By – Ms. Shruthi Balaji Babar
(Psychologist , The Mind Care, Chennai)
There is a strange stage of parenting that begins somewhere around the teenage years and continues well into college.
Your child is now old enough to have opinions about friendships, relationships, careers, money, social media and probably your parenting too. They may question your reasoning, challenge your rules, point out contradictions, and occasionally remind you of something you said three years ago that you had completely forgotten.
And yet, when they make a decision you disagree with, it can be difficult to know where to draw the line. Are they still children who need to be told what to do? Are they old enough to figure things out themselves?
There is no single age at which a young person suddenly becomes an adult. Adolescence and the college years are a gradual transition in which independence, judgement, emotional regulation and identity continue developing. Their brains are developing too, particularly the systems involved in planning, decision-making and managing emotions (Andrews et al., 2021; Dehestani et al., 2023).
So perhaps the question is not “How do we keep them under control?”
Perhaps it is: “How do we help them grow into people who can eventually manage themselves?”
“Don't Tell Me What to Do” Is Not Always Rebellion
A teenager wanting more independence is not necessarily a teenager becoming difficult. They are beginning to experience something important: “My life is becoming mine.”
They want to choose their friends, develop their own opinions, decide what matters to them, and eventually make choices about their education, relationships and career.
This does not mean every decision they make should be trusted without question. A 16-year-old and a 21-year-old have different levels of experience, and even adults make decisions they later regret.
But there is a difference between protecting a young person from a genuinely harmful decision and preventing them from ever learning to make decisions for themselves.
Development continues throughout adolescence and young adulthood, and different abilities mature at different rates (Dehestani et al., 2023; Luciana et al., 2023). What they increasingly need, therefore, is not less guidance, but more opportunity to think.
They Will Notice If Advice Doesn't Match Real Life
A teenager may have remarkably mature insight about a friend's relationship and then make a questionable decision about their own.
A college student may manage assignments, finances and travel independently but still need support when a relationship ends or the future suddenly feels uncertain. Both can be true.
Growing up does not mean becoming completely independent overnight. Adolescents are gaining increasingly complex ways of thinking while still developing the ability to regulate emotions, weigh consequences and navigate unfamiliar situations (Andrews et al., 2021).
So when a young person says, “I know what I'm doing,” the response does not always have to be “No, you don't.”
Sometimes it can be: “Okay. Tell me how you're thinking about it.”
That does not mean agreeing. It means giving them an opportunity to think and sometimes, when they explain their reasoning, they may surprise you.
Explain the Rule. Don't Just Announce It.
As children grow older, rules can become opportunities to understand responsibility. This does not mean every household rule becomes a debate. Some boundaries exist because safety matters.
A parent can still say, “No, you cannot drive after drinking.” But explaining why the boundary exists can help a young person understand the responsibility behind it rather than simply learning that something is forbidden.
Research on parenting during adolescence highlights the value of combining warmth and connection with appropriate independence and clear boundaries (Bradshaw et al., 2025). There is an important difference between giving someone freedom and teaching someone how to handle freedom. The second prepares them for adulthood.
“You Can Tell Me Anything” Has to Feel Safe Enough to Be True
Many parents genuinely want their children to come to them when something is wrong. But a young person may hesitate if they expect panic, judgement, interrogation or disappointment.
Research on adolescent help-seeking and parent-adolescent communication highlights concerns about judgement and being misunderstood, while patience and openness can make difficult conversations easier (Radez et al., 2021; Wecht et al., 2024).
So when a young person finally says, “I'm not doing okay,” the first response does not necessarily need to be a solution. It could simply be: “Okay. Tell me what has been happening.”
Sometimes being heard has to come before being helped. And when professional help is needed, knowing that seeking it will be supported rather than shamed can make a significant difference.
Emotional Regulation Is Something They Learn, Not Something We Can Demand
Telling a young person to “control your emotions” is a little like telling someone to become good at driving without ever letting them practise. They need opportunities to experience frustration, disappointment, rejection and conflict and gradually discover what they can do with those experiences.
A parent can say: “I understand that you're angry. You are allowed to be angry. We still need to speak respectfully.”
The message becomes: the feeling is valid; the behaviour still has consequences. And adults do not need to demonstrate perfect emotional regulation either. “I was angry and I didn't handle that well. I'm sorry. Let's talk about it again,” can teach something incredibly important: emotions can be strong, mistakes can happen, and relationships can still be repaired.
Resilience Doesn't Mean “Handle Everything Yourself”
Resilience is sometimes mistaken for doing everything alone. But a young person who can say “I don't know what to do,” “I need help,” or “I'm not coping well” has developed an important life skill. Supportive relationships provide an important foundation for coping with difficult experiences (Cheong et al., 2023).
The goal is not to prevent every disappointment. It is to help them gradually discover: I can struggle and recover. I can make a mistake without becoming a failure. I can ask for help without becoming helpless. That is resilience.
And When a Pattern Keeps Repeating?
Perhaps they leave everything until the last minute. Perhaps they shut down when upset, need repeated reassurance, lose motivation after initial excitement, or avoid difficult conversations until the situation becomes harder. The immediate response is often: “Why do you keep doing this?”
But what if the conversation became: “Have you noticed that this keeps happening?”
Then: “What usually happens before it?” “Does it help you in the moment?” “Does it create another problem later?”
And eventually:
“Is this something you actually want to change?”
That last question matters. Because understanding a pattern is different from being ready to change it. The role of the adult is not always to provide the interpretation. Sometimes it is to ask the question that helps the young person arrive at it themselves.
The Parenting Job Changes
Perhaps this is the biggest shift of all.
When children are young, parents do a lot for them. As they grow, parents gradually help them learn how to do things for themselves: make decisions, handle consequences, repair relationships, manage emotions, ask for help and recognise when something isn't working. The relationship changes.
Less “Because I said so.” More “Help me understand how you're thinking about this.”
Less “I'll solve it for you.” More “What do you think your options are?”
Less “You shouldn't feel this way.” More “What do you think is happening inside you right now?”
And perhaps most importantly, less “You're still a child.” More: “You're becoming an adult, and I'm here while you learn.”
That transition can be difficult for everyone. Parents are learning how to let go of certain responsibilities while young people are learning how to carry them.
The goal is not to raise someone who always listens to their parents. It is to help them become someone who can think for themselves, understand themselves, regulate their emotions, make thoughtful choices, recognise when something is not working, seek help when needed, take responsibility for their actions and still know that they have somewhere safe to return to. That is not stepping away from parenting.
That is parenting for adulthood.
References
Andrews, J. L., Ahmed, S. P., & Blakemore, S.-J. (2021). Navigating the social environment in adolescence: The role of social brain development. Biological Psychiatry, 89(2), 109–118. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsych.2020.09.012
Bradshaw, E. L., Duineveld, J. J., Conigrave, J. H., Steward, B. A., Ferber, K. A., Joussemet, M., Parker, P. D., & Ryan, R. M. (2025). Disentangling autonomy-supportive and psychologically controlling parenting: A meta-analysis of self-determination theory's dual process model across cultures. American Psychologist, 80(6), 879–895. https://doi.org/10.1037/amp0001389
Cheong, Y., Zhu, Q., Wang, C., Patel, A., & Ye, Y. (2023). The roles of parenting, resilience, and interpersonal relationships on adolescents' mental health and stress-related growth during COVID-19. Journal of Adolescence, 95(8), 1641–1652. https://doi.org/10.1002/jad.12232
Dehestani, N., Whittle, S., Vijayakumar, N., & Silk, T. J. (2023). Developmental brain changes during puberty and associations with mental health problems. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 60, 101227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101227
Luciana, M., Barch, D., & Herting, M. M. (2023). Adolescent brain cognitive development study: Longitudinal methods, developmental findings, and associations with environmental risk factors. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 64, 101311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcn.2023.101311
Radez, J., Reardon, T., Creswell, C., Lawrence, P. J., Evdoka-Burton, G., & Waite, P. (2021). Why do children and adolescents (not) seek and access professional help for their mental health problems? A systematic review of quantitative and qualitative studies. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 30, 183–211. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-019-01469-4
Wecht, S., Hendrixson, M., & Radović, A. (2024). A mixed method investigation of parent-adolescent communication about mental health. Journal of Adolescent Health, 75(6), 904–911. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2024.07.012