Lisa Damour's Latest New York Times Column Focuses on Grumpy Teens and Talking

11/24/2017

Have you ever wondered why your grumpy teenager doesn't want to talk to you? Lisa Damour, Ph.D., Director of Laurel's Center for Research on Girls, addresses this very topic in her latest New York Times column

In it she talks about how hard it can be to help the upset adolescent who turns down an invitation to talk, and offers up ways in which parents can be more useful to their teens when faced with their unwillingness to open up.

In her column, Lisa states that "These interactions usually unfold in an awkward and predictable sequence. We earnestly ask, 'Is everything O.K.?' and our teenager responds with a full stop 'No,' an insincere 'Yeah' or freezes us out while fielding a flurry of texts. We then tend to nurse a sense of injury that our teenager has rebuffed our loving support. To better ease our own minds and be more useful to our teenagers, Lisa highlights some of the ordinary, if not overlooked, explanations for their reticence including the worry that parents will have the wrong reaction, the anticipation of negative repercussions, and the thought that simply talking about the problem does not feel like a solution. She states, "There's more value in providing tender, generic support than we might imagine. It is difficult for teenagers to maintain perspective all the time.

Lisa was also featured in November on CBS News commenting on the viral Girl Scout message urging parents not to force their daughters to hug relatives and friends as the holidays approach. Click here to watch the story in its entirety.

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Lisa Damour's Latest New York Times Column Focuses on Grumpy Teens and Talking

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