161: How Do I Get my Teens to Want to Spend Time with Me?

Ask Lisa: The Psychology of Parenting

Dr. Lisa Damour/Good Trouble Productions

Kids & Family, Mental Health, Parenting, Health & Fitness

4.8 • 720 Ratings

🗓️ 12 March 2024

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A concerned parent seeks Dr. Lisa's guidance on building and maintaining a connection with her teenage son. Despite efforts to spend quality time together, most family activities are met with resistance. The parent wonders if it’s normal for her 15-year-old son and, more recently, her 11-year-old daughter, to hold their parents at a distance. Dr. Lisa and Reena explore the challenges of enforcing family time and suggest alternative approaches that can work. The episode answers several key questions, including: Is having dinner together sufficient to strengthen family bonds? How do parents foster connection during the turbulent teen years? And when it is time to worry about a teen’s reluctance to spend time with the family? Follow and subscribe to our YouTube channel where you can see all our latest video episodes: https://youtube.com/@asklisapodcast And follow us on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn @AskLisaPodcast, @Lisa.Damour, @ReenaNinan. Checkout Dr. Lisa’s website for more resources: https://www.drlisadamour.com/ Ask Lisa is produced by: https://www.goodtroubleproductions.com

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, I'm Rina Ninean and this is Ask Lisa, the Psychology of Parenting Podcast.
0:10.7	It's a podcast to help parents better understand their kids. Dr. Lisa DeMore, a psychologist with three
0:17.2	decades of experience, and the author of three New York Times best-selling parenting
0:21.8	books takes your questions. Both of us are moms ourselves, and we're eager to hear from you.
0:27.1	So send us your questions to Ask Lisa at Dr.LisaDemore.com. And you can join our community by
0:32.8	following us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. The handle is Ask Lisa Podcast. And also subscribe to our
0:39.7	brand new YouTube channel, Ask Lisa Podcast. Episode 161, how do I get my teen to want to spend more time
0:47.1	with me? All right, hearing back from a lot of parents about last week's episode on birth control,
0:56.0	boy, you know what still remains with me is the statistics you used in that episode.
1:01.4	Yeah. We know a lot. I mean, we are tracking the data and we can use the data to make,
1:06.8	you know, kind of good decisions as families and, you know, we can also use them to inform
1:11.7	policy. But I'm always so glad when we could just defer to the science. We don't have to make it
1:17.1	up. We don't have to like feel our way in the dark. We know, we know things. Yeah. You're always
1:23.1	great with the science. I want to read you this letter because this is something, Lisa, the parents
1:27.5	all struggle with, many of them I think struggle with, is wanting to savor every moment that
1:32.0	your child has, but your kid is starting to pull away and not wanting to do it. Here's the letter.
1:37.7	Hello, Dr. Lisa. I've been really enjoying your show. I know that in order to sustain a relationship
1:42.5	during the bad times, you need to nurture it during the good times of your life.
1:46.5	I'm having a difficult time getting any time allotted to spend with my 15-year-old son, other than when I drive him to school, friend visits, or soccer.
1:54.9	I want to put time in the bank that we can draw on later during discipline challenges, but he refuses to spend time with me or
2:02.3	our family of four. We have family dinners daily, and prior to the teen years, we spent most
2:07.4	weekends enjoying nature together on hikes, nature center visits, bike rides, etc. Any of those
	...

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