✓ The letter your teenager cannot write to you

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Letter from a teenager

Often i parents of adolescent children they feel displaced: they struggle to recognize in that pimply and arrogant protester the sweet child who until recently loved being cuddled on the sofa.

"Adolescence is a very complex period because children have to face important physical and psychological changes" reads the practical guide on adolescence of the Del Paesena Society of Preventive and Social Pediatrics.

Read also: Teenage children, 5 tips for parents These changes are rapid and often radical: the boy unknowingly transitions from a carefree phase, which is the period of childhood, to a phase of worries and uncertainties. Parents, however, must not lose their leadership role. Limits and boundaries are what kids really need. And to better understand what a teenager needs, Sipps publishes "The Letter Your Teen Can't Write To You" written by American psychologist Gretchen L. Schmelzer.

Here is the text:

Dear Parent,
This is the letter I wish I could write to you.
Of this battle we are fighting now. I need it. I have
need this fight. I can't tell you because I don't know the words
to do it and in any case it would not make sense what I would say. But, you know, I have
need this battle, desperately. I need to hate you, really
now and I need you to survive all of this. I need you to survive my hating you, and your hating me. I need to fight with you, even if even I hate it. It doesn't even matter what the reason is
of this constant battle: curfew time, homework, laundry, mine
messy room, going out, staying at home, leaving home, staying at
living in this family, my boyfriend, my girlfriend, about not having friends, or
about having bad company. It's not important. I need to fight with you
about these things and I need you to do it with me.
I desperately need you to keep the other end of the rope.

May you hold it tight while I tug on the other end, while I try to find some foothold to experience this new world.

Before I knew who I was, who you were, who we were, but now I don't know anymore. Right now I'm looking for my boundaries and sometimes I can only find them when I do this tug-of-war with you. When I push everything I knew to the limit. It is at that moment that I feel I exist, and for a minute I can breathe. And I know you miss that sweet little boy I was. I know, because I miss that baby too and this nostalgia is what makes everything so painful now.
I need to fight and I need to see my feelings, however much
ugly or exaggerated they will not destroy you or me.

I need you to love even the worst in me, even when I don't seem to love you. Right now I need you to love both me and you, on behalf of both of us. I know it sucks to be treated badly, but I need you to tolerate it, and have other adults help you do it. Because I can't do it right now. If you want to get together with your adult friends and have a "survivor-your-teenager-help-group", go ahead.

Talk about me behind my back, I don't care.
Just don't give up on me, don't give up on this conflict: I need it.

This is the battle that will teach me to understand that my shadows are not
bigger than my light. This is the battle that will teach me to understand that
negative feelings don't mean the end of a relationship.
This is the battle that will teach me to understand how to listen to myself,
even when this may disappoint others.
This battle will end. Like any storm, it will subside. And I will forget,
and you will forget. And then she will come back again. And then I'll need you
tighten the rope again. I will need this for years to come.
I know there is nothing good or satisfying for you in this situation,
as I know it probably I will never thank you for that, and neither
I will recognize this hard work, in fact, in all likelihood I will criticize you fiercely.
It will seem that whatever you do is never enough.
Still, I completely rely on your ability to stay in this fight.
No matter how much I argue, no matter how much I complain. Do not
matter how much I shut myself up in my silence.
Please hold the other end of the rope tight. Know that you are doing the most important job anyone could ever do for me right now.