*Seline was happy to sleep in one Saturday morning after enduring a gruelling week. Her 16-year-old daughter was home for the holidays and she knew breakfast would be sorted. Sure enough, the aroma of sizzling sausages and brewed tea wafted into her bedroom at around 10 am. As she rose from her bed, threw on a robe and padded to the living room, she was puzzled to hear voices in the kitchen.
She walked in to see her daughter doing dishes with a lanky teenage boy who barely flinched when he turned around and saw her. Seline stood rooted at the doorway and stared at her daughter who cheerfully said ‘hi’ and introduced the stranger as her boyfriend.
Seline was speechless. In all fairness, she had said that any boyfriends must be brought home but she never imagined that she would one day wake up to a strange boy doing dishes in her kitchen.
Raising teenagers is often described as the heaviest cross to bear in the parenting journey. As a parent, you are expected to provide a safety net for your teenage child while allowing them a degree of autonomy to navigate life.
The teenage years are a flood of changes, with physical and emotional growth being the most significant. While physical growth is a tad easier to discuss with your teenager, understanding emotional changes is a tough nut to crack. “Teenage Love” is a common phrase that illustrates the intensity of one aspect of the emotional growth children experience as they navigate their teenage years.
Many parents will watch from the side-lines as this phase in their children’s lives unfolds, especially since romantic love among children is not considered an “African thing.” Many parents would rather bury their heads in the sand and pretend it is not happening than confront it and learn how to navigate it.
An Atlantis Press Paper published in 2020: Parents’ Perception on Adolescent Romantic Relationships points out common signs of teen romantic relationships: acting distracted and daydreaming all the time, being more antsy and anxious, bringing a particular person’s name into the conversation every chance they get, staying up late at night, hiding in their rooms to text or make phone calls, extreme mood swings, and spending more time worrying about their appearances among others.
“One way of approaching this is through awareness. A parent has to be self-aware to be able to talk to their child. They must make peace with the fact that hard conversations and current conversations are part of their parenting.” Says Joan Kirera, a psychologist and family therapist based in Nairobi. Joan insists that this is a parent-and-child conversation and not a parent-versus-child conversation.
“The other thing is to have factual information. You cannot be giving information based on your values, your beliefs, or your own opinions. You've got to have factual information because if you don't become factual, children will go and find facts out there, and then you'll be left to spectate.”
Her sentiments are echoed by Florence Onyango, a theologian attached at St. Augustine Anglican Church in Madaraka, Nairobi, and a children’s pastor at several schools in the city. “Parents must actively be involved in their children’s lives. Knowing their children are involved in love relationships is not enough, I must insist. Parents need to arm themselves with knowledge. You can’t wing it at parenting. You can’t walk blindly,” she says.
Often, when parents discover these relationships, their first reaction is to shoot them down and instil fear in their children. “This is a common mistake. Fear in itself is not a strategy. It is not sustainable. These days, teenagers have access to information and can question what their parents tell them. You are no longer raising a dotting toddler but a child who is acquiring a voice and independence,” Joan shares.
Parents are advised to stop dealing with their traumas through their children. These traumas inform many of them how to react when they discover their teenagers are in love. “You will notice that parents come along with so many unresolved issues of their past, whether it is the same experience in learning about relationships and by extension sexuality, or possible abuse in their own life. Whether it is the negativity that came with their experience in the past, their emotions, or even the lessons around this issue that they have had. So many parents are wounded, and until they resolve the past, they won’t see these things healthily,” Joan adds.
Set boundaries and expectations
Once this Rubicon is crossed, there is a need for structure and some order to avoid confusion and chaos. “Structures exist to avoid damage and hurt. For teenagers, these guidelines appear to curtail their freedom. Since they live in your house, it is your duty as a parent to ensure that boundaries are defined and expectations are drawn. Remember, even though you want them to develop autonomy, it cannot happen when chaos exists,” Florence offers.
“A home has to have healthy dynamics.” Shares Joan. “So, rules need to be set together with a proper understanding. For example, if you set a curfew for 6 p.m. for your teenagers, then they have to understand why it is 6 p.m. What people do not understand, they resist. That is generally for all human beings. If I don't understand why you are creating something for me, then I'll push it and see what happens if I push it. Does it stretch, or is it rigid?
Part of my parenting skills training is to help parents see that the best way to set a rule is to involve the person who has to follow the rules. So, if I were to have a conversation around relationships, then we need to establish what is acceptable. Have we talked about the facts of sexuality, romantic relationships, and attraction? After this exposition, it should be easy for the teenager to answer these questions: After all these facts, tell me, do you feel ready to have these romantic relationships? Remember, you are going through it together, and then possibly you still help them see whether or not they are ready,” Joan says.
“It is a negotiating space, but also one that gives the child perspective. You could propose they just to get to know people or meet friends and see what love looks like. It doesn't have to be romantic.”
For boundaries and limits, what is acceptable? Can they bring people in the absence of parents? What does that mean for their growing emotions and sexual arousal? The negotiation space brings clarity and helps the child understand possible consequences of their actions.”
Joan is not pro-gadgets—a personal preference- but advises that should a parent discover that their child may have gotten into a relationship as a result of having a gadget, the right move is not to take away their gadgets. “Gadgets are just a means through which these relationships transact and not the reason they exist. However, as we have already discussed, we need to set limits on the usage of gadgets as some of the things they expose young minds to are harmful. Parental control is key when you decide to allow them to have phones and whatnot.”
In love and war, they say, pain lurks and, in this case, heartbreaks. Can parents help their children in dealing with heartbreaks and unhealthy relationships? “I think the most important question we need to ask is, has the parent resolved the heartbreaks in their own life? This whole process is dependent on the wellness of the parent. If I have not resolved my heartbreaks, what can I teach my child? If the parent can deal with pain and rejection, then they can take the child through this difficult process. But how many parents are struggling to deal with those kinds of things? On the question of unhealthy relationships, if the parent is too busy and removed, they cannot help. The first and most important thing is that a parent has to be emotionally connected to their children. And that means emotional connection is being available, being consistent, and being involved,” Joan explains.
Read: Love, heartbreak are also part of a teenager’s life experience
“Teachers, both in school and churches, are not substitutes for parents. If the children go through heartbreaks or are in an unhealthy relationship, they need to trust you enough to share this with you. How can they trust you if they barely know you? Foster a good relationship with them so that, should such things arise, you can easily see them and help them get out,” adds Florence.
Developing sexual identity
In the current world, it is not surprising for teenagers to proclaim queer sexual identities and express their desires to pursue relationships in similar contexts. “Listening openly helps will help you understand your child better. Is it coming from a place of societal influence that makes them feel a certain way about sexual identity? Is it coming from a place of pain? Is it coming from a place of trauma? Is it coming from so much exposure, what they see, and what gets rewarded? Or is it an internal process? Thankfully, many professionals can help parents handle such issues,” says Joan.
Both Joan and Florence admit there is no linear way of navigating romantic teenage relationships, especially because, traditionally, teenage love is seen as an unnecessary waste of time and a distraction to other things like education and faith matters. Yet the reality of this phase cannot be ignored. The buck, as always, stops with the parents. Being intentional gives the children a real chance at developing healthy relationships both now and in future.
