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Age-old Problem

by Jaime Simpson

When Roseline came to see me she was stressed and frustrated with the way her relationship with her 15-year-old daughter, Tasha, was developing.

She said Tasha was driving her crazy. She’d noticed during the past 18 months that her daughter was more argumentative but less communicative, her moods were unpredictable and nothing Roseline could say would help. Tasha wasn’t doing as well at school as they had hoped and she had become secretive. She wasn’t coming home at curfew, homework wasn’t completed and she made life hard for the family.

Roseline felt that if something didn’t change soon the family would fall apart.

If all this sounds familiar, it could be time to change the dynamics of the family and to do this it’s important to start at the top – with the parents. When parents respond using coaching techniques, then the teen will respond to the new methods.

I encouraged Roseline to learn some new methods and take a new approach, to become a parent coach rather than a controlling manager. We implemented 10 steps in the family. Here are three of them:

Mind matters: The first step in helping Roseline become a parent coach was to look at the transition in a child’s mind once they become a teenager. A child between the age of seven and 11 has the cognitive development ability only to think in concrete operations. Concrete thought allows a child to classify objects in terms of dimensions such as size, but abstract problems remain elusive.

This is when life was quite easy for Roseline, because she was in control of Tasha, and Tasha responded in a way that her mind could grasp.

Between the age of 11 and 15, abstract thought and scientific reasoning emerges. Problems are now approached with advanced logic and reasoning, as teenagers start to see the world differently.

Imagine watching a movie such as The Matrix on a 12-inch black and white television and then going to a cinema with surround sound. The movie looks totally different. And so does life for the teenager.

The problem occurred for Roseline when she noticed the transitional changes her daughter was going through, but continued to respond in a way that only worked for seven to 11-year-olds’ concrete thinking abilities. This response results in resistance from those who have developed abstract thought.

After Roseline understood the transition that had taken place in Tasha’s cognitive abilities, we looked at how she needed to change from being the manager of Tasha’s life to the coach or guide.

It has to be you: To manage Roseline’s stress levels and the sudden outbursts, I encouraged her to look within, and to work on herself and her responses. To support this, we implemented what I call the key question and a breathing technique.

That key question is: “Is what I am about to say or do going to draw me closer to my teen or move me further away? And if it’s going to move me away, is it worth saying it?” After Roseline asked herself this question, she was to take two deep breaths before speaking. This gave her the chance to get some oxygen into her brain – as well as giving her a few moments’ pause, which helped her avoid reacting to her daughter in a way that might harm their relationship.

Talk the talk: Teenagers speak a different language and parents need new ways of listening. Roseline needed to get rid of everything that worked in the past with her child and learn new communication skills. This included listening in order to understand her daughter rather than listening to gain information.

Roseline found this difficult. She had thought she was a great listener, but realised that she was only listening so that she could give Tasha her opinions. I encouraged her to use the acronym of Wait, which stands for Why Am I Talking? What is the point of this?

These three steps are some of the coaching techniques that have helped transform Roseline from a parent manager to a parent coach, and changed the dynamics of her family.

Jaime Simpson is a member of the Hong Kong International Coaching Community (info@coachinghk.org)