Five keys to move through healthy disobedience or how to tune in with your adolescent son

You look at him calmly and very nostalgically and you have a hard time recognizing that extremely communicative and affectionate little boy who liked to explain everything he did at school or in his training sessions.

That child who demanded your help to eat, dress or do his homework and yelled at you when you came home.

Looking closely at him, you now see a young man who shows little interest in listening to you, who behaves rebellious and defiant for no apparent reason.

That sometimes it seems that he does not show interest in anything or anyone and only cares about what happens to him.

With constant variations of humor and very little capacity for self-criticism.

Undoubtedly, adolescence is the most complicated period of development to educate and accompany from serenity.

Where families must overcome the mourning of accepting that their children have grown by leaps and bounds and begin to fly from the nest.

It is not easy to accompany a teenager absorbed in his problems, who is reserved and insolent when you try to find out things about his life.

That he shows many difficulties in coping with frustration and accepting the metamorphosis of physical, psychological, emotional and social changes that he must face.

That he lives between contradictions and does not know how to correctly modulate the emotions that he feels at maximum intensity.

How difficult it is to tune in with a person who sometimes raises his voice and is ungrateful!

Who finds it hard to recognize her mistakes, listen to advice and feels insecure and lost.

A young man in the process of discovery, of change, with high doses of ego and impulsiveness.

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Adolescence is the evolutionary period in which sons and daughters begin to interpret the world in their own way, to think and decide as they wish.

A vital moment of healthy disobedience, full of first times, new opportunities and a lot of experimentation.

If something characterizes this stage, it is the constant disputes that are chained at home: going out with friends, academic performance, order or not carrying out their responsibilities are some of the reasons that cause them.

Conversations full of reproaches and threats that fill fathers and mothers with guilt and impotence and that seem to break the affective bond.

On many occasions, the lack of resources leads to the adoption of violent communication in which shouting or comparisons are normalized.

Situations that fill children with great emotional discomfort and make them feel misunderstood.

The maladjusted behaviors that adolescents show demand more than ever the support and understanding of their parents: that they help them to decipher the complex world of adults and give them the necessary time to learn what they need so much.

It is very important that they know that their parents are by their side without condition.

Make them feel loved, listened to and respected.

That they know that adults understand that it is very difficult for them to grow older.

That they be accepted as they are, establishing correct expectations towards them.

A mother argues with her son.

Resat Dongel (Getty Images)

Our children need fathers and mothers by their side who look at adolescence with optimism and great respect, who know the characteristics of age and abandon the adult-centric patterns that separate them so much from them.

How to tune in with our adolescent children?

Teenagers need their fathers and mothers to continue to be their models and guides as when they were little.

Feel daily the signs of affection with hugs, kisses and words that encourage them, that help them weather the storm they are going through and become the best refuge they can have when they feel insecure.

Let's show them our love and affection when they least deserve it because that's exactly when they need it most.

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