TikTok Psychologist Shares How To Avoid Having A Rebellious Teenager

Every stage of parenting is challenging. But there are few more complicated stages of a child’s life than the teenage years. From attitude changes to the increased importance of friends, new interests to the constant tug of war for more independence, it’s hard to know how to make it through your child’s teen years with your relationship intact.

Fortunately, psychologist Richard Wadsworth shared a TikTok explaining how to prevent your teenager from becoming rebellious. (Hint: a lot of it is about letting go.)

Wadsworth breaks down his advice into three main ideas. The first is how you raise your children in the first thirteen years of their life.

“You had 13 years to teach them certain types of behaviors ... establish a good, positive, loving relationship with them ... earn their respect and trust and love,” he notes. “Once they’re 13, those years are going to start to be tested.”

This brings us to Wadsworth’s second point: the way you interact with a teenager cannot be the same way you interacted with a younger child.

“As your child grows from a baby to a toddler to a kid to a teenager, they are constantly evolving and changing,” he says. “Your parenting has to evolve and change with the child.”

So talking to your teenager the same way you would talk to a five-year-old? That’s going to be detrimental to them and your relationship with them.

Wadsworth offers the example of a child who didn’t clean up after themselves in a common area. Instead of commanding them to clean their room, approach them as a fellow adult about how the two of you can solve the issue. Because while they’re not quite an adult yet, they’re also not a child either, but somewhere in-between.

“Treating your kid with that kind of respect is going to pay off big time,” Wadsworth explains.

Of course, this can be really hard. Especially in those moments when they’re acting far more like a child than an adult. (You can perhaps remember such moments from our own teenage days).

Still, Wadsworth warns, “If you treat them like a child they will hate you, they will rebel against you, it will ruin your relationship with them.”

The third element to this “no teen rebellion” recipe? Recognize that teenagers are more influenced by their friends than by their parents when it comes to behavior, which is a switch from when they were younger.

And there’s only so much control, Wadsworth admits, that parents can have in this arena, noting that you can do “everything right” to set them up for success in their cohort, and they could still befriend someone who is going to be a bad influence. But all is not lost. Because part of this transition from parenting children to parenting teens is to try to become a “parent-friend.” You’re still a parent, of course, but you also have to start working to become someone your child wants to listen to.

“If you’re a parent-friend, which is more of what you should be when they’re teenagers, as one of their friends, you can have an influence on them,” Wadsworth says.

It’s a complex relationship and not easy, but it’s doable and your best bet to avoid angsty teen chaos for the next few years.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) acknowledges that the teen years present unique challenges for even the most thoughtful and devoted of parents, and offers similar guidance as Dr. Wadsworth on their website. “The goal,” they write of raising a teen, “is to respect each other as adults.”

Certainly, many parents are always going to see their child as their sweet little baby. But hopefully, we can see them as their own increasingly independent individuals, too.