When your teen won't listen to your advice

Have you ever learned a great strategy to help your teen… only for your teen to throw it back in your face?

Sometimes it can feel like they’re programmed to say “no”.

Like they turned 13 and a switch flicked in their brain that says mum and dad are old and know NOTHING...don’t listen to them.

It’s so frustrating.

So you pick your words carefully, thinking about how to say what you think without triggering them… and instead of “that’s so helpful, thank you”, you get the opposite.

I know you have wisdom to share with your teen.

You have things to say that genuinely are helpful.

But when they won’t listen, what can you do?

Here’s the part most parents don’t realise...

It’s usually not what you say that determines whether your teen listens, it’s how, and when, you say it.

The emotions and mental load sitting in the background of a conversation are deeply connected to whether that conversation goes well.

That’s been very real for me over the past couple of weeks.

After a wonderful ski holiday in Japan (so much powder), I caught influenza on the flight home.

Then my daughter flooded the bathroom, which leaked into the laundry downstairs.

My husband was on crutches with a ski injury.

And in our tired, unwell headspaces, both my husband and I managed to scrape our cars.

It’s not been fun.

The reality is that when life hits like this, we simply have less capacity.

And I could feel it, not so much as reactivity, but as a quiet knowing that I couldn’t deal with very much at all.

There were moments with my teens where I knew I needed to let things go.

To listen more and speak less.

To resist the urge to address every niggle that popped into my head.

Not because those things don’t matter, but because I didn’t have the capacity to handle them well in that moment.

This is why I rarely give parents of teens scripts.

Because even the “right” words, delivered when capacity is low, are often rejected.

Instead of focusing on finding the perfect thing to say, I encourage parents to focus on the HOW behind what they say — and just as importantly, whether this is the right moment to say it at all.

So much parenting advice tells you what to say or do.

But parents are often left wondering…

What do I do if they don't listen?

How do I even find the time and the energy to try what they've told me?

The answer lies in capacity.

Dr Dan Siegel uses the analogy of teacup versus swimming-pool capacity.

If you have the capacity of a teacup and your teen throws in a tablespoon of salt, it quickly becomes unmanageable.

But when you have the capacity of a swimming pool, that same tablespoon barely changes the water.

When parents have more capacity, they don’t feel the need to correct everything.

They can tolerate imperfection.

They can listen without jumping in to fix or teach.

Expanding your emotional capacity doesn’t mean pretending things don’t matter or lowering your standards.

It means recognising that not everything needs to be addressed today, and that sometimes the most connecting thing you can do is simply stay present and listen.

Before your next conversation with your teen, pause and ask yourself:

How full is my cup right now?

p.s. I'm presenting all about how to get teens to listen at the upcoming Calm and Connected Tweens and Teens summit. I will be presenting the 4 common traps parents fall into that stop teens listening, connecting and thriving. You can register here now. There's many great experts presenting this year including Maggie Dent, Andrew Fuller, Nathan Wallis, Michelle Miller, and Dr Ann-Louise Lockart and the summit will provide support for parents around screens, bullying, anxiety, and of course improving Calm and Connection in your household with teens no matter what your current capacity.