Teen Boys: They Don't Talk. They Don't Clean. I Love Them Anyway

Hi friends, teen boys could really use a new image. That's what family counselor and bestselling author Inke Hummel thought, and she's written a wonderfully helpful, encouraging book for parents of teenage sons: “Redet nicht. Räumt nicht auf. Lieb ich trotzdem” (roughly, “They Don't Talk. They Don't Clean Up. I Love Them Anyway”). We figured we'd tap her expertise, so we sent her a question from one of our readers. She wrote to us when we asked on Instagram what the biggest challenges are for you right now in the teen years. Here's what she wrote:

“I'm really worried about my youngest. What do I do as a mom when my son hangs around the mall, joins groups that love to take shots at other people (verbally), only do things if they get something out of it, show up late, can't be counted on, ride around with a backpack full of firecrackers… When does your own influence fade and make room for a morally questionable one? I'd love some frank words about this. Including about unpleasant character traits in your own child. It's a taboo topic, sadly, but they do exist!

How do you manage not to lose influence without also constantly hating most of what comes along? He doesn't do his homework, doesn't study, only plays video games, hangs out with strange people. Maybe psychologists would say it's normal not to understand your own child (now and then), or even not to like him sometimes… I've also heard it's a bit of luck, and not at all a given, that your child's character resembles your own.

The trick is probably to keep all the balls in the air and not grow apart. I think that's where the later estrangements come from, the “My parents never understood me” kind. Right now I love the son I'm describing more than anything. I probably spoiled him too much… but how things are going is really weighing on me.”

Teen Boys

Inke Hummel answers: Dear friends, thank you for passing the mom's question along. I can feel a whole lot of worry in it, and I know that worry well from my counseling work. I often hear fears during pregnancy, before settling into daycare, or around starting school, but the thoughts parents have about their teenagers tend to be a different kind of thing. And, honestly, they pack a bigger punch!

It's usually about more than a fight over sandbox toys or those first reading skills. It's about health, graduating, and the path a child's life will take. That can be scary, because we parents really do have to give up control in so many ways.

For parents of boys, this sometimes plays out differently than it does for many girls. Gender stereotypes and ideas about gender can't be waved away, no matter how hard we try to raise our kids the same. There's so much packed into what this mom writes.

In my counseling, I first give parents knowledge about the teen years, and sometimes a few striking shifts in perspective, so that fears can settle and hearts can stay soft. Not understanding each other and digging in lead to distance and to the classic “generation gap,” which, the way we picture it in our heads, really doesn't have to happen. And of course I also give parents ideas for what to do. I'll put a bit of both here:

1.        Group dynamics, risk-taking, and macho behavior: parental influence and risky friendships

During the teen years, the family expands to include peers. What the best buddy said may suddenly mean more to your son than what his parents think. Weekends belong to the plans with the crowd. Every now and then your teen heads out the door and you have no idea who's behind the new name he gives as his destination.

His radius slowly gets bigger. That's exciting, sometimes funny, sometimes challenging. What matters is that parents don't see his peers as the enemy. They matter to your child, and in some ways they're truly a positive force in his development. Parents usually don't lose their son. The relationship changes. That's exactly how it's supposed to be, and it has happened several times before in his life.

It also matters that parents don't immediately write off outside influences just because their son suddenly comes home with ideas different from the ones they've had. It doesn't matter whether it's a hair color or music, a political opinion, or a fixation on one particular topic. Sure, it won't always be easy to deal with the fact that he's not a mini-me, and in some areas he may slowly be turning into someone you wouldn't have picked as a roommate. But coping with that isn't his responsibility. It's yours. Okay, enough wagging of the finger: this is totally doable.

One tip: reach out to the other boys.  Invite them for dinner, offer to drive, bring a buddy along when you go to the water park or the mall, ask if he wants to play video games with you, offer a trip to the ice cream shop if you happen to run into your son with the others in town. And then get to know them all.

I find that the dinner table works especially well, for example with raclette (a German favorite where everyone melts cheese at the table and builds their own plate) or when you serve wraps that everyone has to put together bit by bit. You sit together for a good while and automatically end up asking questions, listening, and laughing.  And macho posturing doesn't come as easily as it does outside the mall. When you build relationships this way, you'll probably notice at some point that some of his friends are nicer than you first thought, but maybe also that you don't like one of them.

Then it's not a good idea to trash that friend in front of your son. You want to have raised a loyal young man who sticks by his friends and doesn't let himself be manipulated, right?! Then don't even try.

It's better to ask questions:

• “How do you feel when X always does Y?”
• “Why does X always act like that? What do you think?”
• “Did you notice how I felt on Sunday when X was here and said Y?”
• “Do you think X supports you?”

You show interest and share your own thoughts, but he gets to answer freely and, over time, develop a more critical eye on his own.

You'll find lots more tips, including for when the topics get more serious, in my book “Redet nicht. Räumt nicht auf. Lieb ich trotzdem” (humboldt 2026), some excerpts of which have already run here. But here's something I'd like to hand you right now: the love of risk is a typical phase. Feeling more, thinking less far ahead, just trying things out, being bad at setting priorities: all normal. It changes with time, like back when your child wasn't reliably potty trained yet or tipped over now and then while learning to ride a bike. It's a matter of maturing.

And, unfortunately, truly obnoxious macho behavior is typical too, no matter how feminist even his dad might be. It's a bit like the moments when your daughter wanted kids' nail polish or your son wished for a firefighter birthday party: gender stereotypes give kids a scaffold for finding their place. Some things you have to try to find out they're not for you. But first of all, they create belonging, and in the teen years there's not much more important than that.

2.        Different personalities and the roommate feeling

Despite being clearly related, it's very possible that during the teen years we parents notice that the personality emerging in front of us has almost nothing to do with what matters to us. Sometimes it's only about food or tidiness, other times about political leanings or, yes, the choice of friends. But someone is really living with us who gets to develop completely on his own, and who sadly wasn't carefully picked by us as a roommate. Annoying.

It may also really be the case that we discover inborn traits (which might remind us of our own father or our mother-in-law, help!) that we can't get rid of, and that may even make us fine with it when our son moves to the other end of the country at 23 and we only see him three times a year.

Nobody wants that, but it can happen, even without anyone being at each other's throats or anyone having done something wrong. So what can you do?

First tip: ask, ask, ask again. This is your best tool for reaching him and understanding him, and for not coming across as a lecturing teacher or a know-it-all. That takes patience, too. Sometimes it takes many tries and quite a bit of time.

If you used to hold family meetings, it's worth digging that back out and, instead of fighting about XY every single day, working out rules together. Okay, it's also normal that they'll need to be renegotiated every few weeks, but maybe not every day anymore, once your son feels seen and you meet him partway (out of your comfort zone).

Second tip: accept him, and set boundaries warmly. What works and connects you, what doesn't work, and what could compromises look like? Let those questions guide you.

3.        School and other responsibilities

Ah, school… In the teen years it's as important as it is annoying, and way too often it hardly fits what your son needs right now. You'd probably love to hand him more responsibility for school, but you don't quite want to stay out of it completely either. Tough!

Here, too, along with a tolerance for ambiguity, the only thing that helps is a middle path, and I'd title it “trust.” That has a lot to do with leaving your own comfort zone again. Arguments are part of this phase, and so, usually, are some lousy grades.

“No idea when the test is.” “I didn't know there was a test.” “It doesn't matter if I study. My grade is terrible anyway.” “My math book? No idea. I think the last time I saw it was before winter break.” Do sentences like these sound familiar? They can come up as early as elementary school, but in the teen years they get more frequent for many kids and sometimes become the default. There are so many great teachers, but not everywhere, unfortunately. And sometimes classes are so big and so demanding that even the best, most motivated teacher struggles to get them excited about the material or even to participate at a minimal level.

Is your son one of those cases right now? Then I can tell you: there's simply very little room for school at the moment. Making it a priority is really hard for him. On top of that, there's a certain sluggishness that has another cause: do you remember how wild and full of energy your child was in the early school years? In the morning, it started the second he woke up with jumping, running, and screaming.

That energy often disappears when the puberty hormones come knocking. Even if your son is one of the athletic ones who still drags himself to soccer practice or out mountain biking, the sluggishness will probably show up somewhere else. Everything can wait until later, just not right this second; you're supposed to chill, and school is supposed to stop being annoying. The bed is the best place in the world, and carrying a used plate to the sink (or, heaven forbid, loading it into the dishwasher) is an unreasonable physical effort. Why is that?

Developing a sense of self is using up all his resources right now, and his mental maturity, which really is moving forward, is also telling your son: “Check whether any of this even makes sense.” A toddler will easily go along when you say you have to walk home together because you want to count daisies on the way. Your teenage son, on the other hand, can hardly be motivated anymore to walk to school: “Why? I have a student bus pass and the bus comes in two minutes!”

As a parent, that may often be a pain, but from a cognitive standpoint it's great. Your son has an opinion! You don't just blindly go along with everything either; you weigh things and make decisions about your life. The challenging part is the categories he decides by. They're probably not always clear to you. But they're still legitimate. He still has to find his way, and until then he'll try out lots of categories.

My rule of thumb: first and foremost, your son isn't walking away from school (and other responsibilities). He's walking toward himself and his personality. And in terms of going along with things, motivation, and so on, that unfortunately often comes with a big drop-off.

And here's the tip that goes with it:

1. Understand that it's not lazy or malicious on his part.

2. Help him set priorities and find bare-minimum agreements there.

Oh, I could say so much more, including about skipping school, dealing with the risk of being held back a grade, or just the never-ending fight over chores, but I've put all of that in the book. Feel free to keep reading there.