they want us to be better. They will only ever have one set of parents and they are newly aware that we are far from perfect. Ever hopeful, our daughters think we’ll improve if they point out our flaws. That said, constructive feedback (“When you are late to pick me up, I feel anxious and frustrated”) would make their critiques easier to take. Don’t hold your breath waiting for it.

If you suspect that your daughter has accurately identified real limitations in your parenting, you could consider checking her observations with someone else who knows and loves you, perhaps your partner, a sibling, or a gentle friend. Don’t be ashamed to admit that your parenting’s not perfect. There is no such thing as a perfect parent and there doesn’t need to be. Being honest with yourself about your faults will improve your relationship with your daughter and help her thrive in parts of her life that have nothing to do with you. There are a lot of upsides to owning your crazy spots.

Let’s say you’ve confronted your limitations. You’ve looked yourself in the mirror and said, “You know, she’s right, I’m less reliable than I should be. I say I’ll pick her up at six o’clock, and I rarely make it before six twenty.” What happens now? You’ve got a couple of options. First, see if you can change. People grow and evolve throughout their lifetimes—having an insightful teenager in your house can make you a better person. Tell your daughter, “You are right, I’m bad about being on time and it’s not fair to you. I apologize. I’m trying to change.” If you can’t change, own your shortcomings.

I have plenty of crazy spots myself and will confess in print to my irrational attachment to having my home be both tidy and clean. It doesn’t need to be operating-room clean, but I really (really, really) like to have things shipshape. Left to my own devices, I will spend an entire weekend scrubbing and organizing our already clean kitchen. My affliction predates parenthood: before we married, my now-husband once remarked, “Your idea of fun doesn’t seem to be the same as everybody else’s.” So he knew what he was getting into.

When I stumble upon an unexpected mess—like mud tracked into the house and left to dry—I will sometimes go bananas. I know that my reaction can be totally out of proportion to the size of the problem, so I’ve worked to own my crazy spot. I’ve explained to my daughters that my overreactions should not be taken personally; they grow from the many years I happily controlled my surroundings as an only child. We have come to the understanding that I’ll do what I can to contain my irrational response, and they’ll work with the awareness that things might get ugly if they leave messes around the house. Interestingly, my girls have discovered through trial and error that I don’t mind any mess left on a tiled landing right inside our back door. In a display of sisterly solidarity they have come to refer to the area as “Mom’s not-crazy spot” (as in, “Whoa, that’s really muddy—leave it in Mom’s not-crazy spot”).

It takes guts to admit one’s limitations, especially to a teenager. You might worry that owning your crazy spots will compromise your authority, but the effect is usually the opposite. Teens generally have more respect for adults who admit what they as adolescents can plainly see.

Talking about your crazy spots not only saves your daughter the work of trying to change your fully formed personality, it also builds her emotional intelligence. In its more basic form, your daughter’s emotional intelligence will help her to consider competing mental states. But when you teach her about your crazy spots, you are taking her emotional intelligence up several notches: you are inviting her to think about your motivations in a broad perspective that includes past experiences and relationships. By encouraging her to expand her insight beyond what’s happening in the moment, you’ll advance your daughter from varsity level emotional intelligence (“Why does Mom act psychotic when I track mud through the house?”) to the pros (“Mom acts psychotic because she didn’t have to share her space when she was growing up, so she doesn’t always handle it well now”).

Owning your limitations and helping your daughter not take them personally opens up a whole new world for her. Though teenagers can recognize their parents’ shortcomings, the egocentricity of adolescence causes them to see our crazy spots as something we are doing “to” them, and they believe that if they point out our faults, they can bring us closer to being the ideal parents they want us to be. Few moments in life spark more maturation than when a young person recognizes that her parents have strengths and limitations that were in place long before she came along and that will be there long after she moves out. In letting go of the dream of turning you into the perfect parent, your daughter recovers a lot of energy that has been devoted to being angry with you, feeling hurt by you, or trying to change you. And there are many more important directions for an adolescent’s energy to go: toward her studies, toward building healthy friendships, toward planning her future, and, of course, toward enjoying the strengths of her less-than-perfect parents.

In good marriages, partners can help their children appreciate what they should and shouldn’t take personally in the other parent’s behavior. My husband has told our daughters that I’ve been clean crazy for as long as he’s known me and that he stopped taking it personally years ago. Done carefully, and with everyone’s best interest in mind, crazy spot naming can also be a feature of good divorces. Those of us who work with divorced parents universally counsel them not to badmouth their exes to their children, but it’s still possible to help teens with an ex’s crazy spots in a way that supports the teen and her relationship with both parents.

Chloe (the vegetarian) and her mom came to an appointment together so that we could address the fallout from her dad’s insistence that she eat meat at his home. As Chloe complained about her father’s high-handed tactics, her mother matter-of-factly commented that he had never been one for negotiation. Indeed, she explained that that was one of the reasons their marriage had failed. She went on to offer suggestions for how Chloe might reach out to her dad when she felt ready and added that, shortcomings aside, he really adored Chloe and that many of her own wonderful qualities were ones she had in common with her father. If I’d had a “Divorced Parent of the Century” prize on hand, I would have given it out right there.

So go ahead and own your crazy spots and help your daughter with your partner’s (or ex’s) spots if you can do it in a kind way. And take comfort: girls don’t reserve their character critiques for their parents—they see through other adults, too.

Adults with Faults

As a high school sophomore, I had an awful trigonometry teacher. His explanations of problems added to my confusion, his tests didn’t cover what he said they would cover, and he took forever to grade and return our homework. I was stuck with Mr. Martin (or that’s what we’ll call him) and complained constantly about him at home. When my mother had her fill of my griping, she offered one of the least welcome and most helpful things anyone has ever said to me: “There will be no place on your high school transcript to explain that you didn’t like Mr. Martin. You’d better figure out how to manage.”

These situations are not rare. Every school has teachers who are incompetent, disorganized, callous, provocative, or deadly boring. Welcome this reality. If you could staff your daughter’s school with nothing but the most engaging, talented, and conscientious teachers, she’d have an amazing educational experience but would graduate without the skills needed to thrive in the outside world. Once your daughter leaves high school, she will need to know how to manage unpleasant bosses, difficult college instructors, and other challenging people in positions of authority. So when she encounters a problematic teacher, seize the opportunity to help your daughter develop strategies that will serve her for the rest of her life.

Don’t hesitate to validate your daughter’s experience when she complains to you about another adult. Unless you have reason to believe otherwise, her description is likely accurate; teenagers are particularly clear-eyed and can provide descriptions of adults’ characters that would put a Brontë sister to shame. If your daughter has been lucky enough to spend her childhood surrounded by reasonable grown-ups, she may be confused when a less-than-impressive one first crosses her path. Spare her the trouble of doubting her perceptions while calmly acknowledging that she will need to learn to deal with all sorts of people.

Indeed, when girls in my practice complain to me about the adults in their lives, I rarely question their assessment. If a girl seems stymied by her parents’ shortcomings, I try to boost her emotional intelligence by asking her to theorize about their alleged crazy spots (as in, “So what do you make of the fact that your dad seems to prefer time in his workshop to time at the dinner table?”). Or I empathize with the girl’s position without allowing it to become an excuse for her difficulties. Once, when I was sitting with a bright teenager who could not stand her parents and was protesting their deficiencies by failing in school, I found myself saying, “I’ll take you at your word that your parents aren’t fit for the job—but then you’ve got to help me understand why you are setting yourself up to live with them indefinitely.”

Our old friend Camille made a smooth transition into the ninth grade. She welcomed the smorgasbord of extracurricular opportunities that came with being in high school and the influx of new kids from other middle schools. Camille had always been a strong student, so Maya was surprised when her first grade report showed a C+ in French. When Maya asked her what was going on, she got an earful about Camille’s own Mr. Martin, her ninth-grade French teacher, Mrs. Clayton. By Camille’s report, Mrs. Clayton spoke only in French, sometimes ridiculed students, and gave out worksheets that were graded entirely on whether they were handed in on time. Camille complained over dinner that she should not be expected to put forth her best effort given Mrs. Clayton’s ridiculous policies and obvious disdain for her students.

Maya told me that she was tempted to pull Camille from the class and switch her into Latin, but, before she did, we decided to try to help Camille get things back on track. As we talked, Maya reflected on a narrow-minded boss she had had in one of her first jobs. At our next meeting, Maya reported that her conversation with her daughter had gone well. She had shared with Camille how miserable it was to work for a mean and petty boss yet how useful it had been to walk away from that job with a strong recommendation. From there, Maya went on to help Camille rise to the challenge of dealing with her difficult teacher. She openly agreed with her daughter regarding Mrs. Clayton’s grading policies but pointed out that Camille could play by the stupid rules to get the grade she wanted. When her daughter objected that she wasn’t even catching all of the assignments Mrs. Clayton gave in rapid-fire French, Maya suggested that she compare notes with several classmates about what they believed the assignments were, trusting that among them they were likely to get everything. Later that week, when Camille couldn’t make sense of a grammatical rule while studying for an upcoming quiz, Maya helped her search online until they found a video tutorial that addressed the question.

By engaging seriously with the dilemma posed by Mrs. Clayton, Maya sent several important messages: that Camille would have to deal with problematic authority figures throughout life, so wishing it were different was only a waste of energy; that she had total confidence that Camille could develop solutions to the problems Mrs. Clayton presented; and—perhaps most important—that she fully expected that Camille would figure out how to manage her lousy situation. Maya later told me that she said to Camille, “Look, I know that Mrs. Clayton bugs you. Getting good at dealing with her will pay off for you in the end. The most successful people I know do their best work under any conditions, for anyone. You can use this year with Mrs. Clayton to help you develop that capacity.”

Sending Camille in to deal with Mrs. Clayton amounted to a powerful vote of confidence. In effect, Maya was saying, “You are not so fragile that you need everything to go your way. I trust that you can solve this.” Had she simply moved Camille to Latin, Maya would have signaled that the problem in her French class was unusual and should be dodged. Even worse, switching classes would have sent Camille the message that she wasn’t resilient enough to deal with Mrs. Clayton.

There are, of course, times when parents should intervene. Teenagers should not be expected to manage authority figures who are grossly unfair to students, make it impossible for any student to succeed in class, harass students, or mistreat them on the basis of their sex, race, class, religion, culture, or sexual or gender identity. If you are unsure about whether you should step in, start by doing everything you can to support your daughter as she tries to manage the situation. If she can’t address the difficulty posed by a teacher or coach, or if the situation worsens, contact the school and advocate for your girl.

Camille was unambivalent about Mrs. Clayton, and understandably so. There wasn’t much to like. But there will be times when your daughter’s move into adolescence—with its dawning insight into adult character—will bring about mixed feelings regarding an adult she felt really good about before.

Away from my private practice and back under the stairs in my office at Laurel, I waited for Carly, a quiet sophomore who had requested an appointment. As is often the case, she arrived with two additional girls in tow. Even girls who request my help can feel unsure about meeting with me (because, as we know, they secretly worry that they are crazy) and often show up with companions.

Accustomed to this procedure, I lightly asked, “Are you guys the delivery service, or are you planning to stay?”

Carly looked anxiously at her friends, then at me, before saying, “Is it okay if they stay?”

I said, “Sure. If it’s okay with you, it’s fine by me.”

They squeezed in. Carly sat in the chair across from mine, and I pushed my bag and books aside so that her friends could huddle on my bench. The Laurel uniform is a kilt that girls usually wear with low socks and sneakers. The more girls I have sitting in cramped positions in my office at once, the more the space becomes dominated by their bare knees.

Carly began, “I want to talk to you about my figure skating coach, Maureen. I’ve been working with her since I was ten and she’s one of the best coaches in town. She’s always been really good to me, but she’s said some stuff that I’m not sure about.”

“What kind of stuff?” I asked.

“Well, a couple of years ago I had a growth spurt and since then she’s been making comments about my size.” Let me add here that Carly was a capable and fit athlete who enjoyed skating but was not planning to compete beyond high school. She went on, “I haven’t done as well in competition lately, but that’s because I’ve moved up a level and the girls I’m going against now are really good. I emailed you after practice last week because Maureen told me to ‘choose water over food’ before the next competition, and I’m not sure what to do with that comment.” Carly’s friends nodded sympathetically and looked to me for a response.

This wasn’t the first time I’d heard about a skating coach or ballet teacher saying something that tempts me to show up at the rink or studio and give them what-for about the dangers of eating disorders. But I could hear that Carly was fond of Maureen, so I tried to cloak my outrage while sticking up for reality. I said, “It sounds as if there’s a lot to like about Maureen, but that comment is really inappropriate.”

Carly’s friends nodded, and Carly said, “Yeah, I thought so, too.”

“Do you think you need to lose weight?” I asked.

“No. Well at least I didn’t before she made that comment last week. But I talked with my mom about what Maureen said and my mom’s a doctor. She showed me a chart and my weight is exactly where it’s supposed to be for my height.”

“What did your mom make of Maureen’s comment?”

“She didn’t like it either, but she knows I really like working with Maureen and don’t want a new coach.”

“So, where does that leave you?”

“I don’t know.” Carly paused, looked at her friends, looked down at her hands, jiggled her legs, then said, “I still think she’s a good coach, and the right coach for me. It just changes how I feel about her.”

I asked, “Would you want to say something to Maureen about her comment?”

“No, that probably wouldn’t work. But I think that I can ignore what she says about my weight. I think that it’s her issue—it’s not really about me.”

“That’s your call to make, and certainly a reasonable one. Let’s do this: if she says something that gets to you, or if you start to worry about your weight, will you let me or your folks know?”

“Yeah,” Carly said, “of course.”

I went on, “I’m sorry that you’ve gotten to know a side of Maureen that’s not so great and am impressed that you can see past it to make the most of her good coaching. Adults are human, which means we’re imperfect—so you’ll need to figure out how to make the most of us anyway. It seems like you’re doing a good job sorting this out.”

Carly and her friends nodded in agreement, promised to return if needed, then made their way to lunch.

All relationships come with ambivalence. Knowing someone well means that we enjoy the best of what he or she has to offer and must reconcile ourselves to being frustrated and disappointed at times, too. Acknowledging your own crazy spots (and, perhaps, your partner’s) welcomes your daughter to these facts of life. Don’t hesitate to extend this same lesson to adults beyond your home as well. When we help girls let go of the idea that there are perfect people or perfect relationships, they move into a vastly more mature way of dealing with people as they are and the world as it is. And on your end, too, remembering how to hold on to good feelings when we are angry or disappointed will come in handy because sometimes your daughter will do things she’s not supposed to do.

Holding the Line

Most teens step over the line with their parents at some point during adolescence, often through open displays of disrespect. If your daughter was one of the world’s sweetest little girls, you will be taken aback—even hurt—the first time she’s belligerent with you. Of course, getting ugly differs from family to family because every household has its own emotional thermometer. Some run hot—shouting and swearing are used both in happiness and anger—and others run so cool that interrupting amounts to a verbal assault. There’s no right or wrong emotional thermometer so long as everyone is held to the same standard. In other words, you can’t curse at your daughter and then call it a violation when she returns the favor. Expect that wherever your family draws the line for acceptable communication, your daughter will almost certainly cross it.

When your daughter is no sugar and all spice, you might find yourself reacting in ways that you don’t feel good about. Instead, consider taking an approach that I learned when I landed on the television show Cops during some late-night channel surfing. The scene I caught featured a policeman in his cruiser as he talked to the camera about his “three F’s” for dealing with surly criminals. Cynically, I thought to myself, “Oh! This should be rich,” but then he said, “Just be fair, firm, and friendly.” To translate this brilliant approach from the mean streets to your kitchen, take a breath and remember that—regardless of what your daughter just said—there is that thoughtful, grown-up part of every teenage girl to which you can respond. In a genuine and kind way consider saying, “Clearly you’re very mad—I’m open to having a real conversation about what’s bothering you as soon as you feel ready.” You may need to repeat your same line in the same even-tempered tone if the bile keeps coming. If so, you will find that it’s very rare for a teenager to continue to hurl insults at an adult who persistently offers to address her concerns in a civil manner.

Teenagers also do things they shouldn’t—even things they’ve been specifically told not to do. On a Sunday afternoon I got an urgent message on my practice voicemail from Ben, the father of Dara, a girl I had seen in psychotherapy for separation anxiety when she was in third grade. When I returned his call, he picked up right away and spoke rapidly.

“Hi, Dr. Damour, thanks for getting back to me quickly. I think you remember Dara—she’s now seventeen. Well, her grandmother just died so her mom and I were out of town for three days emptying her house. We left Dara at home and told her not to have anyone over. I got back a few hours ago—my wife is still dealing with her mom’s affairs—and could tell that Dara had a party. Our outdoor plants are trashed and the basement carpet reeks of beer. Dara admitted that she invited a few friends over and that the party got out of hand when a bunch of kids she didn’t know showed up. She says she got everyone to leave by telling them that she’d call the police. I don’t know what to do and I want to keep this off of my wife’s plate for now because she’s already overwhelmed.”

When teens act out, they do shortsighted, even dangerous things, and parents can wonder what constitutes a “reasonable” reaction. There are no hard-and-fast rules, but here are a few guidelines to consider. We already know that you shouldn’t try to correct your daughter’s behavior by shaming her, and research on disciplinary practices finds that yelling at teenagers actually exacerbates problem behavior instead of fixing it. From what I can tell, angry lectures serve the sole purpose of providing relief for frustrated parents.

Over the phone I encouraged Ben to sit down with Dara and talk about the many bad outcomes that they, as a family, were lucky enough to avoid. He could start by seeing if she could lay out the dangers for him, and if not, he should: someone could have been hurt, the house could have been badly damaged, the neighbors might have called the police, and, had anyone been injured at or even after the party, Ben and his wife could have been held liable. In other words, it’s important for adults to point out that we don’t exercise our authority for the sake of displaying our power—we ask teenagers to play by the rules in the name of safety.

Discipline should always come with the opportunity to make things right again. Ben checked in with me a couple of days later to share that he had required Dara to buy and plant new greenery and to rent a steam cleaner from the local hardware store to clean the carpet. To his credit, Ben wasn’t deterred when she grumbled about her punishment, and he made her use her babysitting money to cover the costs. Giving a teenager a way to make reparations is the opposite of shaming her. If shame says, “You are bad,” repair says, “You messed up, but you can make it right.” We want teenagers to learn from their mistakes, and we want them to have a way back to a clear conscience so that they don’t, unconsciously, seek out further punishment to bring the scales into balance.

Within a month Ben and his wife, Trudy, were meeting with me in my office. Trudy, who was visibly depleted by the death of her mother and the recent challenges with Dara, now limply explained, “Dara has a friend who has some piercings and dyed her hair purple a couple of weeks ago. We’re not big fans of this girl, but we’ve known her a long time and she and Dara are pretty tight. After sleeping over at the girl’s house last weekend”—Trudy now wrinkled her nose—“our daughter came home with one piercing in her ear cartilage and three in her eyebrow.”

Ben joined in. “We got mad at her and feel like we should punish her but aren’t sure how—I mean she’s seventeen and we just don’t have much say about who she hangs out with or how she looks.”

“I think you’re right that punishment doesn’t really make sense,” I said. “What she’s doing annoys you, but it’s not actually dangerous. You could say, ‘We’re concerned about your new piercings and here’s why: adults will—even unfairly—make judgments about them. Some will mistrust you and others will assume that you’re not as smart as you really are. We don’t want any doors to be closed to you and I don’t want you to be denied any opportunities. We can’t make you take out the piercings, but we’re here to think with you about when it may not work out for you to rub adults the wrong way.’ ”

Trudy nodded. “Yeah, part of the problem is that she’s going to start looking for summer jobs next week.”

“Perfect,” I said. “You could add, ‘You do need to get a job this summer and, right or wrong, employers may not hire you, or even pay you as much, if your look makes them uncomfortable.’ ” In other words, they didn’t need to stand between Dara and the natural consequences of her choices, but they could point out the consequences and express their hope that she wouldn’t make decisions she’d regret.

Ben and Trudy were on the same page about Dara’s behavior, but it’s worth noting that parents don’t need to be fully aligned for their girls to thrive. It’s tricky when parents occupy opposite ends of any parenting spectrum—and we’ll address those difficulties in the “When to Worry” section—but for the sake of healthy development, teens need each of their parents to be internally consistent more than they need them to be in lockstep with each other. In other words, teenagers (and children, for that matter) need for their parents to be predictable.

Girls who know what each of their parents will generally allow, consider, and flat-out refuse can usually find ways to operate within those known parameters. It’s when the rules constantly shift that girls suffer. For instance, a stressed, distracted parent might let his daughter go to a faraway party one weekend but then be appalled by a similar request the next. In these cases girls don’t know what to expect so they give up or, more likely, become sneaky. Neither outcome serves any girl’s best interests.

Parents can usually live with each other’s slightly different but predictable styles, and when they can’t, they should try to come to an agreement on their own time. And they might do so while appreciating the luxury of having an invested partner as they raise their daughter. Making and enforcing rules as a single parent demands incredible fortitude. It’s unpleasant to come into conflict with a teenager under any circumstances, and it’s that much worse when you don’t have another adult nearby to offer backup or comfort. I have enormous respect for parents who raise teenagers alone, and advising them is some of the most gratifying clinical work I do.

If you are a single parent, you deserve as much support as you can find. Seek out trusted friends who care about you and your daughter and can take calls at crazy hours. If you have the resources, consider setting up regular appointments for yourself with a clinician who specializes in working with teens and their parents. Consulting with a supportive psychotherapist doesn’t mean that you aren’t doing a great job already—it means that you will have regular access to the kind of sounding board that all parents need and deserve when their teen pushes the limits.

Contending with Adult Authority: When to Worry

When it comes to the work of contending with adult authority, three scenarios are grounds for concern: when your teenager never rubs an adult the wrong way, when your teen rubs most adults the wrong way, and when key authority figures work against each other.

Too Good to Be True

Adults might enjoy the teenage girl who never contends with their authority, but something is usually wrong with that picture. A teenage girl should be finding friction with some adult somewhere, and if she isn’t, we should wonder why. Thinking back to chapter 1, we might ask if the grown-ups who surround the girl are too fragile to withstand the normal, healthy opposition that adolescent girls should raise against the adult world. Totally compliant behavior seems pretty safe—especially compared to the worrisome things teenagers do—but it might signal a problem below the surface. Research has long demonstrated that boys are more likely than girls to express distress by acting out in ways that annoy adults, while girls are more likely to develop depression, anxiety, and eating disorders. Adults should be mindful that girls who are depressed or anxious (or both) may have little energy to oppose us because they are suffering quietly and caving in on themselves. If you feel as if you recognize your daughter in this description, share your observations with her doctor or a mental health professional.

There’s an exception worth noting: girls whose parents have chosen to make enormous sacrifices on behalf of their daughter such as moving from another country to give her opportunities or living very simply so that she can enjoy an abundance of options. This can put girls in a tricky spot. While they may have a normal, rebellious itch, these girls do not always feel that they have a right to revolt against such altruistic parents. I’ve seen girls in this position ward off their impulses toward “bad” behavior by going all the way to the other extreme and adhering to the highest imaginable standards. They get terrific grades, are leaders within their schools, and dutifully help out at home. Such tactics serve them well in the long run, but I’d still prefer to see even a minor insurrection. Luckily, girls who are fantastically mature often find safe ways to undermine key adults. They declare themselves vegetarians in a meat-loving family or insist on giving their allowance to charity when their parents hope they’ll use it to have fun. It’s healthy for teenage girls to find a way to buck authority—even as they meet or exceed adult standards—and we should worry about girls who never oppose adults.

Constantly Contending

Teenagers should get along with—indeed make good use of—grown-ups, and we should be concerned about girls who persistently rub adults the wrong way. You’ll note that I refer broadly here to “adults,” because I have known teenage girls with deeply troubled parents who maintain strong, supportive relationships with adults outside the home. These resourceful girls rely on positive connections with teachers, coaches, and other mentors to get through adolescence effectively, even as they avoid their own parents or weather overwhelmingly negative interactions at home. But if that’s not the case, if a girl is insolent with nearly every adult she knows, we should worry.

The stereotype of the unrelentingly horrible teenager is inaccurate and destructive. In the words of Brett Laursen and W. Andrew Collins, psychologists who specialize in studying the parent-teenager relationship, “Disagreement is common, but serious conflict is not.” Studies consistently find that most teenagers get along with their parents and other adults most of the time, and new research suggests that parents who hold negative stereotypes about the teenage years can actually create a self-fulfilling prophecy with their own children.

A fascinating longitudinal research study—the kind that follows the same families for many years—measured the beliefs that parents of seventh graders held about teenagers in general, then waited several years to ask how those former seventh graders were doing when they became high school students. Some parents in the study held generally positive views of adolescents while others stereotyped teenagers as being difficult, obsessed with their looks and their friends, and immune to adult influence. By high school, the teens with parents who took a dark view of adolescence were more likely to report that they ran with a risky crowd and fought with their folks than those with parents who reported feeling good about teenagers several years prior. Put simply, teenagers live up to expectations, and they live down to them, too.

Negative stereotyping is a double whammy when it comes to teens: it can provoke them to act out and it can cause us to mistake a girl’s real psychological distress for willful behavior. Teenagers who are chronically nasty or routinely act out are distressed; they are probably suffering from the kind of porcupine depression described at the end of chapter 3. If you recognize your daughter here, consult with her primary care physician or a mental health professional about how to turn things around. Teenagers should have positive connections to grown-ups—especially their parents—and a disheartening line of research shows that girls who alienate themselves from adults are at heightened risk for depression, early sexual behavior, and drug and alcohol use. Don’t fall for the stereotype that your daughter’s teen years will be an inevitable, endless barrage of storm and stress. Get support for yourself and help for your daughter if it feels as though your relationship is always on the rocks.

Adults Contending with Each Other

Girls should not find themselves caught between parents who undercut each other. When parents disagree about how to raise their daughters it’s common for one parent to adopt a highly permissive stance while the other tries to cancel his or her partner out by becoming excessively rigid. This dynamic can unfold between parents who are married or divorced, and it tends to worsen with time. In a perfect example, a teen once shared with me this description of what had transpired over the weekend between her divorced parents: “My mom was pissed about my midsemester grades, so she told me that I couldn’t go out with my friends for a week. But I was at my dad’s house this weekend so she called him to tell him about my punishment. When I got to his house he said he thought she was totally overreacting to my grades, so he loaned me his car and gave me forty dollars and told me to call my friends and go out to lunch with them. At lunch I ran into one of my mom’s coworkers who then, go figure, mentioned to my mom that she’d seen me out with my friends. So then my mom got really mad and grounded me for a month.”

A teenager should not be given the opportunity to play her parents off of each other and should not become a pawn in a disagreement between them. Any normally developing teenager would take advantage of such a situation while guiltily knowing that she is getting away with something she shouldn’t. Add to that the discomfort that teens feel when the rules aren’t clear, and you’ve got a real mess. If you find yourself caught in a dynamic where you are working against your daughter’s other parent, get help from a neutral third party. Together, or on your own, find a clinician or mediator who can help you reach a compromise or learn to support each other’s parenting decisions. Your daughter needs rules that make sense, and she should not be recruited onto one parent’s team or the other’s. If there are teams in family life, parents should be on the same one.

—

Healthy teenagers contend with adult authority, but not all of the time. Teenagers shouldn’t be hung up on the inadequacies of surrounding adults, working against every adult they encounter, or stymied by unpredictable or feuding parents. When teens put all of their energy into contending with adults, they don’t have any resources left over to prepare for what lies ahead.