The Beautiful Chaos of Raising Adolescents
I recently wrote my daughter a letter - a letter of reflection and notes of wisdom as she embarked upon her 15th year. I started the letter on my early 5am walks, I’d reflect and pray upon the previous days disasters, yes plural. I’d recount our conversations, those tiny moments in time that resembled either a serene lake or more often than not a rapid river with hair raising bends and hidden eruptions I’d have flashes of scenes that made me shudder at the thought of my actions, my words or my complete belligerence in times of being triggered or my sheer inability to connect due to the multitude of tasks and have to’s, to do’s and must do’s that consumed my days.
I’d shed tears of joy as my body remembered the warmth of her hugs, the miniature moments of eyes connecting in the car where a lesson had dropped in and a knowing look between us let me know she got it loud and clear in her heart. Those moments where I had achieved one of those exalted moments of parenting, receiving a badge of parenting nobility and lofty status in my minds eye. I’d recall the laughter and heart connections, as fleeting as they were through this past season. I dug deep to see what lessons I had learned and what I was happy (and not so happy) to take ownership of. The sadness and shame, guilt and gratitude tumbling around in my head and heart as I walked out the previous days interactions, day after day. I’d wonder what were the the opportunities for further teaching and guidance? and what lessons and guidance should I seek, often humbling moments.
I’d find myself on a bench, heart and head to the sky, tears pouring out as I searched, asking god, where and what did I need to let go of, accept? What and how do I manage to forgive myself, my mother and my daughter for. I’d reflect on the mountains we’d climbed, together and alone, the chasms of utter emotional and physical withdrawal, the chaos, the high fives, the low heavy days, the tears, laughter, rejection, heartaches, heart openings, triumphs and tantrums. Oh my my, what a multitude of wonders we’d both buried and birthed throughout the previous year on our rights of passage.
We have traversed some really tricky terrain - hormones, menstruation & menopause, friendship challenges, heartbreaks, challenges with health, challenges with schooling due to hidden learning difficulties - communication changes - expanded sources of influence, snapchat, TikTok and so on. I noticed her world and her relationship to the world changing incrementally and then suddenly overnight waking up to a different species; with an uncorougable attitude and detest towards me and all up until that point I had provided. Of course I am not sharing the letter here, however, I’ve taken parts of it for reflection and expansion, in the hope that it brings you some insight, comfort and recognition. That in reading, here with me, you can find a way to see all that you do, all that you give and all that you’ve gained in parenting someone on and through the difficult and oftentimes dark and vast, threshold from childhood to adulthood.
There’s something profound that happens in adolescence, in the blink of an eye, the little one whose hand you once held crossing the street is now standing in front of you - almost the same height - looking a little like you, a little like their dad and in my daughter's case, a LOT like a fierce goddess-in-training wrapped in a beautiful storm cloud of emotions, a wild spirit discovering her power. They start to stand firm in their ideas, voice, desires, and indefinable stubbornness to be, do, and want their own things their own way. Their sudden unwillingness to do what you desire, think, or suggest anymore (for their own good of course) completely shatters and dismantles your entire system of - for want of a better word - control! harmonious blissful control.
Let’s use the word harmony here, if you had any harmony at all in your household; like mine - the threshold of teen to young adult - is about to challenge every little sweet rhythm of coexistence you so naively thought was your sanctuary. No, my friend, one day you will open her bedroom door to say good morning to your sweet darling daughter and be met with a raging ego - make up - dramatic physical, mental and emotional changes - and a quick slam in the face of “GET OUT! WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY ROOM!?” and a if you felt the pressure and could no longer hang off getting them a phone - need I say more!!
I confess I thought I'd breeze through the teen years. After all, my daughter had always been a boundary pusher, a construct dismantler, and oppositional to almost anything I set my mind to. I'd been training for this olympic event of adolescence since toddlerhood! When my daughter was around 10 someone said to me “wait till she’s a teen” and I rather smugly said “Oh I’ve got this - it will be a breeze!” Ha! Surely I had developed the parental equivalent of emotional Cross-Fit by now.!? How naive I was. Turns out those earlier years were just the qualifying rounds - and I already felt like I’d done 10 rounds with the Mike Tyson of parenting.
The truth is, these changes don't magically appear at 15. They start creeping in as early as 12 - or 10 even - the brain rewiring, the body transforming, the attitudes shifting, like tectonic plates beneath what was once stable ground. One day you're cutting their sandwiches into love heart shapes - yes I did this - and once I cut out horses on a carousel in a watermelon for a “Food as art” display at school, I know I know, I was up until midnight, a real winner with my daughter and secretly I was very chuffed with myself! - then the next minute, they're explaining why your music taste is “tragically wrong”, if you talk to them in public you’re embarrassing - infact you are just absolutely embarrassing in all forms and that your favourite jeans make you look "actually ridiculous.". It's a humbling journey, to say the least.
I've come to think of teenage years as a heavy weight 'training ground’, a scary, I mean, sacred space between childhood and adulthood; where both teens and parents learn, grow, crack, breakdown, breakthrough and at times completely an utterly loose all wherewithal to life altogether. We both seemingly perpetuate in a constant stumbling, tantruming, rock bottom hitting grappling frenzy of control, freedom, shock and sadness, only to scale great heights of success, love and celebration only moments later. If we’re consciously aware and have our own healing, boundaries and values in check, we can survive those moments without too many scars.
If we’re wholesome and healed from our own experiences of childhood and adolescence then we hold keys to awareness and an ability to guide our children authentically and consciously. But, in the business of todays world, simply getting an agreement on the most basic thing like emptying the dishwasher or taking out the rubbish can cause chaos, however on the odd occasion when it goes seamlessly, we can feel so grateful and elated by the breadcrumbs of agreeability. These victories punctuate our days between consuming thoughts of hopelessness and exhaustion, running away from our own lives or divorcing our kids! Ahh the avalanche of guilt!
I have often wondered how anyone has ever survived this particular developmental phase before. Ancient cave paintings never depicted the teenage eye-roll, yet surely it existed. Medieval tapestries failed to capture the slamming of chamber doors. Now I understand the true cause of parents' grey hair and wrinkles, it’s not the wrinkle of time but the wrinkle in our souls as we navigate this beautiful, terrible transformation alongside our children. This isn't only their metamorphosis; it's ours too. We're all butterflies-in-waiting, currently resembling something closer to frazzled caterpillars clinging desperately to the leaves of our composure so we dont break down.
But I came to realise, EVERYTHING IS DESIGNED TO BREAK DOWN YET IT IS IN THE REPAIR THAT MATTERS. So, what do I mean by breaking down? Breaking down habits, cycles and behaviours that no longer serve the life we want, clearing the debris of outgrown parenting styles, past hurts and our own guilt, shame or trauma. Cultivating clarity and nourishing our inner soil for new growth, wisdom and possibility. In my teachings I often refer to the caterpillar who consumes, cocoons, breaks down (into a lava like pulp - sound familiar!) and inevitably reforms as a magnificent butterfly to only live out its magnificence for a very short time may I add ( I know - sorry). You see the life of a caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly is an entire lifetime of one species, each stage containing the same being in differing forms of matter, each stage having not too dissimilar lengths.
I came to think of the revelations and tumblings of parenthood to be the same, a continuing metamorphosis whereby each stage has its own equal measure; the happy, all is well, growth and consumption, the lessons of the deep, the breaking down where change is deeply required. The darkness, the stillness, the waiting for change, the grief and sorrow or the silent moments of peace and of course the inevitable awakening, soaring and gleefully fluttering championing moments dancing in the warm breeze of lifes sunshine (only to be snaffled by a dopey English Pointer dog called Hugo who loves to chase butterflies - oops another story!)
Back to my point… so we, as parents and so too our children, consume (consciously of course), cocoon (incubate and integrate said consumption) break down (let go of what doesn’t serve our best life), and breakthrough - in order for us both to fly; One into the abyss of independent freedom as an young adult and the other into a different kind of freedom of the emptying nest. If we really get it right, mindfully, lovingly, consciously and care-fully, we may just find a whole new relationship waiting to birth, one of strength, trust and immeasurable respect. The alternative? if we try to fix, manage, control, hold on too tight, or worse helicopter our teens through every fleeting change with control, or even worse, pander to their every whim for fear of losing them, we only create a chasm so wide that could take years, decades even, to repair.
From those first moments of holding our babies, our parental instinct was clear - protect, nurture, guide. We fed them, held them close, listened to their cries until we could distinguish hunger from tiredness, curiosity to cuddles. We watched with wonder as they discovered the world by touching, seeking, absorbing everything with those bright, curious eyes. As toddlers, they conquered the playground with fearless enthusiasm, and we stood nearby, their island of safety when they needed to return. Those early years were physically demanding but straightforward in purpose I thought, keep them safe, teach them basics, love them unconditionally. Oooooh the parallels of teenagers and the application of such easy parenting.
School years bring new challenges as our children encounter other influences, other voices and their own personal challenges. Not every teacher, not every friend, understands their unique spark. Some of our children move through traditional education smoothly; others, like mine, need different paths, with scaffolding for learning, part time school, alternative programs, specialised support and eventually homeschooling. Throughout all of it our job remains, to advocate, to listen, to guide, to provide.
Understanding the Training Ground
As a teen approaches 15 (the midway mark to adulthood), we enter what I've come to understand as the adult-in-training intensive. This is where everything learned before - the skills, boundaries, insights, intuition - supposedly becomes internal and they’re outer world becomes a lot more colourful , in all shades and sizes. Meanwhile, parents undergo a thorough existential audit, constantly squinting at this ever-changing person in front of us wondering, “Who IS this creature that was my sweet child just last Tuesday?” and “Where have all my parenting skills gone?” One minute we're confidently managing bedtimes and vegetable consumption, the next we're standing bewildered in the kitchen, having completely forgotten what we were cooking because our teen just informed us they're now a Tik-Tok influencer with 1200 followers.
We have not the faintest idea what they're thinking, feeling, or wanting, until they're suddenly demanding it or just doing it anyway - like downloading Tik-Tok. There's a compass forming within them, still wildly calibrating but increasingly their own, pointing in directions we never knew existed on the map of life.
During this stage, teenagers experience changes at lightning speed. Their ideas, friendships, desires, and perspectives shift rapidly - Monday’s passionate interest in becoming a famous show jumper becomes Tuesday's determination to become a professional influencer, becomes Wednesday's existential crisis about what clothes to wear. As parents, our role evolves, like a spinning door, but remains essential, we must become the steady backdrop against which they can safely explore who they're becoming, the unmoving rock in the storm of their discoveries even when inside we're a puddle of confusion ourselves. A poem by Poet and Philosopher Kahlil Gibran comes to mind, heres an excerpt, On Children - “Your children are not your children. they are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, and though they are with you yet they belong not to you…”.
Our teens often see it this way long before we do. To them, our guidance often feels like restriction when they're hungry for freedom. “But everyone else's parents let them stay on their phones till midnight on a week night” True freedom isn't the absence of boundaries, it’s the presence of wisdom and discernment within safe spaces. Our job isn't to prevent them from experiencing life but to help them develop the discernment to navigate it well, even when that makes us temporarily the “worst person in the world” in their unfolding story. The world of a teenager today is complex in ways many of us never experienced. Social media creates constant comparison, digital connections blur boundaries, and influences come from everywhere at once. It's a world filled with both opportunity and trickery. Traps and transitions.
One moment that broke my heart happened when my daughter started high school. After just two weeks, the initial excitement vanished. Each morning, I'd find her despondently hiding under her covers, a stark contrast to those first few weeks when she'd bounce out of bed for the new adventure. One morning, I sat on her bed with a hot cup of tea like I always did, but this time there were no chats, no tea together. After some gentle prompting, her devastated voice, stifling back tears, emerged from beneath the covers: "There's no more play! Everyone just stands around talking or eating or on their phones. I can't canter like a horse in the playground anymore, and the play equipment is only for Year 5 and 6, and I'm now in Year 7, I’m not allowed! What am I going to do?"
My heart sank. Her realisation pierced through me as I reflected on my own experience of "NO MORE PLAY" and how most of my adult life I'd been looking for permission to bring it back, often times replacing the desperate desire for creativity with the business of to do / must do lists. That transition, from the joyful freedom of play to the constrained social dynamics of adolescence, is a loss, a rights of passage we rarely acknowledge never mind attempt to get right. Our teens often think we don't understand their desire for freedom. But we do, so deeply, as oftentimes during the parenting patterns shifting, we are reminded of our own restrictions, limitations, lost opportunities and regrets of our own youth. What they can't yet see is that we're not withholding freedom; we're guiding them toward a much fuller version of it. Freedom that isn't trapped by poor choices or manipulated by external pressures and instantly gratifying pleasures. Freedom that comes from knowing themselves, respecting themselves, and making choices aligned with their authentic values. But what are they? And do they even really know at this age?
Parenting a teen isn't easy. We're learning on the job, sometimes getting it spectacularly right, other times, a lot of the time, missing the mark entirely. Our teens are teaching us as much as we're teaching them, showing us parts of life and ourselves we never knew existed, forgot existed and wished we couldn’t remember. It's humbling, humiliating, frustrating, and beautiful all at once. When our teens disagree with our decisions, and they will, it creates necessary, yet often times uncomfortable tension. These moments of pushback are actually vital for their development, and ours. They're learning to think critically, to advocate for themselves, to distinguish between what they want in the moment and what serves them in the long run, often times going for the acquisition of right now. Simultaneously, we're navigating our own gradual descent from the summit of parenthood where we once reigned with unquestioned authority, to the gentler slopes of becoming guides rather than commanders. This bittersweet letting go isn't just about them separating; it's about us separating too. We're learning to loosen our white-knuckled grip on control, to trust the foundations we've built, the seeds we’ve planted, buried under the soil of society, and to recognise that our success as parents paradoxically depends on becoming steadily less needed in the ways we once were. Instead the true inheritance we helped plant in them is not our protection, but the courage and tools to live without it. The tension we feel in these moments of conflict isn't just resistance, it’s the necessary friction that reshapes both them and us into who we're becoming next.
The teenage years are part of a much larger journey. Over the seven years, from age 14, our teens will expand and grow physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. They'll experience profound joy and connection alongside the inevitable confusion, heartbreak, and loneliness. They'll meet people who are drawn to their energy, their authenticity, their unique light, but not everyone they encounter will be right for them. Our hope as parents is that they have instilled the wisdom we have imparted, within the chaos of the separation; developing the resilience and discernment to maintain healthy boundaries, to recognise their true worth, to understand the meaning of true love and most importantly to respect themselves and to keep sacred what truly matters to them most. My hope in this navigation of childhood to adulthood is that we can model, teach, guide our teens to learn to pause and check in with themselves with discernment: "Is this right for me? Do I feel safe? Does this align with who I truly am?" These internal questions and conversations are far more valuable than any external validation they might obsessively seek. And my deepest prayer for these years is that trust deepens between us and within us. That love expands and strengthens even as dependency naturally decreases. That our young adults develop not just confident independence but the ability to look beyond immediate gratification toward much longer and larger horizons of great harvest.
If you found this helpful or you need assistance with preparing for or transitioning through adolescence with your family, check out my course Reparenting Parents or Repairenting You. These courses are designed to help you let go of old limiting narratives and beliefs allowing you to create a new language built on authenticity, safety and connection.
with gratitude
Jen Pen