TUESDAY 1 JULY 2014 • [email protected] • www.thepeninsulaqatar.com • 4455 7741 inside Bollywood CAMPUS scion invests in • DPS-MIS holds Proficiency Hollywood future Awards ceremony P | 4 P | 8-9 MARKETPLACE • OSN offers more than 40 Arabic-subtitled channels P | 5 LIFESTYLE • Loneliness is not a bug with a technological solution P | 7 MOTORING • Google, Detroit diverge on road map for self-driving cars P | 11 TECHNOLOGY • Man or Machine? UNDERSTANDING It’s hard to tell P | 12 LEARN ARABIC TEENAGERS • Learn commonly When your child is little, they need you and you know what to used Arabic words do. Teenagers don’t need you or even appear to like you, but and their meanings they do need you to be semi-available for them. P | 13 2 PLUS | TUESDAY 1 JULY 2014 COVER STORY What teenagers really think BY SUZANNE MOORE When your child starts particular groups, demanding the key, though, is this need for the the journey of separating impossible, being oversensitive, child to carve a separate identity T’S SO unfair. No one from you, you may react in easily hurt and inexplicably angry. from you. “The teenager”, though understands you. People All while doing daft things. None a relatively new identity, was born who actually have no idea all sorts of strange ways. of these behaviours belongs to of young people having disposable tell you what to do all the You as a parent may feel any one age group, but we tend income in the 1950s. It is now time. About anything. suddenly out of control. Of to see teenagers’ emotional lives subject to a globalised industry. Our Everyone patronises you as somehow always excessive and children are consumed by it. We, Ior exchanges knowing looks when yourself as well as of your exaggerated. who purchase much of it for them, you say something really important. child. The intensity of this time of life often tell them it is worthless. No one sees you as an individual is something we seek to grow them They are also under pressure any more but just as some kind of out of, and secretly envy. Once, I from an unrelenting education generic blob. No one is there when are in their 20s), but the real truth found one of my daughters sobbing system that tests them into you feel really lonely. No one is is that I am on my fourth. Me! I in her room. What was the matter? numbness. They must worry about there when you discover something was a teenager. It is this experience “Mum, I want to be the same as money and employability, and we completely weird about the world. more than anything that informs everyone else, but I want to stand act as though they are too busy No one is there when you are too my parenting. For I know I was out and be different from them, too” Snapchatting to notice all the tired to pick up the remote control. pretty much formed as a person by – a pretty good encapsulation of a conversations about the end of the No one gets quite how boring all of 14, and I haven’t changed that much feeling that never leaves us. And world, the end of social mobility, this is. since. That may be a good thing or a that is bigger than the rows about the end of antibiotics that are This is how it feels to be the bad thing. Your relationship to your the messy bedroom. For the glorious happening all around them. Their parent of a teenager. Not all the adolescent is often hooked into the technicolour of this time is hard to rebellions can go viral, but remain time. Some of the time. I can’t tell relationship you have with your own live with as a parent. Your demands undetected at home as parents are you how to do it, but I can reassure adolescence. So many irrational are black and white. Clean up. Stop mainly baffled by the tech the kids you that you are probably doing fears, hopes and denials come from pushing at every boundary. Yes, are using. We kept them off the it all wrong. There are experts in this nowhere land. school is boring – just get through streets because of paedophiles, and adolescence, apparently. There are That’s why, when your child it. Their demands are vivid. I want now we fear they don’t see the risks manuals that are fine if you accept starts the journey of separating to be a star. I want to change the online. that you just need to change the from you, you may react in all sorts world. I want unconditional love. Neuroscience is wheeled in settings on teenagers until their of strange ways. You as a parent I hate you. I want to take risks. I to explain teenage behaviour in lights flash on and off. Teenagers may feel suddenly out of control. want to be safe. I want to be free. reductive ways. Using brain scans are bracketed with toddlers in Of yourself as well as of your child. All I can say, having learned to explain culturally determined terms of targeted user guides. This Many people seem anxious the hard way, is pick your battles. activities – risk-taking – we seems naff, but there is no one these that what is seen as adolescent Just because everything can be an identify the parts of the brain days apparently not in need of some behaviour kicks in long before the argument doesn’t mean it has to that do not mature until later. dumbed-down cognitive behavioural teen years, at about 10. By this I be. Most of us will not die of an The frontal and parietal lobes therapy. Strangely, I happen to mean the stereotypical way that untidy bedroom, but it is nice to responsible for planning and self- believe teenagers – er, much like us we define this phase: Wanting stuff, think that your children could at control, the bits that don’t envision grown-ups – are all different. being sarcastic, needing to be alone one stage be civilised enough to live the consequences of their actions, I am currently on my third sometimes, caring too much about with someone. Basic manners are are said in some teenangers not to teenager (she is 13; my older ones being included or excluded from always welcome, too. What remains be fully formed. PLUS | TUESDAY 1 JULY 2014 3 This speaks to the exasperated parent. When did your sweet pea become a massive sulky thing? Why does every argument go from 0-60 with no gear change in between? Why does your baby compare you with her friend’s better par- ents and make you feel like an overprotective, miserly clown? If it is actually her brain, then hey, it’s not your fault at all. Actually, it is about hearts and minds, and it is massively complicated – because we are. Being a parent at this stage means a constant negotiation between keeping them safe and letting them go. We are not good at letting go, and in my experience we are also very poor risk assessors. One of my kids didn’t nearly die from going to festivals very young, but from an accident on a “healthy” cycling holiday. Her sister also came close to death, not because she didn’t get fed organic carrots, but because she had meningitis. My worst fears nearly came true because of incidents I could not predict, so it’s not surpris- ing I became laissez-faire about the things I could. Why turn yourself into a flappy mess of worry to make them come home by 2am? What are they going to do then that they won’t have done by mid- night? What did you do yourself? I wish we could all be less hard on one another. Breathe and realise you will fail. I have worried might not be good for us, we have to figure it out rather be told off by my dad. Don’t send your kids about things that were not important to them, I for ourselves sometimes. to sleep with a lecture – if you shout, at least we have been selfish, I have felt hurt and unseen, just as KATIE ADAMSON, 13: When I go out, my mum will remember what it was about. they have. My fantasies of teen world are not theirs. worries far too much – she wants to know all the My advice for parents is, if you want something I have girls, but I know it’s no easier for boys. All details, who is going to be there, exactly where we doing, don’t constantly go on about it, just say it kids can have a monstrous time. are going. Parents worry about us spending time once. If you say it multiple times, we just won’t feel When your child is little, they need you and you with people they don’t know, but I don’t know all of like it. And if you need to punish your teenagers, I’d know what to do. Teenagers don’t need you or even their friends, so it’s not weird that they don’t know say stop them playing computer games or take away appear to like you, but they do need you to be semi- all of mine. My advice would be: Ask kids for some their phones – teens use their phones to text their available for them.