One of the biggest surprises for me as I raise my teenage daughter is that she doesn’t have many feelings of her own yet. I see a lot of her toddler self in how she regulates, the way she lets me know she needs me (begging for more cuddles at bedtime, following me into the kitchen), and even the way she plays with her younger sisters. But of all the things we hear about tweens and teens, the most parroted one is that once they reach a certain age, they want nothing to do with you.
Honestly, I don’t know if that’s true…and one mom on TikTok agrees.
Alison Johnson, also known as @thebusinessofgolf on social media, recently shared that she stumbled upon a “secret” to getting her teenage daughter to talk to her. Speaking straight to the camera, she says that instead of being frustrated that her 14-year-old doesn’t have anything to wear and taking it out on her or telling her it doesn’t matter – all the things we can see our teenagers say when they have a crush – she says it goes back to how she coped when her kids were little.
Enter pretend play.
“I brought her into my closet and said, ‘Oh, are you going shopping with me today? I gave her a chocolate, and I gave her a beautiful flute of apple cider or something, and I said, ‘Let me see some of your work.’ And her attitude went from, ‘Oh, I don’t like my life, I don’t like what I’m wearing,’ to, ‘Oh, this is kind of fun,'” she recalls.
Allison said the moment was similar to another about “Spa Time,” which is currently being filmed. She prepares her daughter a “small plate” and a glass of wine for herself, and blows on her daughter while she “spills the tea,” sarong style.
It’s basically the art of play – your teen won’t notice it.
Alison points out that when her daughters feel cared for and pampered in this way, their conversations with each other become sweeter and better. In the caption, she even shares that this is something she used to do when her kids were younger, just for being silly, but the beautiful strategy of distraction still really works for older kids too.
That makes perfect sense. By creating a more relaxed and engaging scenario like this, you create an atmosphere that feels more like a casual conversation about what happened, rather than an interview-like atmosphere where you keep bombarding your child with questions and “shoulds” statements.
My own teenage girl noticed this while playing with her two younger sisters. They seem to work things out through pretend play.
Therefore, here we will introduce a plate with small items arranged on it. And let me remind you that even our big kids may want to do little things with us from time to time.
