Therapist, Alicia Drummond on finding the right path through the tricky teenage years.  

Alicia Drummond oozes confidence when it comes to the subject of teenagers. But she’s quick to point out that it hasn’t always been this way.

“My children are now in their twenties, so I sort of feel that if I haven’t got it sorted by now, I never will,” she jokes. “But I didn’t always know this stuff. I didn’t really start my therapist training until they were seven and nine and so we were learning together.”

The loss of a baby led to Alicia leaving her career as an events planner; “I woke up one day thinking I don’t really care about your wedding.” She re-trained as an adolescent therapist and is clear on why she wanted to work with this age group.

“There’s less entrenchment than with older people. Youngsters come in, you work with them for anything between a month and a year and you see them start to be able to make changes for themselves. The best day for a therapist is the one when a client says they don’t need you anymore. You work to get fired in this business.”

“It’s easy to think that they no longer need us. But actually, I would say they need us more during adolescence than at any other time during their development, aside from when they’re under the age of two”

—Alicia Drummond

Alicia is an accredited therapist, parent coach, author and founder of Teen Tips and The Wellbeing Hub. She has a long-standing relationship with LWC which will see her return for the latest of our Parental Engagement Webinars on Tuesday 19^th November. In it, she’ll tackle the issues of “Parenting Teenagers, Relationships and Pornography; Including Consent”. But regardless of the particular parenting challenge you face, Alicia is clear that it’s your approach that is likely to get you the best results.

“During adolescence, teenagers are programmed to spend more time with their peers and they’re programmed to start to separate from us,” she explains. That doesn’t mean they want to be disconnected. But they have to create a bit of space, otherwise they’re not going to be able to leave home when they’re older.” She goes on to reveal that it’s our response to this as parents, which often dictates what happens next.

“Some people can’t handle this change and end up clinging on too tightly. Really, you should aim to become a dolphin, swimming alongside your children, occasionally giving them a nudge in the right direction, but trying to get them to take more and more control.” Sometimes, parents can try to take a different approach again, which can be equally as damaging. “The other mistake we make is trying to be their friend,” she says. “That’s not what teenagers need. Best friends tell you what you want to hear and that’s what peers are for. If you start doing that as a parent, you cross too many lines and you’ll struggle to have those boundaries.”

So where do we, as parents, fit into our teenagers’ lives? That’s beyond the role of cook, cleaner and taxi driver. How do you engage adolescent minds in a meaningful conversation before the bedroom door closes once again?

Alicia smiles and vigorously nods. This is familiar territory. “It’s about connection,” she advises. “Being interested and wanting to be part of their lives without being overly intrusive. If we’re curious, we show we’re interested. If we’re interested, then we want to be connected. If we’re connected, they feel valued and if they feel valued by us, they’re more likely to value themselves.”

It’s the value that teenagers place upon themselves which is key to maintaining good relationships with others moving forward. During the webinar, Alicia is keen to stress that it’s important to talk about sexual relationships and pornography with our children, from a relatively young age.

“The average age for first coming across pornography in this country was 13 when Rachel de Souza, the Children’s Commissioner for England wrote about this a year ago. On a global scale, the average age is now 11,” she explains. “We need to be mindful of that. I think often the greatest threat to our kids is the ever-widening gap between what we as parents think they know and what we think they’re doing and what they actually know and what they’re actually doing.”

Alicia is keen that our parenting goal should be to set young people up to have fabulous relationships. She elaborates, “If you’re not talking to your children about this, they’re going to be looking for information elsewhere and there are a lot of places we’d really rather they didn’t get the information from. Things have changed since we were young and they need our input.”

She ends with an interesting take on teenagers; a group that we sometimes assume to at best, tolerate parents and at worst, actively rebuke us. “It’s easy to think that they no longer need us,” she assures. “But actually, I would say they need us more during adolescence than at any other time during their development, aside from when they’re under the age of two.”

LWC parents can learn how to make the most of these extraordinary relationships, by signing up for Alicia’s Parental Engagement Webinar on Tuesday, 19^th November between 7-8.30pm here.