For child clinical psychologist Oliver James the battle to control our children would be helped if we had a better understanding of this thing called adolescence...
Writing as a producer of many documentaries myself, as well as a child clinical psychologist, I feel the producers of The Family deserve a real slap on the back for the way they have managed to chronicle the normal travails of life in a family.
In the fourth episode, 44-year-old father Simon struggles to improve 14-year-old Tom's manners; he expresses discomfort with 19 year-old Emily's busy (and night-owlish) nightlife; and romances his 40-year-old wife Jane on Valentine's night, despite finding her at odds with him about some of his ideas of discipline.
His battle to control his children might be more harmonious if he had a better understanding of adolescence. It is defined as the stage between childhood and maturity. At times, the child has rages and displays an egocentrism which seem more reminiscent of a toddler than an autonomous person. At others, they can display a greater wisdom and maturity than their parents, which comes as an astonishing contrast to the childish self-pre-occupation.
In the midst of these fast-shifting personae, the job of the parent is to stay the same person, to help the child through the doldrums by staying empathic and supportive, however bad it gets. This is easier said than done.
On the one hand, the child periodically draws you into treating them as if they are incapable of independence, trying to make you mother them. Faced with very awkward decisions as to who they are, the child regresses and tries to seduce the parent into deciding for them. They can do this by behaving badly but may also do it by collapsing into tears and vulnerability.
It's vital the parent resists the temptation to take over. The child has to be left to find out for themselves what's real and what's true. The parent's job is to be there as a backstop when the child feels as if they are falling apart and lost. Just by keeping calm and not trying to take control, the parent is doing an invaluable job.
On the other hand, the adolescent will also have times when they are pushing the boundaries, convinced that only they know best - a perplexing and confusing contrast to the helpless toddler of an hour before. Again, an authoritarian insistence by the parent on doing things in a particular way is not helpful. At the same time, though, it's vital that parents do not pretend they approve of something they disagree with.
Simon, for example, is unhappy about Emily's late nights and clubbing lifestyle. He is right to stay true to himself in voicing such doubts, just as it is right not to attempt to force his opinion on his daughter who is, after all, legally an adult. Whilst parents have to allow their adolescents to make mistakes, they should warn against them.
As The Family so vividly illustrates, today's parents are much more similar to their adolescent offspring than in previous eras. But it is as damaging for parents to get muddled and start behaving like teenagers themselves as it is for parents to become overly punitive and judgemental.
Oliver James was writing about series one, episode four of The Family.
