Believe it or not, the teenage years closely resemble the early toddler years. Just when you thought you already made it through the “terrible twos,” your kid becomes a teen and you’re faced with some all-too-familiar feelings.

During both of these life stages, kids begin to navigate new experiences and assert their independence. Often, this causes them to pull away from their parents. Teens are faced with making decisions independently, forming new relationships, navigating new feelings about identity & sexuality, and dealing with peer pressure.

Plus, during the teen years, kids are still working on their regulation and impulse control. And they’re spending more time with their friends and acquaintances who are also still working on their regulation and impulse control.

So, maintaining a close and trusting connection with your teen is really important to set a positive example and teach essential life skills. We know that having relationships with caring adults leads to healthy outcomes in a teen’s life, but the reality is that it can be difficult to maintain that connection during the teen years. Many parents struggle to communicate with their teens who may be more resistant than ever to open up and connect with them. If you’re faced with the same dilemma, here are some tips and strategies to help navigate the teen years and communicate with your teen effectively.

Understand that this is normal.

It is a normal part of development for teens to assert their autonomy and independence. When you view this as a normal and expected process at this stage of life, it allows you to approach your teen from a place of understanding and openness. Remember, you and your teen are navigating this new experience together.

Reflect on your past approaches.

You know it’s important to have frequent and open communication with your teen. You also know how difficult this can be. So, what do you do now when your teen is resistant to talk? Reflect and evaluate how you have tried to communicate with your teen in the past.

Did your conversations allow for an open exchange of input, ideas, feelings, and thoughts between you and your teen? Did you and teen feel like you could express yourselves openly? Did your teen feel comfortable being open and honest with you even if their opinion and ideas differed from your own?

If you answered ‘no’ to either of these questions, you’re not alone. But once you have identified where you can shift your approach to communicating with your teen, talk to your teen about that realization. Re-introduce to your teen that you want to have a relationship with them and make space for frequent and open communication. Share what you want that to look like and what you think needs to happen in order to get there.

“I want you to be able to come and talk to me about anything, and I want you to know that even when we don’t agree, I want to be here to hear you out anyway. I hope you feel that you can trust me to listen.”

Validate your teen.

Validation means affirming that someone’s feelings or opinions are valid or worthwhile. With your teen, that looks like recognizing and accepting their ideas, opinions, actions or feelings even if you don’t necessarily agree or approve of them. And validation is highly effective at improving the parent-child communication process.

Here’s an example of what that might look like.