When Presence is the Intervention

 

Parenting teenagers is a paradox. They desperately want independence but still need us close by.   They long for connection but often push it away. For so many of us, this stage feels like walking a tightrope — we try to be close without crowding, to be supportive without smothering.

It’s confusing. The teen years bring rapid brain development: emotional centres like the amygdala and limbic system are highly active, while the prefrontal cortex — responsible for planning, impulse control, and perspective-taking — is still developing. So, our teenagers feel their feelings so intensely but don’t yet have the full capacity to manage them.  And while this makes for many hard moments, it’s important because this is what pushes our teens to test boundaries, take risks, and practice independence — all crucial steps in becoming capable, self-reliant adults.

So where does that leave us, apart from feeling discombobulated.  This leaves us with presence.    Our kids need us to lend them a steady nervous system — adults who can stay calm when they can’t. Dan Siegel calls this “co-regulation”: when our grounded presence helps our teen’s body and brain return to balance. Even when our teens act like they don’t need anyone, it is this emotional steadiness that anchors them. 

But presence doesn’t always come easily. When we are met with slammed doors, eye rolls, or silence, it can be hard to stay open. Yet in these moments, often the only thing we can do is simply be there, emotionally as well as physically. Sometimes that looks like just sitting in the same room without saying anything; sometimes it’s letting them know you’re downstairs if they need you. And sometimes it’s simply resisting the urge to walk away. It’s these small, steady gestures that let our teens know they’re not alone — and it is from this place that regulation can return.

Lisa Damour reminds us that our teen’s emotional turbulence isn’t a sign of something going wrong — it’s evidence that development is happening. Their emotional world is changing, and slowly they’re learning to regulate within it. When we remain steady, our teens begin to borrow that calm and eventually build it for themselves.

There is no possibility that we will manage to do this every time.  Things will go wrong, we will respond in ways we wish we didn’t, that is being human.  What matters is what we do next.  When we can dig deep and say “I wish I handled that differently” or “I’m sorry I lost my temper” this restores connection — and connection is crucial, because without it, we have very little influence over our teen’s choices or behaviour.

None of this means we need to be endlessly available. It means being intentional with the moments that matter.  Parenting through adolescence asks us for courage — the courage to stay steady in uncertainty, the courage to offer warmth when all we feel is distance, the courage to remember that presence itself is the intervention.