Your teen isn’t trying to make your life miserable

Over the past two days, many of you told me why parenting your teen feels harder than it should.

And almost every story included this moment:

You sense something’s off.
You ask a simple question.
Your teen gets vague.
Defensive.
Maybe lies.

You feel that familiar knot in your stomach and go straight into fix-it mode.

Set a consequence.
Launch into a serious talk about honesty or responsibility.

And instead of opening up, your teen shuts down harder.
Or blows up.

You walk away thinking: Why won’t they just let me help them?

…

Your teen isn’t trying to make your life miserable

Here’s what’s actually happening in that moment.

When teens feel like failures, their only job is protecting themselves.

They can’t think about what they should do differently. They’re too busy defending who they are.

That’s when you see the eye roll.
The “whatever.”
The shutdown.

Not because they don’t care—but because caring hurts too much.

So when correction comes, it doesn’t feel helpful.
It feels like confirmation of the worst thing they already believe about themselves.

…

Why trying harder has backfired

In that moment, your brain sounds an alarm:

If I don’t address this right now, they’ll think it’s okay.
If I don’t shut this down, it’ll get worse.

So you correct. You lecture. You set a consequence.
Not because you’re controlling—but because you’re scared.

And that fear-driven correction is what deepens the cycle.

Your teen feels worse.
They protect themselves harder.
The lying, shutdown, or attitude increases.

You weren’t doing it wrong. You were trying to fix the behavior when the real issue was how your teen felt about themselves.

…

What actually works instead

Most parents think it’s an either/or:
Either I address the behavior, or I’m being too soft.

Here’s what actually breaks the cycle:

• Change the order, not the standard
  The parents who see real change don’t ignore the behavior.
  They change when they address it.

• Help your teen feel understood before fixing what they did
  Connection comes first. Correction comes second.
  That’s what drops defensiveness.

• Cooperation replaces resistance
  When your teen doesn’t feel like a failure in your eyes, they can actually hear your guidance.

The consequence still happens.
The conversation about honesty or responsibility still happens.

But it lands completely differently. Your teen isn’t in defend-myself mode anymore.

…

What this looks like in real life

In the moment, this can be as simple as slowing everything down.

Instead of jumping straight to “Here’s your consequence” or “We need to talk about this…”

You pause. You get calm.

You state what happened without judgment:
“You said you’d be home at 10. You got home at 11:30.”

Then, instead of lecturing, you get curious:
“What was going on?”

And here’s the shift that changes everything:

You validate what they’re feeling before you try to fix what they did.
“It makes sense this is really stressing you out.”

That one move drops their defenses.

And once the defensiveness is gone, you can ask:
“What do you think needs to happen next?”

Suddenly, your teen is part of solving the problem instead of defending themselves against you.

One mom I work with used to panic and jump straight into fixing every issue with her 16-year-old son.

When she slowed down and connected first, something changed almost immediately.

“I can actually see it in his face now—like he finally feels heard. And when he does, the fighting just… stops.”

That’s what happens when you change the order.

The hardest part isn’t the arguments themselves. It’s realizing your teen is learning, moment by moment, whether you’re someone they can come to—or someone they need to protect themselves from.

You don’t need to keep guessing in the heat of the moment.

There is a clear way through this.

…

This is why the Parenting Breakthrough Call exists

On this complimentary 60-minute call, we’ll look at what’s happening in your specific situation:

• Where your teen is feeling like a failure (even when it looks like they don’t care)

• Why your current approach—even though it makes total sense—is accidentally making things harder

• One specific thing you can do differently right away that changes how your teen experiences your guidance

You’ll walk away knowing exactly what’s actually driving your teen’s behavior and what to do about it.

👉 You can book a Parenting Breakthrough Call here.

This isn’t about learning more parenting tips or trying harder with what you already know.

It’s about finally understanding why it’s been so hard and having someone show you what actually works.

You don’t have to keep doing this alone.

🧡 Jeanine