Is the difficult teenager just a normal stage? Dr. Ray says he doesn’t believe surliness is automatic in the teen years, and tells why he thinks the stereotype is more cultural than developmental.
“Well, that’s teenagers”
My producer and I last week were talking about teenagers, because his daughter is 13. He said she’s a doll, she’s just a very easy kind of kid to raise. But he was talking to someone he knew whose teen was pretty surly and disrespectful. And the comment given to that parent was, “Well, that’s teenagers. That’s who they are. You’ve kind of got to weather it.” Or the room is a pigsty, so you just close the door. Of course, I don’t really know what a pigsty is. I’ve never really seen one. One comedian said his mother was an expert on pigsties. She would say, “This is the worst pigsty I have ever seen,” which raises the question, how many pigsties have you seen?
The experts will tell you, and I’ve not done an official survey, but informally I would bet the majority would say, “Oh, let it go. It’s his domain. Shut the door.” Animals can gnaw through wood, but it’s your house. It may be the natural dishevelment of possessions of teenagers, but is it good?
I don’t believe that “teenager just is.” In other words, that they get more argumentative or more surly about things, more difficult in their thinking. I don’t believe that is the natural progression. First of all, “teenager” is a relatively new term. For the most part, you just sort of grew up, and in many places in the history of the world, you didn’t even know your age. I remember we were talking to a missionary priest from one of the African countries, and I said, “Father, how old are you?” “I’m 72.” He looked like he was about 35. I said, “Father, you’re 72? Do you know when your birthday is?” “No, we don’t keep track of that.” So the whole idea of a certain persona unique to the teen years is a relatively new thing.
More cultural than developmental
I personally believe, after years of being in this business, that the stereotype of the more difficult teenager is not as much developmental as it is cultural. You parents who have younger kids, you hear these things: “Oh, enjoy them now. Those teenage years are right around the corner. My nine-year-old daughter loved me until she became 12.” And they scare you. Look out, here it comes. Nothing you’re going to do about it. They’re just going to act like this.
Where I am sitting right now in this studio at Domino’s Farms, I don’t know how far back I would have to go to say this was a farm field or a meadow or a woods. But let’s just say it was a farm 150 years ago. Do you suppose that the farmer, when his boy turned 14, would be bemoaning to his friends, “Well, my son is 14. He’s one of them teenagers. He used to be real helpful, but now I can’t get nothing out of him. It’s hard to get him up in the morning. My other buddies are telling me the same thing. I’m just waiting until he gets to be 19 or 20 and decides he can be a little more help around here”? I don’t think so. I think that farmer was ecstatic that that boy was 14, because he was high energy, indefatigable, and could give him some real help around the place.
I think one of the reasons that kids in their teens become a little more resistant to parents’ rules or limits or structure is they look around. Especially if you have standards and supervision that are different from the norm, they look around and they compare. They get resentful or upset or argumentative: “Why can’t I have that? Why can’t I do that? I’m 15. I should be able to do that. Everybody I know can do that.” And that breeds a sort of attitude. We use that word a lot with teens, don’t we? “Oh, she’s just got that attitude.” The word attitude has become pejorative, because if her attitude was, “Hello, Mother, how might I help you today?” you wouldn’t call it attitude, but that’s an attitude, just a good one. So we use the word attitude to describe their words, surliness, argumentativeness, whatever kind of demeanor. I just don’t believe that’s automatic with the adolescent years.
“Oh, Dr. Ray, come on. Our hormones are kicking in. Boys get feistier. Girls may get a little more emotional and moody.” That is true. The body’s changed. I got that part. I just can’t fathom that it accounts for all of it.
“Our children would never talk like that”
I was in Cleveland once, checking in at a hotel. The clerk was a girl who, I found out, was from Nigeria. I asked her, “Are you here permanently?” She said, “No, I’m just here for school.” I asked, “What strikes you right away about our culture and your culture in Nigeria?” She didn’t hesitate. She said, “Your children.” What do you mean? “Our children would never be able to talk like that to their parents. Never. It wouldn’t be tolerated at all. It would be stopped.” I didn’t go into details on how they stopped it. She noticed it right away. Didn’t they have teenagers over there? Wasn’t adolescence and hormonal change happening over there? Now, again, this is just anecdotal. This is her perception, and I didn’t know what part of Nigeria she was from.
My wife and I had 10 teenagers. They’ve all passed through teenagerhood, and at one time we had seven of them at the same time. Did we get a little more pushiness from the kids, getting to be more of what they want? Yeah, we did. But I’ve got to say, we did not have this idea of, “Man, I can’t wait till this kid grows up and gets through this phase.” I think part of it for us is we can tolerate it, but we don’t allow it. And our standards were probably different. We homeschooled, so right away standards are going to be different in a lot of respects from their general educated peer group.
I guess the message of all this is, don’t be so quick to chalk it up to standard adolescence or teenagerhood that you have to wait to pass. Recognize you can address it, you can deal with it. And yes, you may get a little more of it, but it doesn’t have to characterize those years. Natural teen years, I’ll tell you what, they’re zestful, they’re bubbly, they’re fun, they’re energetic. At least that’s what it used to be before social media and the culture started telling them they’ve got to be dissatisfied and depressed. The natural persona of teens, would you like to have a lot of that energy back? That’s what it is. Don’t let anybody talk you into this: “Oh, that’s just the way they are. That’s how mine talks to me too. That’s just who they are.” No, it’s not just who they are.
Dr. Ray goes deeper on raising teens with good discipline in Standing Strong: Good Discipline Makes Great Teens.
Transcript of Dr. Ray’s audio blog, lightly edited for reading.