[00:00:00]
Hello, and welcome to part two of dealing with rejection. If you missed the first part, that’s okay. You can check it out later. It doesn’t necessarily mean you can’t listen to today’s episode. In today’s episode, I wanted to talk about the rejection that parents often feel as their child turns into a teenager, as they start to need them less, want them around less, and maybe start to phase them out of being involved in their life.

[00:01:00]
This has been a topic that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. It comes up a lot in the work that I do with adolescents in my therapy work at the therapy hub. And it’s also something that I talk to parents about in the various parenting courses. I’ve just been running Tuning into Teens, and I’m launching another round of the Connected Teens programme. Dealing with rejection is a really big component in a number of parenting programmes. And I wanted to talk a little bit about it.

One of the challenges that parenting teenagers comes with is the ability or figuring out a way to manage one’s own reactions, especially when they say things like, “you don’t understand me,” or “someone’s parents does it this way,” or “no one is listening to me,” or “I just feel so alone.” I see that for parents, this just feels crushing, especially if their child is saying things like, “no one understands me,” and “I just don’t feel like I’ve got anyone to talk to,” and their parents are there sort of jumping up and down saying, “I’m here for you, you can talk to me,” and the teenagers don’t want to.

[00:02:00]
So I wanted to start with what is expected during this time of life, when we’re looking at that kind of change from being a child, you know, maybe 10 or 11, starting to get into those tween years, you know, puberty starting to hit, there’s changes in friendship groups and the move to high school. That starts to see some changes in families, and it’s a natural process for teens to want to assert their independence. They need to, they have to, it’s part of growing up into being an adult, into individuating, into finding a way to manage their own autonomy, and to be the person that they want to be, to explore who they are, to explore their identity. This can make parents feel rejected or unneeded.

I use that phrase that if you’ve listened to the podcast for a while, you might’ve heard me talk about this idea of moving from manager to consultant. When they’re a child, when they’re younger, they need you in that management role. They want you there. They want you to organise playdates and events and things to do. And then somehow you get fired from that role.

[00:03:00]
Some parents deal with this like they would in a workplace. They sue for unfair dismissal. They spend ages in litigation and they keep fighting to keep their position. Some will just say, “well, stuff you, I don’t need you anyway,” and then leave. What we want to see is being invited back in as the consultant and recognising that that’s a very important and necessary role, and the position description just looks different. That can be a really tough thing for some parents to grapple with, especially if they’ve felt like they’ve put in a lot of work or sacrificed a lot of things for their children, as many parents do. Maybe they’ve taken time off work, maybe they’ve sacrificed things that they want to send them to particular schools or extracurricular activities. And then all of a sudden the kid’s like, “yeah, now I want to hang out with my friends.” That can be incredibly painful and it’s a normal feeling.

What I want to encourage people to do is to think about how you respond.

[00:04:00]
So in order to think about that, it’s worth taking a moment to think about what you experience when your child’s rejecting you or what feels like rejection. It could be something as it varies for people, so it could be that they no longer want you to drop them off at the school. They might say, “no, can you park around the corner?” and that might fill you with rejection. It could be that they used to get your help to braid their hair, and all of a sudden they’re like, “no, no, I can do this myself. I don’t need you.” Maybe they used to come to you to get help with their homework or to problem solve something and they’re giving it a go on their own.

So think about what are the particular situations that trigger that for you. And then what happens for you? Is it sadness? Is it loneliness? Is it frustration? What are the things that happen for you when those instances occur? Because how you feel really shapes how you respond.

Reflect on how you respond to situations that might feel like rejection. Identify the specific triggers and your emotional reactions, such as sadness, loneliness, or frustration. Avoid projecting your hurt onto your teen. Be aware that your emotions are shaped by your interpretation of their actions.

[00:05:00]
If your reaction is, if you’re hurt and you respond from that position, it’s really going to change the relationship. So if your young person doesn’t want you to drop them off right in front of the school gate and you say, “well, stuff you, then you need to catch the bus,” or “I do so much for you and you don’t even want me to come to the school, what are you embarrassed of me?” If that starts to become a big thing, it might shape how they feel about talking to you about things. They feel responsible for your reactions, and that’s not what we want. That’s not a healthy dynamic. We don’t want children to feel like they have to be responsible for their parents’ feelings, because they don’t make you feel a certain way.

You feel a certain way based on your interpretation of their actions. So they don’t make you feel rejected; you feel rejected when they do X, Y, Z, and that can be a really tricky distinction. We don’t want them to feel like they’re responsible for everything, and I see this show up, especially with wanting to hang out.

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So if a parent wants to hang out with their kid and they’re saying something like, “Oh, it’s so nice of you to finally grace us with your presence,” that’s not going to make them want to hang out more. That’s often coming from parents feeling disconnected or wanting to spend time with their children. The children hear that as they’ve done something wrong, they feel criticised again, they feel shame, and they’re like, “well, why would I want to hang out with you if you’re guilting me into this?”

The root of that might be that you feel rejected because you want connection, you want to be involved, and that triggers something for you. So have a think about what those experiences are and how it shows up. Then what you do, how you respond. It might be that you can have this honest conversation with them. You might say, “I responded this way yesterday, and I really wanted to say I’m sorry because that wasn’t your fault. I felt like in that moment, I was losing you and I wanted to be closer. I want to apologise for how I handled that.” It’s still very appropriate to apologise and take accountability for those reactions.

[00:07:00]
If that was an event that requires further follow-up in terms of their behaviour or something practical that needs to be done, definitely problem solve it, boundary set it, you can do all of that stuff. If you want children to show accountability, they need to witness it, and they need to experience it, and they need to see people have the language to talk about it. They see that you can repair a rupture or you can repair after conflict. That’s a really valuable skill for them to observe. You can start by modelling that.

If it’s something like the hanging out and wanting to do stuff on the weekend, and they’re not, and you can feel yourself going to that place where you’re like, “Oh, it’s so nice of you to finally hang out with us,” or “we’re not good enough for you anymore,” those kinds of comments, underneath that is often a desire to connect. But that can come across in a really passive-aggressive way. It’s not clear. It’s not actually letting them know what you want. It’s confusing them. It can make them have to try and read between the lines. If that’s something that you do, it’s not to shame you.

[00:08:00]
It’s just thinking about how else you could deliver that message. What is it that you’re trying to achieve? If it is connection, that’s probably not going to be a tool that gets you there. So I encourage you to think about, well, what can you do? Perhaps it is saying, “Hey, I feel like we don’t get to hang out much anymore. I’d really like to spend some time together. Can you carve out three hours over the weekend and let me know a couple of activities you’d like to do?” It’s really about meeting them where they’re at. So phrasing it like that, you’re more likely to get some buy-in and keep that relationship intact.

Keeping those lines of communication open is really important, and how to foster that connection is through these small actions, is through those repairs, it’s through letting them know that you’re still there. Try not to take some of those developmentally appropriate milestones as personal attacks. It’s that they don’t want you or they don’t need you. Your role is changing and that makes total sense. Sometimes, well, teenagers can be quite prickly, can’t they? I mean, we all can at some times, but they can make some really hurtful comments. They can say things like