Getting Through to a Testy Teenager

Q.How can my husband and I become the kind of parents that our 14-year-old deserves?

I tell her that I love her many times a day and do my best to show her, but she has never thought we loved her as much as we love her big sister or that we think she is as accomplished. This, of course, isn't true.

Our younger daughter is probably brighter than her sister; she's on the JV soccer team and was the valedictorian at her eighth-grade graduation. She's also outgoing and engaging.

I worry about this daughter, though, because she is often defensive and sad and whiles away hours in front of the TV, which is one of the few things that soothes her. Although she hasn't slipped into any self-destructive behavior, like anorexia, how far off can that be?

Even our most delicate questions are met with rude, almost hysterical, responses. She says she hates us. Invectives fly. Doors slam. Tears flow. She particularly doesn't want us to ask about school -- at all, ever -- but sometimes I forget, with disastrous outcomes.

I think that our daughter is desperate for unconditional love, that she's trying to figure out everything on her own and that she wants to be perfect; my husband thinks she is capable, manipulative and trying to avoid work and responsibility. Unfortunately, our differences have led to many arguments, so I saw a therapist last year. This helped a little, but I'm sure that we are making our daughter and our family unhappy. How can we turn this deteriorating situation around?

A.A little benign neglect should be good for your 14-year-old, and it might help your marriage, too.

Young teenagers often go through mind-wrenching moments (and weeks and months) as their bodies adjust to the influx of hormones they get when puberty kicks in. And not just hormones. Their brains also take a huge, chaotic leap forward at this age, just as they did at 2, and these leaps can make their behavior go wild.

Other teens act up if they feel smothered at home. Parents need to let their children go a bit more each day, especially in adolescence, when they are trying to figure out just who they are. They can't do that, however, if their parents hold them too tightly or treat them as if they were still 10 or 12 years old.

Your daughter needs supervision, of course, but more and more of it should come from her chores and her activities, rather than your orders, and she needs encouragement, too, which should often be indirect. If you ask her when she thinks the troops should come home and what the country should do to get on its financial feet, you'll be showing her that you respect her maturing mind. This will make her feel smarter and should help her act more like an adult than a child. But not always.

When she explodes, don't console, argue or try to discuss the problem with her unless she treats you with civility. In time, you may even be able to stop these tantrums before they start, if you ignore her grumpiness or go out for supper, but you should do that without a smidgen of guilt. A 14-year-old is old enough to fix her own dinner.

These efforts should modify her behavior after a couple of months, but if they don't, the four of you should go to family therapy. If you work hard on these issues, you should be able to rejuvenate your marriage and make your whole family much happier.

You also should read "Why Do They Act That Way?" by David Walsh with Nat Bennett (Free Press; $14) because it explains the teenage brain so well. It has such good advice, and it opens with this excellent description of the young:

"Our youth now love luxury. They have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for their elders and love chatter in place of exercise; they no longer rise when elders enter the room; they contradict their parents, chatter before company; gobble up their food and tyrannize their teachers."

That's what Socrates said many centuries ago and yet almost all of those young people became reasonably good citizens. So will yours.

Questions? Send them to advice@margueritekelly.com or to Box 15310, Washington, D.C. 20003.