Elizabeth Green

About

The most consistent thing I have learned is that people underestimate how much of their own adolescence is still running in the background. It arrives uninvited the moment their own child reaches the same age. Teenagers are extremely good at locating the exact thing a person has not resolved, which is why this stage undoes even very steady adults. We work on holding your position without either collapsing or escalating, which is a skill rather than a temperament. It is learnable, and most people find they get better at it faster than they expected to. I started out in school and university counseling, so I have spent a lot of hours on the other side of this, hearing how it looks from the young person's chair. That perspective is useful. If your household has become a series of standoffs, get in touch. None of it requires you to become a calmer person than you actually are.