Adolescent Questions

I am Jignesh Mehta, a 42 year old businessman. My son, Sunay, 14 years old was a very quiet and well adjusted child till about 6-9 months back. Since then he has started asking me a lot of questions. I try and answer most of them, but sometimes I am also confused. Our conversations are like that he asks the question; I reply to the question and before I can ask its relevance and personal significance he has either gotten up and ended the conversation or changed the topic or asked another completely different question or argued vehemently against my answer, showed a lot of hurt and left. I do not know what to anticipate. What goes on in the mind of these adolescent children these days? Please advise.

Adolescents have a lot of questions going through their minds. Some of them are in the following range – 

• Who am I
• Do people like me
• Do I measure up
• Am I normal
• Is my body all right
• Am I attractive
• Am I smart
• Am I strong
• What do people say about me
• What am I doing in my life
• Who can I trust
• What lasts
• Where do I want to be
• Am I and will I be like my parents
• Am I in control
• What about me will change and what will stay the same
• Can I meet my parents’ standards
• Am I too dependent on money
• Am I being true to myself
• Can I be happy
• Can I do what I really want to do
• Will I like my work
• Can I do good works

In order to be able to answer these questions, your presentation matters a lot. It might help to adopt the language and style of the adolescent in order to overcome his initial reluctance of your approach. You must be very flexible when dealing with these age group of children. The balance is between retaining the playfulness useful for children but tempered with an alertness to the need for rapid verbal interactions. Sometimes you may need to keep an emotional distance and at other times come closer. Whatever style you adopt must be flexible but firm if the adolescent’s provocative behaviour requires it, and must be well-organized so that the adolescent does not feel that he or she is confusing the parent. Start with a gentle and empathic attitude, recognize the distress of his problem and the perceived threat of the conversation. If the problem is of surge of biological changes and the resurgence of many intrapsychic and intrafamilial conflicts , be may be very cautious and reluctant. At that point, it might be successful to utilize your knowledge of the development process and suggest, in a conversational tone, the types of feelings and problems that he might be experiencing. He is not put in a threatening position any more and can describe his similar feelings if he chooses to. Sometimes he may be verbally provocative, mocking the idea of the talk and its likelihood of success in direct proportion to his own fear of revealing his conflicts. This situation can be difficult to manage, but the best approach is often a bantering, humorous approach in which you may quickly clarify his defenses and joke about his attitude that the conversation will be futile. These methods exemplify the conversational skills with the adolescent and the range of responses possible, but the most important is that you maintain an imaginative, friendly, relaxed and flexible attitude rather than become frustrated by his struggles with you.