It starts before their birth, doesn’t it? The preoccupation with worrying about a ‘safe enough’ pregnancy, turns into how to protect a wonderfully curious toddler, and then before you know it becomes “how do I keep my teenager safe”?

The ongoing fears that parents experience are wholly human and important to examine. They are part of a complex network of internal and external perceptions of reality, generated by the mind and digested throughout the body. Some fears come partly from a parents’ relationship with a cultural paradigm that says life is inherently dangerous, which is certainly what any news feed confirms. Other parental fears can be tied to personal upbringing/values, and may be deeply imprinted in the unconscious mind as a result of unresolved experiences and trauma.

So, to what extent is feeling worried for the physical and emotional safety of your adolescent child necessary, helpful, or a hindrance to their growth and to your relationship with them?

I don’t know of any caring parent who isn’t affected by this question. In my work I see that the parents with the courage to really examine and grapple with their own fears have a better chance of supporting their offspring in doing the same. If a parent knows what they’re afraid of and can own that, there’s often a difference between the imagined worst- case scenarios and reality. They can learn to self-regulate anxiety, avoid knee jerk responses, and remain calmer when confronted with adolescent risk taking behaviours.

This isn’t easy to do as a parent of a teen, especially if risk taking behaviours escalate into events that result in someone harming themselves or others. Learning to manage our fears and apprehension doesn’t mean ignoring common sense when it comes to safety. Calling for medical advice or help, for police protection, or for mental health support is never a wrong decision when we see someone we love engaging in a cycle of increasingly self-sabotaging choices. But the deeper, less obvious question is: “Can I as a parent accept the inevitable loss of control over my child’s choices and behaviours?”

This is a very real question if you want to build a bridge from holding on to letting go with love. Deep down it means allowing the bittersweet grief of saying goodbye to the child who adored you and hello to the emerging adult who no longer wants to be thought of as a child.

Teens don’t stop loving you, but it can hurt when they become focused on peers, screens, and claiming their own space. Learning not to take it personally when you feel ignored or discounted takes practice. It can help to understand that a teen’s brain is wired for risk, in order to gradually build enough confidence to individuate and face the demands of adulthood. Given, however, that developing brains aren’t yet connected to the capacity for weighing up long term consequences, it’s a heady cocktail of a desire to hit the accelerator before knowing when to hit the brakes.

Here’s what you can try as an alternative to worrying about what your son or daughter is up to:

· look for reasons to trust them and communicate your confidence and gratitude whenever it’s deserved- even for small efforts.

· monitor the tendency to try and protect them from what you see as the mistakes you made beyond offering to talk about your experiences.

· if your child is failing at something scares you, ask yourself why. Do you need them to succeed in order to feel like a good enough parent?

· when boundaries are crossed in unacceptable ways, take time to process your own emotional distress before discussing it. Then start with an open enquiry or consultative approach to finding out what motivated the choice. Be willing to use non-judgemental listening before any consequences are decided on.

Written by Wende Jowsey mentoring support for parents of teens

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