How to Listen to Your Teenager Complain

Listening to a teenager complain for 20 minutes is tough.

And listening to them complain every... single... day... is even tougher.

It grates on your nerves and douses the flame of your otherwise enjoyable day. Oh please, not again. You feel a headache coming on before they get to their fourth sentence.  Or you see them coming and duck into the laundry room to avoid hearing any more of it.

And when they go on and on for hours and hours (or days and days), you feel like you can’t take one more second and you end up saying cantankerous things like, “You should be grateful for your easy life... You’re overreacting... Get over it.”

And then you’ve shut them down and driven them away again (argh, sigh, heart drops).

What’s Happening When Teenagers Complain

1. They’re processing their thoughts.

Complaining is sometimes how teens get perspective on what they're going through. When they can express their discomfort, especially if they can speak freely and unfiltered, it gives them a way to get access to their underlying questions, values and concerns. Given a space to complain, without fear of being shut down, contradicted or punished, most teens will move through complaining toward insightful solutions. 

2. They’re sorting through their emotions.

This is true of all of us: sometimes we whine to just get the feelings out in the open in front of us so we can investigate what it’s all about. Like putting your cards on the table, except they’re raw, sticky, jumbled emotions. And you can’t expect your teen to have mastered their emotions while their brain is still forming.

Adolescence is a barrage of new experiences and new emotions. People often say that teens overreact, but a more accurate description would be that they’re experiencing emotional intensity. Thanks to their changing hormones and body chemistry, they are learning what their anger, joy, pain and fear feel like on a whole new scale. Of course, it’s scary and confusing. 

They are learning that emotions are either a) To be squashed, altered, hidden from, controlled, masked or feared, or b) Natural, instructive, temporary, and navigable.  

3.  They’re genuinely struggling and overwhelmed.

When I allow myself to take in the current global politics, climate change, economic crises, media violence, wars and genocide, I am completely overwhelmed, and I sometimes need to sob and shake my fists in rage and despair. 

What teenager wouldn’t be equally overwhelmed, or even more so? How could we expect them not to complain? 

Your teenager’s complaints aren’t unreasonable, manipulative or wrong. They’re natural growth experiences. They’re also invitations to lean in, connect, stay grounded and allow the process to unfold. To witness them and hold space for what is, instead of wishing it was different or they were different.

When they complain, our teenagers are trying to understand themselves, and they’re asking us to be there while they do so.

How Complaining Makes Parents Uncomfortable 

When their teenager starts complaining about homework, criticizing friends, moaning about injustice, you feel a big flashing warning. 

First, you have a physical reaction, the tightening in your chest, an eye roll, a heavy dread landing on your shoulders, an exasperated sigh, your body turning away from them, heat coming up your neck, your intestines twisting … 

And then come all the mental reactions:

“He’s so ungrateful…

Such a drama queen…

This could get out of control…

He probably brought this on himself…

I can’t allow her to speak so disrespectfully…

They’re overreacting, as usual…” 

A bunch of different emotions rise. You feel happy that they’re seeing what’s wrong with the world and sad that they must experience it. You’re angry that they’re spouting off rather immaturely and, at the same time, scared that they’re going to lash out, collapse, go on for 3 hours and/or withdraw into despair. 

While your teen rants or sobs, you experience your own waves of frustration, heartbreak, worry, sensitivity, impatience, shock, etc. Amid all that emotional energy pulsing through you, it’s hard to just allow the tirade to continue. 

Then, against your best intentions, you shut them down:

“It’s not that bad...

Be grateful for what you have…

Show some respect…”

You end up dismissing their experience and, when they see that you’re not taking them seriously, they leave. 

Or maybe you take a stab at empathy or solidarity:

“You’re right, that guy’s a jerk…

You shouldn’t have to put up with that…”

But teens are excellent at detecting when adults are uncertain or faking it. You create an atmosphere of mistrust and that also shuts them down.  

Or maybe you get tough:

“You can’t talk like that in this house…

Stop complaining about something that’s out of your hands…

I don’t want to hear you criticizing your boss like that ever again…”

And once again, they disconnect, either by launching into an argument or heading to their bedroom. 

You know that these approaches don’t work but you keep doing them because you feel a sense of risk.

What’s At Risk 

Our bones and muscles store our experiences. They remember people and situations and the fallout from actions we’ve taken. They hold notions of what's at risk. 

If you grew up in a household where causing any kind of waves was a big no-no, hearing your big loud complaining teen can send you into high alert. Before you realize it’s happening, you’re thinking, “Danger! Do something to stop this at once."

If this sounds like you, how would you finish the sentence: I have to stop this before ___? What are you imagining will happen? You’ll be punished, shamed, rejected, loved less…? 

If yours was a world in which adults were allowed to complain and kids weren’t, you may, even though you hated it, have a subconscious urge to uphold those rules now that it’s finally your turn.  “You don’t know what you’re talking about… I’ve been around a lot longer than you…Because I’m the parent…” As if letting them have those feelings and opinions right now would cost you something. 

If this is familiar to you, what feels like it’s at risk? What are your first thoughts (realistic or not) about what you would lose if you didn’t object? 

If your complaints were ridiculed when you were a kid, you may feel the impulse to stop your teenager’s rant before someone gets hurt. 

How are you perceiving the possibility of getting hurt by them? Or of hurting them? What’s true now?

If one of your parent's complaints usually grew and grew and erupted like a volcano, it’s no wonder that, when your big kid starts up, part of you feels compelled to run for cover, numb out, change the subject or physically leave the room.  

I know this one oh so well. And all these years later, I still have to consciously return to the present, drop my defenses and connect with what’s real. What works for you to recognize that you’re here and safe?

If you were regularly told that your opinions were just plain wrong, a teenager blaring opinions uncompromisingly might feel like they’re deliberately crushing your heart and have you either retreating or launching your own offensive.

What do know now that allows you to let them have their opinion, even if it’s different from yours or the norm?

The question isn’t how to get them to stop complaining; it’s how to learn to listen.

Listening to their grievances and grumbles doesn't mean agreeing with them, contravening your values or ignoring your intuition. It doesn't mean following them into despair or outrage. And it doesn’t mean that you’ll have to resolve their concerns for them. 

Listening to your teenager is ONLY about holding space for their experience and building your understanding of them.

Photo by Jei Lee on Unsplash