Taking Action NOW to Get the Family Flourishing Again
Now is a time of year when we may start to see some of the cracks in our relationship with our teenage children (and in their relationships with themselves).
It’s deepest winter, a New Year, the first week of January, and after a few weeks of holiday fun (and for many also some tough family dynamics) lots of us feel the strain. We feel tired, perhaps despondent and a little out of ideas maybe as to how to support our teens and ourselves as parents for the year ahead.
Our children have grown to be more distant from us than we may have hoped - let’s just admit it? To the point where we feel we can’t really ‘reach’ them any more.
They are increasingly blocking us out, trying to self-manage and claiming to know what they’re doing but we know in many ways they really don’t.
And we know they are still part-child, however big and confident and loud they’ve become, they are still partly needing to just be cuddled and comforted, even whilst they are pushing us away…!
They are refusing now to take in all of what we are saying, hunkering down in their bedrooms immersed in online communications with their peers, avoiding the challenge and difficulty of showing up, in their relationships with us and to their responsibilities in life because they don’t currently - if they’re honest with themselves - have the confidence or know-how to do it.
They just feel adamantly that they don’t want to do it with US, with our parental help or on our parental terms any more.
I learned something interesting on an AI course over Christmas. The speaker, Zack Kass, raised a sobering possibility: that as tech gets more powerful, we could start to devalue critical thinking—and he even pointed to Gen Z as ‘the first generation in many to not be smarter than the last, on average?
Whether you agree with the framing or not, it connects with a wider pattern researchers have been debating for years: in some countries, cognitive test performance has stalled or even declined in recent decades.
He went on to suggest that the bigger risk isn’t that AI makes everyone smarter — it’s that some people may disengage from real-world critical thinking, and even prefer the virtual over the physical.
The point is, our kids need our support, guidance and encouragement like never before.
We all know that there are some kids and teens around us that are not currently developing into the best version of themselves.
Too much time spent distracted, online, killing time, living in the moment… too many shortcuts around life’s basic challenges, too little focus on or awareness of what they could be doing to embrace, empower and enable themselves in this unstable world with its wildly unpredictable future.
So I understand completely why many of us parents just feel utterly paralysed right now to act, in the face of what’s unfolding in our family lives and global human society, each mirroring the other in many ways.
We never imagined perhaps we would be here, individually and collectively, but here we are!
Over the years many parents have come to me in a state of mild or pronounced alarm and we’ve turned things around. We have got to know each other and started to work together to stabilise the ship, to bring relief to any needless family suffering and to get a foothold on how to turn things around for their teen and their family.
Any of you who are feeling the pain right now, genuinely I am so excited at the prospect of all we could achieve this year…
Whether it’s a teen’s academic decline, a strained parent/child relationship or a spike in our child’s anxiety, a sudden or gradual loss of confidence or purpose, there IS a way out of it.
Life doesn’t have to be this grim for you all, it really doesn’t!
We have a bad habit, most of us, of going to ground when things get really tough. And in any case the ‘village’ support for families has been disappearing steadily for decades.
Many of our teenagers just need the right person, the right influence at the right time, to come into their lives to turn everything around. And I mean everything…
And what I’ve seen again and again is this: when a teen connects with the right mentor — someone who feels safe, calm, and genuinely on their side — the whole system changes.
They soften. They listen. They start taking small actions — and those actions create momentum.
If you feel like this is you right now and you want expert support to steady things and start turning the dial back towards connection, harmony and academic/life progress, you can book a short call with me now, here: https://calendly.com/henrydingle/15-min-parent-consultation
On the call we’ll just talk your basic situation through and see if now’s the right time for me to meet your teen and start to make the world of difference to your family and to your futures.
Wishing you all the very best for 2026,
Henry
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.
