When your teenager becomes a stranger, sometimes humour is the only answer!

I had a hard time trying to figure out how to relate to my son when he first turned the corner to full blown adolescence. I did not want to offend him by treating him as I always had; as my little buddy, my kindred spirit, my Mommy’s helper, especially since he did not seem to want to be any of those things anyway. I learned the hard way, that the comment which on one day could be received with a giggle, would the next day be met with a snort, and a flash of baby blues that could scald shoe leather! “Whoops!” I would think, ”This is a stranger; where is my son and what have you done with him!”  In the space of a year, he pushed me away, far away, and I wanted to stay connected to him. Besides I really missed him! He seemed angry and upset a lot of the time, and was often just plain rude to us all. I  felt I had lost sight of the child he had been, and I did not know how to treat this new person.

Every once in a while we would moderate into a place of pseudo harmony, but only for a short while, then something would spark another explosion of harsh words, and slammed doors. My stomach started to hurt, my daughter started to spend most of her daylight hours crying and my husband wanted to hide, but we DID have good times too; times when my son would fly in the door with an idea that he HAD to share with me, and only me, times when he would share a story at the dinner table that would have us all laughing, times when he would say “Sure Mom”, and actually DO it! But I would have to say that in general, life was rocky, and I did not know what to do about it.

Humour is Better than Anger

Then came the day when my son filled the house with notes, some hidden and some obvious, all of which said, in various coloured inks: ”I’m sorry, forgive me, I love you!” !! He said that he was always screwing up and always offending  someone so he better have resources handy to make amends! I realized he had a clear idea of his behaviour and how it was affecting us, even if at the time he said “What’s yer problem!” I remembered something the Psychiatrist at Children’s Hospital had told us:  Children and teens deal with anxiety in three ways, anger, drug abuse and comedy. I wondered if this could extrapolate and apply  to life in general! I decided that if it did apply, then of the three possible reactions to adolescence experienced by all in the family, I much preferred comedy, in fact I outright rejected the possibility of the other two!!

I decided that, much like having a newborn in the house, I needed to “go with the flow”, and let go of the illusion of control I was clinging to. I needed to relax, stop taking it all so seriously, and stop being so angry and frustrated with things. The family was in this together, and we needed to all be on the same side, preferably at the same time! My son knew when he was being obstreperous, he knew I knew, and I knew he knew I knew, so what was I going to do about it? I would much rather come along side him and deal with issues with humour and teasing, rather than face him with yelling and anger. So I tried, and i am still trying to think of ways to be funny instead of angry. Sometimes I am good at it and sometimes I am not in the mood and it is all too serious, but still, a lot of things can be made to be funny rather serious.

Humour them!

The funniest person I know and the person who does this the best is my brother who raised two boys to adulthood. Thankfully he is around my children a lot so I get to observe the master in action. The other day at meal time my son was sitting in the living room and everyone else was helping to clear the kitchen, I said, “Hey,what makes you so special? Come and help clear the kitchen please!”,  to which my son replied, “I already moved a BILLION things!!” Without a moments hesitation, my brother, stood tall, put his palms together in a prayer position in front of his chest, and said in a loud, smooth, stentorious, pulpit voice, “And the lord Chris Spoke, and the lord Chris sayeth, ‘I have moved the billion things”, and the Lord Chris saw that it was GOOD”, and he continued likewise for some time, during which my son rose to his feet, came into the kitchen and helped! Of course my brother followed my son around a la Monty Python, commenting on everything he picked up until we were all in hysterics! My brother is capable of being serious, he just isn’t unless the situation IS very serious, and then, since it is so unlike him, the kids listen carefully. Either way, he is listened to and appreciated.

Make Sure you Have a Player

The same thing can happen anywhere in life, but you have to be sure you have a “player”, or that you create an environment in which players can, well, PLAY! A “player” is someone who understands that you are joking or having fun regardless of your relationship with them. For example, I was in the grocery store in front of a massive pile of oranges, a huge number of oranges were in that pile, each looking identical to the one next to it! I was staring at the pile, a little stunned and overwhelmed by all that orange perfection and a man came and stood next to me, reached out and randomly took an orange to put in his plastic bag.”Hey”, I said with what I hoped was a mischievous grin, “I was going to take that one!”

“Fine”, he said looking irritated, “take it!”

“NO”, (me flustered, and waving my hands), “I was just joking”, (feeble grin).

“Whatever”, he snarled and he continued to fill his bag, studiously avoiding my face.

Clearly, he was NOT, a player!

In my experience, most children are players, so if you have not heretofore had a player’s environment you can easily create one and/or announce one! To create a player environment start when things are good, the atmosphere relaxed, everyone is already happy, and joke around with your kids! Put on Country Music and talk in a southern accent, listen to “The Sound of Music”, and talk in a british accent! Then when you are getting irritated you can have a context in which to say in a British accent, my personal favourite, “Marvelous, move yer bloody dish or I shall slit yer nostrils and nail yer ‘ead to the floor!” This approach can be a lot of fun, especially when they have friends over! Once my son had some friends over and he was ignoring my request so I started to talk in a little voice and then a louder voice as if I was a multiple personality, yep, it worked. HAve fun with it!! Kids hate to be embarrassed!

Chainsaws and Timers

I once shared this with a friend who was very upset and frustrated with his daughters. I suggested he become outrageous. One day he called me and told me he was having sooo much more fun raising his girls, and that it was more fun to be crazy than reasonably angry! He told me they had had friends over in their living room and when he had asked his daughters to turn down the music and they had ignored him, he had started up his gas chainsaw, wandered casually into the midst of the girls, gestured elegantly with the chainsaw, and mouthed “TURN DOWN THE MUSIC, PLEASE! The girls had stared incredulously, but they had turned down the music. The next time the music crept up in volume, he just started the chainsaw outside the door and the music was turned down. After that, he said all he had to do was go into the room and mime the action of starting a chainsaw, and they would turn down the music!

I know of another family of girls who left an untidy bathroom every morning. The Mom bought a stopwatch and in the morning before school she had the girls time how long it took her to tidy the bathroom. If they did not watch she did not drive them to school! She set a reasonable standard of tidy and then tried to beat her own time each morning, accompanying her race with a running commentary in a british accent in the mode of a soccer game, or horse race announcer! After a few mornings there was almost nothing for her to tidy….the girls were doing it in order to avoid the pain of the stopwatch routine. Yes!!

Sometimes these things don’t work but they are more fun than yelling. For weeks my husband hid our son’s shoes in a variety of different places, (from the pan drawer to the freezer)  because he left them  in the middle of the floor instead of in his cubby…he refused to capitulate, even when the day came that he was late for work. After a while my husband just burned out….but my son has started to put his shoes away a “little” more often!!

Be Sensitive

We do need to be careful with the use of humour however, as it can be misunderstood, especially in a situation where those involved are not conditioned players.  A sensitive and insecure young person could be very hurt if he has the notion that you are making fun of him.  We once had a distant cousin to dinner. When asked a question he mumbled his answer (no surprise there), and so my brother sucked his lips in and said in a loud quavery voice, “Whats’s that you say, sonny?”  Whereupon I smacked him across the shoulder, sucked in my lips and said, in an equally scratchy voice,  “Put new batteries in yer hearing aid, you old fool, how many times have I told you to replace yer batteries!!” Everyone laughed, except the poor kid who jumped to his feet, throwing down his napkin, and snarled, very clearly this time, “You are ALL a bunch of fu@#$%s, and stomped out of the room!!

Have Fun

Just to review: relax, lighten up, shake off your anger, set up your player environment, be yourself and express your crazy side, be sensitive and choose your moments, have fun! Finally, and best of all, sit back and observe the results…both the expected and  then unexpected. You hope your request will be honoured, the job done, the apology delivered, but even if it is not, laughing is better than yelling and a lot less damaging. There is also an added bonus: your teen watching you exercise a healthy response to stress in your life. They will learn to model you, and thus will have another tool in their toolbox to help them to navigate the tricky waters of their lives. A sense of humour is sometimes the only tool we have to face life, and it may be the most important gift you ever give your child.