Guest Post: Being a step-parent of teenagers

Written by Jenny Parrott

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Former crime reporter and news journalist, Jenny Parrott reveals her best advice for being a good step-parent to teenagers.

Dealing with teens can be a nightmare. Fact.

They’re moody, unreliable, lazy, unmotivated, sometimes dishonest, excitable, do stupid things, are incapable of doing much without at least six friends being involved, are fascinated with sex and drink and drugs.

They are also loving and – when in the mood – hilarious and really good company. I simply love teenagers, just not quite all of the time.

This is because all of them seem to come pre-programmed with an innate ability to throw a wobbly or have a problem at the least convenient time, or when their birth parents are nowhere in sight and cannot be contacted. You – the long-suffering step parent are exhausted: excellent. You’re in a hurry to leave the house for an important meeting: that works too. Dad’s away, their birth mum is out, and you’re loco parentis, and up against a serious deadline: perfect, just perfect.

The one thing I learnt during my stepkids’ teen years – they are now in their late twenties - is that in these moments you just have to stop and give them a minute of your undivided attention.

It’s annoying and inconvenient and all the rest but, generally, you have just the one very small window when they come to you; ignore it, and when you raise it again at a time that works for you, they will look at you in horror.

Teen years have always been tricky, but the lives our teenagers live these days are probably more fraught than our own – social media is dogged by trolls, advertising is so cleverly targeted to them, a small event can within minutes swell into a large gathering and morph into something scary very quickly, school and social life has been all over the place for Covid reasons. The list goes on…

So in a difficult moment, it’s important for a step parent to assess first the gravity of the situation: is somebody hurt or in immediate danger? If so, you might need to wade in very quickly with drastic action – calling an ambulance, parents, the police etc – especially if you are ‘known’ in their circle as being the one person that everyone can come to.

Luckily, most times it’s nothing that serious – but you must check as, in the case of an overdose or a miscarriage a friend is experiencing, say, your teen might be too scared to talk to their parents about a situation where speed of response could be of the essence. Panic might show as shouting at you, remember, so you must keep calm and remember that this behaviour might not be about you.

More often the problem will be of the broken-hearted variety or friends having a spat, and two minutes of listening to what the teen wants to say, no matter how busy you are, can work wonders, even if you have to park the conversation at that point to come back to later. In my experience, as long as there is a validation from you, then most teens will be happy to wait until you have more time to discuss further.

Sometimes practical advice will be needed, such as how ‘a friend’ might get the morning-after pill (it’s easy to jump to all sorts of conclusions, so in this instance it might actually be a friend to whom this is applying, of course).

You may well be asked to promise not to tell mum or dad about whatever the issue is. To this I would always say: if I don’t have to, I won’t; but they love you very much and if it is something they should know, I can’t promise to keep it secret, although I will always help you tell them anything difficult if you want me to, as it’s best if you can manage to tell them yourself.

If you say you are not going to say anything, then you really mustn’t at all – teens won’t forget a broken confidence, and this could mean that when faced with something really desperate, they won’t come to you next time. Either way, don’t expect birth parents to be delighted to discover that you are the person their child came to for help before them, but this is not the time to do other than suck up any bad temper.

If the teen is furious about something you have done, you owe it to them to hear them out. I would usually ask them why are they so cross, and why they think I did whatever is making them fume so, and then I would explain how I came to do what I did – sometimes hearing your point of view really calms the situation, and this works back the other way too, as sometimes they will make something clear to you about their situation at this point you were previously unaware of.

And sometimes you won’t know the solution to what they are telling or asking of you. It’s fine to say you’re not sure, I discovered, but that you’re going to think about it.

Finally, a huge tip that somebody gave to me that really does work. If a teen is confessing something very difficult, sit or stand beside them and not face-on (sit if they’re sitting, stand if they are standing) – they might not be able to bear too much visual scrutiny. For teen boys, routinely even more reticent, you might need to become suddenly rather busy with your back to them, for them to feel safe in opening up – I found loading the dishwasher or sorting the washing very useful in these moments. Once the problem is out in the open and the atmosphere is steadier, you can risk looking at the speaker; if the conversation clams up again, turn around and give it a bit of time. Sometimes just allowing the problem to be in companionable silence will be really helpful.

Good luck!

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Jenny Parrott has worked in book publishing for nearly thirty five years, following a career as a news journalist and crime reporter; in 2016 she began writing fiction and since then has had nine novels published under pseudonyms for three large publishing houses. One of Jenny’s personal essays about motherhood features in the book The Best, Most Awful Job.

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