Can a Mom Connect With Her Teen Son?
Posted by AGroup in Family on Wednesday, May 19, 2010 10:00 AM
Q: I am a mom of a 14 year old son. He talks quite a bit with his dad about sports and school and such, but clams up with me. I don’t have this problem with my two older daughters. I would love to help encourage him to grow in his faith life, but am I being unrealistic? Should a mom expect a more “distant” faith relationship with her son?
It’s hard to generalize. The character of a mom’s faith-relationship with her teenage son depends on a lot of factors: their past relationship, the boy’s temperament and personality, hormones, the level of faith already achieved, et alia. Obviously, we can’t look at all of those in this forum, so I will make some comments that you will have to customize to your situation.
Part I: Seeing Your Mini-Man
The hardest thing for a mom to remember about her teenage son is that he doesn’t feel like a teenager. He feels like a man. His mind is working independently; his physiological masculinity is kicking in; and he is overflowing with desires to make something of himself (though these desires do not always manifest themselves constructively). But even though he feels like a man, he is not a man. He is still just a young man, a mini-man.
But isn’t it interesting that most historical cultures (before our modern, secularized culture) incorporated some kind of initiation rite for teenage boys, which marked the moment when they took on the responsibilities of men in the community? Traditionally, the flourishing adolescent is introduced into greater social responsibility precisely at the time when he feels his manhood stirring. Our culture, on the other hand, waits till after college before expecting a young man to contribute to the world around him—very bad idea.
So, your son feels like a man. As a result, he senses that his relationship with mom should be different than when he was a boy, though he may not actually understand this clearly. But mom recognizes that in many important ways, he is still just a boy, so she actually wants to justify treating him, still, like a boy. She wants to give him the same kind of mothering that she gave him when he was ten. She gets frustrated and confused when he resists this.
At this age (14-18), dad needs to make a concerted effort to spend time with the teenage son, man-to-man time. This validates the boy’s new self-awareness. Mom needs to respect that time (encouraging Dad to do it) and value it, and serve it.
She also needs to begin to treat her son in a way that shows she recognizes that he is changing. This can take a lot of forms, depending on the personalities involved. But the key aspect is allowing him room to make mistakes (though not tragic ones, if they can be avoided). When he was ten, you protected him from every mistake you could. Now you have to give him a bit more room – for example, simply asking him once if his homework is done instead of making sure that it gets done.
You don’t find the same dynamic at work with your daughters because as they feel their womanhood stirring, they naturally turn to you as the expert in being a woman; the lines of communication don’t get clogged so easily (in general).
That’s necessary background information for being able to answer your question with some practical tips. We’ll look into those next week ...
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