A Back-to-School Checkup for Your Relationship With Your Teen or Young Adult

Every August, we get our kids ready for another school year. We schedule the physical, buy school supplies, check schedules, replace clothes and shoes, and make sure they have what they need to start the year well. But there is another kind of checkup that may be worth doing before school starts: How is my relationship with my teen or young adult? This isn't a parenting report card or a list of everything you might be doing wrong. Think of it more like a relationship checkup. It's a chance to pause, notice what is going well, and consider whether there is one area where you would like to grow this year. These come from author and counselor Adam Young’s “Big Six”.

1. Do they feel seen and understood?

Attunement means being aware of what is happening inside your child and showing an interest in their experience. With teenagers and young adults, this doesn't mean they tell you everything or that you always know what they're thinking. It might mean noticing when their “I'm fine” doesn't really mean fine, remembering something important happening in their life, or asking about the things they care about. Our kids need to know, “You see me. You want to know me. What matters to me matters to you.”

2. How do you respond when they are struggling?

When your teen is anxious, angry, disappointed, embarrassed, or overwhelmed, are you able to respond with care and kindness? Or do you immediately move into problem-solving, lecturing, or trying to make the uncomfortable feeling go away? Being responsive doesn't mean rescuing your child from every difficult situation or saying yes to everything. It means helping them know that even when life is hard, and even when you don't agree with their choices, they don't have to face it completely alone.

3. Do they know that you genuinely enjoy them?

As kids get older, parenting can become very task-oriented. There are grades, chores, college applications, jobs, sports, schedules, and responsibilities. In the middle of all of that, do your kids also experience that you actually like being around them? Do you laugh together? Ask about things they're interested in? Spend time together without turning it into a lecture? Let them know what you appreciate about who they are rather than focusing only on what they accomplish? Feeling pursued and delighted in communicates something deeply important: “I don't just take care of you because I'm your parent. I genuinely want to know you and enjoy you.”

4. How well do you regulate your own emotions?

Teenagers have a remarkable ability to find the buttons we didn't know we had. When your child rolls their eyes, snaps at you, shuts down, or makes a decision you strongly disagree with, can you stay grounded enough to respond rather than simply react? This doesn't mean you will never get angry or frustrated. You're human. The goal is to become more aware of your own emotions and learn to manage them without expressing them in ways that damage the relationship. Our kids learn a great deal from watching how we handle anger, sadness, fear, and stress.

5. Can you handle their difficult emotions?

Can you stay connected when your child is angry with you? Can you tolerate their disappointment when you say no? Can you listen to their sadness without immediately trying to fix it? Sometimes our children's emotions activate our own. Their anxiety makes us anxious. Their anger makes us angry. Their sadness makes us want to make everything better. But one of the gifts we can give our children is the experience of having someone who can stay present with difficult emotions without becoming overwhelmed, shutting down, minimizing, or trying to make the feeling disappear.

6. What happens when you get it wrong?

This may be the most important question of all because every parent gets it wrong sometimes. You will lose your patience, misunderstand your child, say something you wish you hadn't said, or handle a situation differently than you wish you had. Every close relationship has ruptures. What matters is whether you know how to repair. Can you go back and say, “I didn't handle that well”? Can you apologize, listen to your child's experience, own your part, and reconnect? Healthy attachment isn't built on never making mistakes. It's built through the willingness to acknowledge when something has gone wrong and work toward repairing the relationship.

You don't have to get it right all the time.

This is where parents can take a deep breath. Research on attachment gives us a lot of hope. We don't have to respond perfectly every time for our children to develop healthy relationships. What matters is the overall pattern of connection and, especially, our willingness to repair when we've missed each other. So if you read through these six areas and realize that some are difficult for you, please have compassion for yourself. Maybe these things weren't modeled for you growing up. Maybe no one taught you how to regulate your emotions, listen well, tolerate difficult feelings, or repair after conflict.

The good news is that we can give what we don't have. We can learn skills that weren't modeled for us. We can become more aware of our own patterns, seek help when we need it, and practice responding differently. And when we mess up, we can go back and repair. As you get your teen or young adult ready for another school year, take a few minutes to check in on your relationship, too. Notice what is going well and choose one area you'd like to work on. You don't need to overhaul your parenting. You don't need to become a perfect parent. Your child needs a parent who keeps showing up, keeps learning, and is willing to repair. There is a lot of hope in that. We can heal, we can learn, and we can do better.