One day you’re the center of their world, they are your chicle, they can’t get enough of you. And then, seemingly overnight, everything you do is wrong. They roll their eyes and pull away! And if you grew up in a Latinx household where respeto y obediencia were the rule, this shift can feel disorienting and like betrayal.
Their Brain Is Still Under Construction
The prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, impulse control, and emotional regulation, isn’t fully developed until closer to age 30. Meanwhile, the emotional, reward-seeking, risk-taking part of the teenage brain is fully online. So you end up with a young person who has an overactive gas pedal and an underdeveloped brake.
That’s not an excuse for poor choices, it’s an explanation. Your teenager isn’t being difficult on purpose. And developmentally, they’re wired to prioritize their friends over you right now.
Where Culture Adds Tension
Many of us were raised in homes where you didn’t question authority, nada de rezongar, no talking back. So when our own teens start pushing back, asserting themselves, wanting more time with friends than family, it can feel like disrespect. Often, it’s just a teenager trying to become their own person, pulled between the culture at home and the culture outside it.
The harder we clamp down, the harder they tend to push back. It’s not that they don’t love the family. It’s that they’re doing exactly what their brain and this country is telling them to do.
Raise the Kid You Have
One of the most important shifts I encourage parents to make: raise the child in front of you, not the child you imagined. When a teen feels truly known and accepted, even when their interests, identity, or path look nothing like what you pictured, they thrive. When they feel managed or molded instead, the relationship suffers.
Be their guide, not their manager. Stay close enough that they know they can come back to you, especially when they mess up.
A Few Things That Actually Help
- Connection before correction. Address the relationship before you address the behavior.
- Curiosity over interrogation. Ask about their world because you’re genuinely interested, not just to monitor them.
- Repair when you get it wrong. You will lose your patience sometimes. What matters is coming back and owning it.
- Separate the behavior from the person. “That wasn’t okay” lands very differently than “you’re a disappointment.” One teaches. The other wounds.
- Let them own their relationship to culture. Especially for bicultural kids, carrying two worlds is already a lot of pressure. Teach them, show them, take them — but let shame stay out of it.
Your Job Isn’t to Make It Easy
Parenting a teenager is supposed to feel hard sometimes. That’s developmental, not a sign you’re failing. Your job is to stay in relationship with them through it and to be the person they can always come back to, even on the days they act like they don’t want you around.
Stay close. Just not too close. The relationship is what they’ll carry with them long after they’ve moved out.
This post is a companion to the episode “Raising Teens” on The Chicana Therapist Podcast. Have a topic you’d like covered in a future episode? Reach out — and don’t forget we still have spots open for our Reencuentro retreat in Oaxaca this September. More at thechicanatherapist.com.