Your relationship with your child will change.

“You just want to prove you are right!”

This was the end of a very heated conversation between a teen and his mom. The teen stormed off and slammed the door, shocking the parent in disbelief.

“How did we get here?” the parent wondered. “It seemed just like yesterday when my kid ran towards me, wanting to tell me everything about his life. And now, he barely listens to me, and I have no idea what is going on in his life. It is like he doesn’t want me to be in his life at all.”

As children grow up, their relationship with their parents change. This is true when children are little, and this is also true when children become adults.

When they are young, they depend on their parents for survival. They rely on their parents for food, water, and shelter. They count on their parents for love, acceptance, and understanding.

As children enter elementary school, they still depend on their parents, but their minds become occupied by school work, classmates, friends, clubs, teams, or other activities. Children depend on their parents to take them to different activities. They rely on their parents to take them to social settings and make friends.

As children enter Middle School, their relationship with their parents takes a turn. The desire to spend time with their friends increases. They differenciate what they share with their parents, and what they share with their friends. In this stage of development, the teen is trying to figure out who they are and discover their voice. Their relationship with peers becomes closer. This does not mean they are less close to their parents. They aren’t choosing peers over parents. They are simply adding more significant relationships into their lives. The parenting strategies that worked in Early Years or Middle Childhood are not likely to work at this stage. New strategies need to be developed, and new communication norms need to be established. Teens are more independent, and they do not have the same reliance on their parents as their younger selves.

When teen moves toward adulthood, they develop even more independence. They want to be separated and independent from their parents. From dependence to independence. In this process, parents’ relationship with their children will change again. From needing to look after a child to connect with adults, children like adults. The relational dynamic shifts.

Before you know it, the role has reversed. The adult children are now taking care of their elderly parents.

These stages will come as children become older, and the dynamic will keep on changing. If the parents and the children don’t anticipate and change with the dynamic change, the relationship will be strained and harder to repair later on. To change the dynamic and build closer relationships, parents, and children must assess their current communication channels, establish communication goals, and make meaningful changes so the relationship can flourish.