From the author: The task of parents in adolescence is to balance on a fine line, being interested in their lives, but not imposing your assessments. Listening to their silence, which tells us: “Let me go, but don’t abandon me!” In order to grow, to build himself, a teenager needs a screen separating him from his parents. It is impossible to discern the teenager’s “I” behind it, and he can calmly mature, without other people’s opinions and assessments. A teenager needs to rely on his own experience, his own decisions and mistakes. Only through our own experience do we really learn something. If a teenager is not comfortable sharing details of his personal life, there is no need to worry and be killed about it, this is a natural need of age. This happens because speech is the area where an adult is stronger. Parents have more experience and cause-and-effect relationships work better. But a teenager doesn’t want advice and moralizing. He wants to go his own way, claiming adulthood. Therefore, teenagers use slang - the language of the group to which the teenager belongs. This is an attempt to separate from their parents, to hide behind that very screen. Teenagers are withdrawn and rude, but they need their parents, only according to their own rules. The whole family is going through adolescence, and to make their life easier, I offer you several recommendations: First, let the teenager feel that he is important, and his opinion is valuable to you. Share your experiences, ask for advice. This will satisfy the teenager’s need to “be on an equal footing.” Secondly, maintain contact with the teenager’s friends. Just very carefully. Teenagers react very painfully to violation of personal boundaries. Even the praise of his friends can be perceived as an encroachment on personal space, because this is also an assessment, only positive. Contact with friends gives you the opportunity to ask them if everything is okay with your child in those moments when he does not want to share with you. The situation is alarming when a teenager stops communicating even with friends, rejects what he loved before... If this situation drags on, the help of a psychologist may be needed. If you need such help, then you need to delicately tell the teenager about it. We can say that you are worried about your cool relationship with him. YOU need this technique to understand your mistakes. Or, the second option, you suggest that the teenager go to a psychologist as an adult, without asking him later what the matter is and what he did with the psychologist there. If he wants, he’ll tell you. And thirdly, if a teenager doesn’t want to talk to you about personal things, just be there or talk about abstract topics. Offer to just drink coffee, go to the movies, etc. During consultations, teenagers talk about how such situations support them: “Mom is preparing dinner, and I’m just sitting in the kitchen. We don't talk about personal things. About anything: about nature, about the weather... There are no biased interrogations, but there is support.” The task of parents in adolescence is to balance on a fine line, being interested in their lives, but not imposing their assessments. Listening to their silence, which tells us: “Let me go, but don’t abandon me!” If you are faced with the problems of your child’s adolescence and are determined to solve them with the help of a professional child psychologist, I invite you to come to me for a consultation. Your child psychologist, Tatyana Ott.