My teens don't want much from me anymore

Parenting is fun and exhausting and rewarding and challenging and everything in between. And that’s true at every stage, even though it looks different.

When they’re really little, they’re fun and cute and also physically exhausting. Your sleep is disrupted. You’re physically on the floor with them, constantly chasing them and keeping them from hurting themselves.

As they grow up, it’s all still tiring, but it shifts from physical exhaustion to mental exhaustion.

I’ve got kids in two different stages right now.

My 9-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter (11 in a few weeks) are right in that sweet spot. They’re “easy” in many ways. They’re positive and upbeat and rarely moody. They’re up for anything. They always want to play something, which can be physically demanding. But they’re also happy to play a board game or cuddle up and watch a movie. And they’re old enough to be self-sufficient with most everything.

I also have a 14-year-old son and a 16-year-old daughter. They’re very self-sufficient too. But a couple years ago, probably around 12 or so, things changed.

I don’t remember the exact day. But at some point, my daughter stopped asking for hugs. It was just me asking for them. At first I probably assumed she was having a bad day or something. It turned out to be more permanent than that. People had warned me about teenage daughters, and teens in general. But when you have a cuddly preteen, it’s hard to picture that changing. Then at some point she seemed less excited to even return a hug. She’d roll her eyes a bit and pull away.

It wasn’t just hugs. They stopped wanting to cuddle up for a movie. They stopped asking to play games together all evening after dinner. And around that same time, they weren’t as easy to talk to.

I’d been warned about teens. “Not my kids”, I thought. And here I am.

Don’t get me wrong. I have awesome teenagers. And they’re still teens.

It would be easy if I only had to react to what they want from me. Because that isn’t much anymore. The difficult part is what they need, even though they don’t ask for it. They need time with me. They need to talk and connect. They need family time. They just don’t seem to want it. And they definitely don’t ask for it.

Some of this is just the stage. They’re in an awkward space between childhood and adulthood. They hate being treated like little kids, but they’re too young to be treated like full adults. So they pull away from the things they did as kids to avoid feeling like one. They create some space from their parents to build their own identity. That’s natural and expected.

But I’ve had to be honest with myself that not all of the distance is theirs. Some of it is me. When I get busy and it’s easiest to just let them do their own thing. When I lecture and criticize instead of listen. When every conversation turns into a teaching moment. When I’m in the room but half on my phone.

I can’t control how my teenagers respond. I can own how I initiate.

It’s not just my kids. And not all teens pull away like this. But I’ve been talking with a lot of dads of teenagers, and there are definitely some commonalities. Here are a few things I’m doing my best to keep in mind.

You can connect through doing, not just talking. I wrote recently about how I connect with my quiet son through weightlifting. We still need to communicate, but finding something you enjoy doing together is often the best way to create space for the words to come when the time is right.

Quantity makes space for quality. Some people think they can swap quantity of time for quality time. I’d stress consistency more than anything. Over the last 30 days, I made it a goal to spend at least 10 undistracted, intentional minutes with my older daughter each day. I didn’t hit it every day but avoided missing two days in a row. It added up to almost five hours in a month. Sometimes it’s just the 10 minutes. Other times it stretches longer. Sometimes (probably most times) it’s surface level. But just like connecting through doing, consistent windows create relational warmth and openings for the words to come when the time is right.

I can’t take it personally. I care enough about my kids that what they say has the power to hurt my feelings. Now, I can’t let my kids be rude. If they are, I need to correct it directly and without shaming them. And I’m teaching them to be grateful rather than entitled. But there are times I go out of my way to try to talk and connect. Or I try to take them out for a meal or some other outing. I’m putting in effort, maybe being a little vulnerable, and I wish they’d meet me there. Outside the home, people pay attention when I talk. They look me in the eye and put effort into the conversation. When my kids reject a bid for connection or give me one-word answers, my tendency is to get frustrated or even feel a little hurt. In those moments I have to remind myself to respond rather than react. And to remember that leading my family means owning what I initiate, not how they respond.

Lastly and most importantly, I have to remember that the teen years are passing so quickly. God willing, I’ll be around to be their dad for many, many years. The people they become in the decades ahead will be different from who they are as teenagers. Think back to how much you changed. Sure, we need to “get through” these years. But this is also a window of time to enjoy the hard parts along with all the adventures.

Keep leading. And know that if you have teens who take work to connect with, you’re not alone. If you don't have it already, find a group of guys you can share your version of this with. I just spent the last 30 days texting three of them every night about whether I did a few things, including spending at least 10mins with my oldest daughter. It’s the best thing I’ve done for my leadership at home in a long time.

-Andrew

P.S. If you don't have that group of guys and are interested in joining the next group I put together, email andrew@fam-lead.com and let me know.