Teens Want Potted Plant Parents
- Heidi Stevens
- Feb 28, 2017
- 3 min read
In maybe my favorite parenting article ever, it was revealed that teenagers would like their parents to take the form of potted plants: present, but silent.
Lisa Damour, an Ohio psychologist and Case Western Reserve University instructor, wrote a piece for The New York Times analyzing a new study from Australia that measures the importance of parents of teens being physically present.
The takeaway? Teenagers need their parents around. Parental presence is one of the most important predictors of adolescent health and social and academic outcomes, in fact.
"Family connectedness and parental monitoring are associated with the reduction of involvement in problem behaviors in adolescence," the study states. "High levels of parental monitoring are associated with resilience, less alcohol and drug use, less risky driving, less risky sexual activity and they buffer negative peer influence, whereas low levels of parental monitoring are associated with higher levels of alcohol and drug use, violent behavior and an increase in deviant peer association."
Teenagers also want their parents around, Damour maintains, based on her work with teenagers.
"They wish their parents were around more often," she writes.
But how would you know it? They're not exactly begging you to sit around playing Yahtzee, and they don't fit on your lap for story time anymore. Conversations begin and end in less time than it takes to microwave popcorn. (How was your day? Fine. What did you do? I don't remember. What are you up to tonight? I don't know.)
"I often suspect that the same adolescent who laments her parents' absence," Damour writes, "might only faintly acknowledge their presence when they are in fact home."
That's when you turn to your asparagus fern for guidance.
"The quality parenting of a teenager," Damour writes, "may sometimes take the form of blending into the background like a potted plant."
It's particularly important for teenagers to have their parents around at dinner time and bedtime, research shows - even if you're not engaging in heart-to-heart conversations or bonding activities.
"The studies of parental presence indicate that sheer proximity confers a benefit over and above feelings of closeness or connectedness between parent and child," Damour writes. "In other words, it's great if you and your adolescent get along well with each other, but even if you don't, your uneasy presence is better for your teenager than your physical absence."
Jennifer Senior has a fantastic chapter on adolescence in her 2014 book, "All Joy and No Fun: The Paradox of Modern Parenthood" (Harper Collins). She discusses the struggles many parents face when their kids reach the teen years.
"Back when their children were small, parents craved time and space for themselves," Senior writes. "Now they find themselves wishing their children liked their company more and would at least treat them with respect, if adoration is too much to ask. It seems like only yesterday that the kids wouldn't leave them alone. Now it's almost impossible to get their attention."
An adolescent, she writes, quoting essayist Adam Phillips, behaves like someone trying to get himself kidnapped from a cult.
"Parents go from their kids' protectors to their jailers," Senior writes, "and are then told repeatedly what a drag this is."
Damour's potted plant theory implies that those laments may be partly teenagers bluffing, partly teenagers not knowing exactly what they want and need.
"Many parents of adolescents instinctively know this to be true and find ways to be present without advancing an agenda," Damour writes. "One friend of mine quietly folds laundry each evening in the den where her teenagers watch TV. They enjoy one another's company without any pressure to make conversation. Another routinely accepts his daughter's invitation to work or read nearby while she sits and does her homework."
Who knew potted plants were such vessels of parental wisdom?
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