I'm A Parenting Coach – If Your Teen Argues All The Time, Try This 1 Response

Teen arguing back all the time? Try this technique.If there’s one thing teenagers can become pretty good at, it’s arguing.For parents, a daily argument (or three) is nothing out of the ordinary. But parenting experts want you to know that you can sidestep the constant arguments with one relatively simple response: don’t argue back.Parenting coach Alyson Pain explained in a TikTok video: “Even though your teenager thinks they need to argue with you about everything, you don’t need to argue back because it’s not about being right.“Relationships need room to breathe and grow – and that means modelling room to have different perspectives, to disagree, and not having someone to be right and wrong.”Dr Paul Sunseri, a psychologist and author of Gentle Parenting Reimagined, agrees with this strategy.“An argument, by definition, is when two people are speaking, usually with the goal of talking the other person into something or talking them out of it,” he wrote for Parenting Teens & Tweens.“If one person simply stops speaking, by definition, it’s no longer an argument. At that point, it’s just one person up on a soap box giving a speech or a monologue, albeit a long and passionate one sometimes, but it’s definitely no longer an argument.”In order to swerve arguments, Dr Sunseri urged parents to keep an eye out for any “red herrings” their teen throws at them. He described these as “an attempt at distraction” or “a comment that’s made by a kid that loosely relates to the request made of them with the hopes of talking their parents out of it, or at least stalling as long as humanly possible”.Once you spot the red herrings (there’s a useful example here), Dr Sunseri said instead of getting swept up in a frustrating back and forth about it, you can sidestep it and simply double down on what you’ve asked.Sky Khan put the tip to the test with her teens and found it actually worked. She wrote for Grown & Flown: “Arguing put me on an even playing field with my teens and when I no longer went back and forth or debated heated topics, their respect for me increased. With a little practice and a lot of patience (mostly with myself), I stopped arguing altogether.”Sometimes this would involve letting her teens suffer the natural consequences of their actions – like missing a deadline or running out of petrol. She would give them advice or tell them something needed doing, but it was ultimately their choice to act on it. If they disagreed, she would leave them to it and watch them learn from their errors.“It wasn’t healthy for us to live in a combative environment and my teens were willing to say almost anything in order to be right,” she concluded. “Now, I offer my point of view but I refuse to arm wrestle.”Of course, there will always be battles you should fight (excessive internet use, encouraging a healthy lifestyle, going to school, etc) – but parents who’ve been there advise choosing them wisely. Related...Therapist Shares 5 Phrases To Use When Teens 'Talk Back'Compliments Might Not Boost Teen Confidence – But Parents Say This 1 Thing DoesWTF Does 'Crashing Out' Mean When Teens Say It?

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