Teenagers

This counter-cultural thing really started when I noticed how friends and colleagues with teenage children had very different experiences. Some seemed to have great relationships with their teenagers and others very stormy ones.

Whilst some of this may well be nature rather than nurture, I was keen to learn if there was anything I could do to set us up to have great rather than stormy relationships.

One thing I did notice was that there seemed to be a very high correlation between those who spent a lot of time with their kids at younger ages and those who had easier teen years. Conversely, some of the families we know had been in situations where the father, in particular, had been able to spend a lot less time with the family, whether through pressures of work, or having work that took him far from home regularly, or through other circumstances such as illness.

So I resolved some years ago to spend as much time as I could with the family, ideally in ways that the children would find enjoyable, in the hope that, on their hitting adolescence, we would still be able to talk to each other.

So far our two teenagers (both girls) are still very civilised - though I do feel as though I’m tempting fate even to say so...