Emotional Connection & Getting Close to our Teens Again

Over one breakfast this week, I could see my 12 year old son was really struggling. It was difficult for him to get out of bed initially that day, then he was finding it hard to organise himself for school and in the end he just laid his head on the table with his untouched breakfast next to him.

I asked him a few times what was up and if he was ok.

Eventually he told me that he ‘just felt sad for no particular reason’.

Now I feel like it took me til I was in my mid-30s to really admit to myself, or to share with others, that I experienced any significant negative emotions.

(Or maybe it just took me this long to let them in…?)

That sounds really stupid of course but I really did pretty much just used to walk around in my youth feeling like anger, sadness or jealousy - for example - just weren’t me.

I didn’t have any real reason to have those kinds of emotions, for one thing. I was born into a very lucky and privileged circumstance by all accounts, and also figured vaguely that maybe I just ‘wasn’t that kind of guy’ or something...

It’s pretty embarrassing for me to write this of course now, because it sounds and is ridiculous. But somewhere along the line, I learned to shut down my connection and understanding to my own emotions or I never created it in the first place. I just used to keep them private to the point of them being hidden from myself even.

This was a legacy of boarding school from the age of 8, no doubt, but also it’s part of a broader cultural phenomenon, perhaps especially for males, stretching back to the World Wars and beyond, with one emotionally repressed generation raising another, who raised another, who raised another… with the cycle continuing on to some degree for many of us, right up to the present day.

It’s for this reason that I feel proud to have really put in the time to re-educate myself these past 15 years. I have spent the past 15 years in an ongoing training programme with a vibrant on and offline community of practitioners and exceptional, acknowledged teachers with deep roots into ancient wisdom that has dramatically and yet so naturally and organically reshaped my whole way of being - my way of thinking, my way of speaking my way of understanding my thoughts, emotions, sensations and other experiences.

I ‘put in the work’ for myself first of all, in this way, because I hit a wall in terms of my own life meaning and purpose as an exhausted singer-songwriter in my mid 30s. And now I am able to share this knowledge and awareness in my own parenting and in my coaching too.

Even though I have studied coaching extensivelyand with the very best (including Tony Robbins), nothing compares to this training and community for the impact it has enabled me to have on the young people and parents who I work with.

Some of the parents and teens recognise my ‘calmness’ as they sometimes call it, or ‘how relaxed I am’, and they want some of that for their kids and themselves. Quite right… who wouldn’t?

This is the best thing about the training I have received in fact. It is really mostly, if not all, about non-verbal communication.

Even though I love words - to write, to communicate and to talk - the main event in any human relationships is the unspoken connection, the atmosphere, the natural warmth, the ease of being, the felt safety etc - this is the real power in my coaching work, in my friendships and in my family life.

The most powerful communication between us all, whatever our relationship, is non-verbal and a hugely powerful transference takes place through our simple role modelling, actions, presence and our settled ways of being.

We often underestimate our own power in fact, when we walk into a room. But we hold SO much, all of us! So much power to benefit each other if we know how, it’s unbelievable really and yet most of us have no idea or haven’t learned how to be in this power and use it effectively. I know I had no clue until fairly late on in life and now I have these tools and am steeped in this way of being that opens all of this arena up for me to play in, in all my relationships.

Actively practising being an ocean of calmness and authentic confidence and security in these times is all a child really needs, from us as parents and from anyone else around them.

Every single child alive gravitates towards that inner stability, even if our natural energy is wild not calm - which I can definitely also be by the way - highly excitable for sure, so yes, wild in a way…

But for all of us, the first steps - if we want to go deeper, emotionally, in our relationship with our own or our society’s teenagers - are easy:

If you do indeed feel like you’re often flummoxed, exasperated or tongue-tied at crucial moments when your teens or younger kids blatantly need some heart-to-heart connection and emotional support but you don’t know how to give it, then try any or all of these simple suggestions:

1. Make time to be together (impossible to be close if you don’t spend time regularly) - doesn’t have to be talking, just relaxed connected time together, being there

2. Let them know when you’re available to them, preferrably on a consistent, regular basis - many of our kids have no idea when they can see us, we just pop up when we’re free, on our terms. Make time for them, schedule it in if you have to

3. If / when they do start to talk, listen openly, just be curious, ask questions and show them you want to know more and that they’re safe to share their perspective without correction or judgement

4. Avoid jumping in and trying to fix or offer solutions to any problems or challenges; for now, just listen and empathise

5. Empathise with their struggles however trite, small, incomprehensible or irrelevant they may seem to you. Get in the hole with them first, don’t try and get them out

6. Share your own experience of feeling the same at their age (and nowadays too…?)

7. Share any insights on how you manage your own emotional landscape

The most important thing for our kids is that they don’t feel alone or isolated in their emotions.

We must make sure that they don’t feel like they are the only one - in the family or in the world for that matter - that has these feelings. Of course it seems like no one else has them if we live in this sort of culture which many of us do! We must make sure that they don’t end up feeling like we don’t really get them, we don’t understand why they feel the way they do and that we can’t relate to what they’re going through.

We must especially avoid, as a parent, becoming irritated by our children’s natural sensitivities. So many of us are triggered by our kids emotional display because we have no clue what to do about it and it pains us to see them like this and to not be able to help. It brings up huge inadequacies maybe on our part. It’s not their fault they feel like this but neither is it ours perhaps that we don’t know how to help because we grew up just the same, with parents who mostly didn’t really know how to help in this way or just didn’t want to.

If we’re used to shutting our own emotions down and keeping them secret and suppressed then this is a major challenge for our relationship with our kids and their relationships with themselves and others. That’s all I’m saying.

We will never be authentically close with them if we keep on like this.

We will never feel that real connection and togetherness.

We will never feel that true sense of belonging with each other, the way we all crave to.

This is what keeps us apart.

This is what makes us feel separate from our own loved ones even when we’re together

But all we’ve got to do is open ourselves up a crack, just as much as we’re comfortable with and let it grow from there, learn new ways from there, with the resolute intention to build closeness, slowly but surely, if that’s what we really want.

And it might not even be needed for us to take this step completely on our own.

I know for a fact that many of the teens I’ve worked with have much closer relationships with their parents now as a result of me entering into the teen’s life in a coaching capacity.

All it takes, in my experience, is one trusted adult to come in and reach that teen in a way that opens them up to the contribution of others around them. Then they never go back to the isolation that they previously hid out in, they’re out of the slump. And that includes them becoming more open with you, their parents.

This is a typical result in fact for families we work with, here’s how some of them put it:

“Everything has changed in our home. I don't feel like I'm constantly clashing with her anymore”

“Gradually with Henry, he sort of returned to me. I just can't tell you how nice it is to see him back. And he just seems really happy and positive again - it’s such a relief.”

“Through the work with you, she is present now and not under duress. We've got a different relationship.”

“There’s been a big shift. I feel less tense and our relationship is warmer.”

“Our interaction is very different now. Now we can talk about something else, we can laugh, it's just really repaired our relationship.”

“It makes me almost teary, I feel so heartened and moved by the relationship with him. It means so much and it's the legacy of all that work, it really is - I'm so happy.”

My coaching relationship with teens also often leads to them naturally and organically finding other mentors and guides, because they are suddenly more open to the value and prospect of receiving support from other adults in general.

The sports coach, music teacher or part-time job employer can become a more significant influence in their lives simply because they are showing up differently, more openly, more receptively, in all their relationships. The natural mentoring adults then see the opportunity to help, to contribute and to support in more profound ways than just within their subject or pre-defined role, due to this increased openness and willingness of the teen to be guided and taught by others.

It’s what every teacher and parent really wants to be doing in the first place of course, but teens often shut us out if we haven’t created enough safety, trust and connection with them to continue to stay open to us.

Take the leap, I say, and reap untold rewards, it’s time to help our teens out of hiding.

Wishing you, your children and your families all the very best as always,

Henry

P.S. If you’d like to speak with me about the possibility of me working with you and your teen, you can book a 15-min chat with me here 👉 https://calendly.com/henrydingle/15-min-parent-consultation but only til the 19th Dec! Then it’s family / holiday time…

If you’re not already a member of our awesome Young Fire Academy Parent Community Group on Facebook, come join us! Get support from me and other like-minded parents who are on this journey too.
Click here to join: https://www.facebook.com/groups/youngfireparents/

Henry Dingle

Henry Dingle is the founder of Young Fire Academy and an expert teen and parent coach, as well as a specialist tutor. He helps exasperated parents and their demotivated teens reconnect and thrive by fostering authentic relationships, trust, and accountability. With over 20 years of experience working with teens, Henry’s approach ignites motivation, leading to greater self-confidence and real-life satisfaction.

He empowers students to take charge of their learning through mindset coaching, effective essay-writing techniques and Maths helping them build confidence and enjoy their academic journey. As a parent coach, Henry supports families in restoring trust, improving communication, and creating a more harmonious home environment.