The Dad Effect

Mother & Son Reunion

In Rona Maynard’s article in the July issue of Reader’s Digest, she tells us how every parent she’s known with a teenager has bent her ear with complaints. “If there was a plus side to parenting teens,” she writes, “nobody seems to have found it.”

Then, lo and behold, her son’s teen years turned out to be her best as a mother. Adolescence opened the door to reasoning or negotiating with her son. And her own pre-adolescent words, written in a journal, pointed her in the right direction: “I believe that when a child’s feelings start to mature, he should not be treated as a child but as the adult he is becoming!”

Maynard recognized that her son was becoming his own person, and that as a family they needed to trust one another. It was trust that finally put an end to the ongoing war over Ben’s messy bedroom. Maynard and her husband were ready to call a truce when their son beat them to it with a thoughtful proposal of his own: He’d keep his door closed and do his own laundry.

Now that their son had learned to reason, they thought it wise to give this plan a try. And it worked!

Maynard also learned to connect with her son by talking about things he was interested in, even if she wasn’t. Music tended to create an opening. Ben had a passion for rap; his mother thought it was violent and demeaning to women. But when she asked him what he saw in his choice of music—rather than yelling at him to turn it down—he was happy to talk to her about it.

As she learned to connect with her son, Maynard also had to learn when to keep a respectful distance, as she did when a friend suggested matchmaking Ben and her daughter over a family brunch. Maynard knew it was better to “let things take their own course.”

Share your views: How have you connected with your teen? Tell us using the submission box below.