<a href="http://www.thenestmiami.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/On-Teens-and-Headphones-blog.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-122 alignright" alt="On Teens and Headphones blog" src="http://www.thenestmiami.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/On-Teens-and-Headphones-blog.jpg" width="403" height="302" /></a>Last week, I was with a good friend of mine picking her brain about marketing and business things since she is very adept at them.  She told me that we needed a picture of an angry-looking teen, wearing over-sized headphones to help us generate interest.  I must have made a face because she quickly asked me what I thought.  I told her that at the nest we like to look at the strengths of families and children, that I understand how it is difficult to be the parent of the uninterested adolescent buried in his headphones.   However, I knew in my heart and through my experience working with teens in therapy that the headphones and the distance tell a story.  She smirked and as old friends do, told me the truth, “Lina, I can’t wait until your kids are teens. We will see…”

She stopped me in my tracks.  She made me take a moment to process and wonder what will it be like when my little 8-year-old and 5-year-old turn 18 and 15. I will be surprised when they do become adolescents, but as Oprah says, one thing I know for sure, I will be mourning the loss of my little people and that will be my greatest challenge.

Loss, regret, sadness, anger and guilt:   these feelings predominate during the transition from adolescence for both the parent and the child.  The primary task of development during adolescence is integrating values, education, and life experiences in order to graduate to the independence of adulthood.  This task is a betrayal and a loss for the parent.  It’s the little secret of which no one speaks:  the nights of feeling regret for not spending more time with your child when they still wanted you; the anger and shame of feeling rejected when your teens says, “leave me alone”; the sadness that your little one is now becoming a man or woman and soon will leave; and the guilt of wishing they would stop changing.  The adolescent feels the loss of being able to go to mom and dad when scared or lost in the fear of seeming like a kid rather than an emerging adult.  The teen feels the anger and guilt of knowing they are hurting their parent out of a normal and ordinary search for identity.  One teen may blame mom and dad for the guilt they feel.  Another may attempt to make everyone happy at the expense of finding their authentic self and then entering adulthood lost as to who they truly are.  Adolescence is hard on both parent and child. Allow yourself to give this transition the respect and patience it deserves by allowing all involved to feel the difficult feelings, tolerate them, and recover from them to find at the end that one more time parent and child has transformed together.

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