People often ask how to build stronger connection with their teens and being playful and having fun together is a wonderful place to start. There is a myth in our culture that teenagers want to separate from their parents in order to individuate and work out who they are, that teens are distant, defiant and uncommunicative, locking themselves away in their rooms and wanting nothing more to do with us. But their growing independence and autonomy do not have to be at the expense of our relationship with them and maintaining close connections whilst they slowly step into more independence can be a source of joy and fun in family life.
It all starts with us wanting to connect with them. It is so helpful to bring in slow, relaxed time together, where there is no agenda form us other than wanting to connect, to enjoy being together and to have fun.
I want to acknowledge that we are all on the Aware Parenting journey at different stages, so what attachment play can be for 1 family who have been practising this way since their children were young, can look very different to what it might look like if you are just starting to offer this to your teens having just discovered Aware Parenting. But wherever you are at in Aware Parenting, attachment play is a very powerful way to bring more love, connection and healing for your family.
We often need to be getting support to do our healing work when things feel painful for us or when we don't have capacity to play and we need to keep on rebuilding the bridge with our teens after times of disconnection. Aware Parenting is so powerful for supporting this process and it's never too late to bring the 3 aspects to your relationships with your teens: attachment style parenting, non-punitive discipline and helping our children to heal.
Attachment play is a core aspect of Aware Parenting and is a really powerful way to bring more closeness and connection with our teens. It fits into all 3 aspects of Aware Parenting by strengthening attachment and relationship, offering alternatives to punishment to deal with behaviour difficulties and healing stress and trauma through play and laughter. We often think that attachment play is for young children, but attachment play is for ALL children, regardless of their age. And attachment play is for adults too! And, as Aletha Solter says, play is never a waste of time!
As Aletha Solter explains, attachment play supports us to go beneath the surface of conflicts and challenges by addressing the underlying emotions that lead to challenging behaviour to gain cooperation, decrease aggression and rivalry, strengthen connection and bring more joy and laughter. Play reduces stress, for our teens and ourselves. And the more we are getting our feelings heard when things feel tough, the deeper the sense of emotional safety for our teens to be able to share their feelings with us. And the more we play with them, the more they want to play and share too.
Attachment play brings joyful fun and lighthearted silly moments of connection with our teens. It's a bit different to offering attachment play when they were little but we still need to be recognising their Invitations to play and it is often initiated by our teens, happening spontaneously. So the invitation is for us to drop what we are doing when we can and join them and to find small moments to bring laughter and connection!
Play with this age group is a powerful antidote to the often heavy responsibility of parenthood and a powerful antidote for our teens too, to have moments free from the stresses that they face during this chapter in their lives. So it is healing AND fun! As Marion Rose says in her book I'm Here and I'm Listening, "laughter and play are some of the most overlooked methods for transforming, healing and releasing emotional pain".
As always with aware parenting, we can see the connection between our experiences in our teen years with play and silliness and how easy we find it to be playful with our teens. I wonder how many people had a playful, safe and connected relationship with their parents in their teens? I wonder how many people had our fun playful side enjoyed and celebrated? Not many parents that I speak to had that experience in their teen years, or a safe place to express feelings so it is understandable that it often feels very hard to find our playful side in our life with teens. So the more we get to share our feelings and tend to our inner teen, the more we can be compassionate with ourselves when playing with our teens feels hard. Then the more we will be able to connect with our natural playfulness and show up to support our teens in this really enjoyable way. Again, from I'm Here and I'm Listening, Marion says "The more our needs are met and the more our feelings are heard, the more likely we are to feel joyful and playful in our everyday life". So taking care of ourselves and meeting our own needs in really enjoyable ways, both with our teens and alone, will make it easier to be playful with them.
Just as with younger children, there are considerable physiological benefits of laughter in the teen years. The contribution of laughter to physical health is also now well documented and includes reduced blood pressure, improved sleep, endorphin release, reduced stress hormones, improved gut health and digestion and strengthening our immune system. Laughter reduces tension, anxiety and anger. If you are feeling stuck in parenting teens, focusing on the places where the laughter comes is so powerful - fart jokes are still funny! If you find something that makes your teen laugh, keep doing it. If they are laughing, then we are laughing and then they laugh even more. As Charles Dickens said “There is nothing so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour”.
So I invite you to reflect on what your teens love? What do they find funny? What do you love and what makes you laugh? Where’s the overlap? That is the perfect place to start. What do your tweens and teens really love? Can you find ways to connect and enjoy that with them? Remember it is never too late to start being playful and the more you do, the easier it will be, the closer your connection becomes and the stronger the sense of safety between you. It can be helpful to ask ourselves "What do we want their memories to be?" This can keep us motivated to bring in more lightness and fun. And play can be preventative as well as healing!.
This type of play is particularly helpful when there has been disconnection between you and your teen and is so effective for almost every challenge we face in the teen years. It offers our teens connection and choice/autonomy. Often, after connecting with our teens in this way, they will be more likely to open up and share their feelings with us. As always, if we notice feelings coming up for us or difficulty feeling present and connected, it's an invitation to reach out for listening and support for ourselves so we can feel more willing to offer this special time to our teens. By supporting our teens to choose the activities we do, we get a clearer picture of what they love and have precious time together where we can celebrate what they love, rather than judging how they are wanting to spend their time.
Some examples of symbolic play with teens might be going on rides at a theme park in tunnels together to support further healing of birth trauma. We might play out particularly stressful memories from earlier in their lives, bringing in some nonsense and fun as we replay painful experiences. Pretending to be someone else to bring laughter can also be fun, imitating someone who has been the source of pain for your teen in a silly and over the top way can also be really healing.
Remember that if we are replaying previously traumatic experiences that our teens faced in younger years, it can also bring up lots of big feelings for us too. If we are finding this hard, reaching out for support and listening will help us come back to connection and a true desire to play and support their healing.
Some examples include copying their dance moves, responding to things they say with silly songs in ways they can predict e.g. every time they say a particular word, we break into song, imitating each other when we talk, going out in the car together and letting them decide which direction we go in, deciding if we turn right or left.
Sometimes these games bring up big feelings for us of powerlessness, frustration, anger and lack of control when our teens are the ones driving these games. This might be in relation to feelings of powerlessness in the present or it might be younger parts who were often told what to do as teens. Finding ways to share these feelings and having experiences at other times that support us to feel powerful and in control can really support us to be more willing to offer these games to our teens.
Some examples include making up silly rules, speaking in song lyrics, pretending to be angry in a mock way, they will often be silly about something they know is ridiculous. When your teen is being grumpy or demanding, run around after them, bringing them things, apologising for taking so long to bring them whatever they are wanting, bow and curtsy, grovel in a really silly way and beg for their forgiveness. Bring them a plate of food to eat and then pretend you are on a cooking show and get them to give you feedback about your dish and score you out of 10. Having a joke/meme of the day that you share with eachother can also bring in silliness and connection.
This type of play can be hard for us to offer if we are feeling stressed and pressured ourselves because it requires us to be lighthearted and silly. Sometimes we might uncomfortable about being silly or feel shame or judgement of ourselves. Perhaps we were told as teens not to be silly or to grow up? As always having spaces to share our feelings can make us more willing to offer nonsense play and the more we practise, the easier it becomes to be ridiculous.
Some examples include over exaggerating when re-connecting about how much we have missed them when they were away, or begging them in a mock silly voice not to go when they are leaving. We used to love playing a game we called Spotlight, which was hide and seek outside in the dark at night with torches. They also loved it when I put little love notes in their bags when they were going out or sent them loving and silly text messages when they were apart from me. Older children still get the benefit of feeling that successful reconnection with us during and after times of separation.
This type of play might bring up big feelings for us about separation, about them growing up and being more independent and not needing us so much anymore. We might tell ourselves that they don't enjoy being with us anymore, or that it is all whizzing by too fast. It might also connect us with younger parts of us that experienced separation as children or teens. Whatever feelings are there, as always with aware parenting we are invited to get our own listening and explore what is there for us so that we can come back to our teens with a joyful willingness to play in this way.
Some examples with this age group include dancing together where they teach you a dance e.g. a TikTok dance, playing games and letting them win, joining them on their screens where they are teaching us how to do something that they are already really competent at. Let your teen give you a makeover or choose what you are going to wear that day. It is a beautiful way to connect with lots of eye contact, touch, power-reversal and laughter. Driving together where they are behind the wheel and choosing where to go, going to the gym together and they create the workout play, arm wrestles, pillow fights and water fights are all still fun with this age group. Encouraging them to pick you up and swing you around once they are bigger than you. The Trust game, where you close your eyes and fall backwards and then catch each other is also beautifully connecting.
When we play in this way, we might experience painful feelings of powerlessness or not being good enough at something, frustration. This might be feelings from the past or the present and it can be hard if we experienced a lot of power-over as teens ourselves. Having places to share our feelings and heal our own powerlessness hurts is so vital for us to be able to play in this way.
Some examples of regression play include playing games together that you used to play when they were much younger, baby toddler games, pretending they are still your baby, She's Mine where you pretend to fight over the child. They might sometimes spontaneously start talking in a young child's voice, calling you mummy and asking for cuddles.
We might feel some guilt or shame come up with these games, especially if we experienced shame or criticism when we tried to play regression games as children and teens. It might also be painful if we didn't start aware parenting earlier and are feeling regret and guilt that we didn't know sooner what this type of play was. Receiving empathy and supporting ourselves to grieve what we didn't know then and to be unwilling to guilt ourselves can be so helpful.
Some examples are trying to pick them up, inventing secret handshakes, dancing together, cuddling up to watch a film together, offering them a massage or foot rub, doing their hair or make-up and rough and tumble play is still so enjoyable with older children. Drawing words on eachother's backs and having to guess what it is, especially if it is swear words! Rugby Scrum game, where you have to try to push each other back over a line whilst holding on to each other.
We might feel reluctant at times to offer this type of play, especially if our needs for closeness and affection weren't met as children or teens. We might worry that our older children don't want to connect with us in this way anymore and we might feel some sadness and grief, feeling rejected. We might want to talk with our older children about what games they might enjoy to bring more physical closeness.
Some examples include particular collaborative board games such as Mind, pranking together, doing enjoyable activities together in a fun way e.g. cooking. Working together for a joint outcome without competition such as writing a story together, making music together, hitting a balloon to each other whilst trying to keep it in the air as long as possible.
We might feel some resentment to offer cooperative play if we experienced a lot of competition as children. We might have lots of other painful feelings about winning and losing or be telling ourselves that our teens need to learn to lose in order to be resilient. Receiving listening for ourselves will make us freer to connect in these powerful and enjoyable ways.
Sometimes we can misjudge it and our attempts to playfully connect with our teens don't work, so it is often an invitation to experiment and then observe our teens and see what they enjoy and don't enjoy. If our teens are crying or close to tears, then that is not the moment for attachment play - instead we just listen! And sometimes after times of connection and play, there are lots of big feelings close to the surface ready to be felt and expressed now they feel safe, so anticipating that can be helpful for us to be able to respond.
The more that you can do to make your home a welcoming place for your teens and for their friends and partners, the stronger your connection with them will be.
As always with Aware Parenting it can be really helpful to explore our own experiences in childhood. It is often really helpful to have an aware parenting instructor, a therapist, a listening partner with you when you explore in this way.
Here are some reflections to explore in relation to play:
What do you remember about play when you were a teen?
Did your parents ever play with you and what do you remember feeling about it? Did you want to play with them in the later years? Do you have memories of play, either unpleasant memories of play or pleasant memories of play?
What do you remember about competition? How did you feel about winning or losing games?
How do you feel when you imagine playing with them now they are teens?
What comes up for you and gets in the way of you being playful? Do you feel bored, want to take over, bring in competition, or inpatient? How do you feel about cheating, rough-housing or role-play?
The more we can revisit our childhood, and become aware of how it impacts our ability to play, the easier it will be for us to be playful. When you feel activated around play can you bring some curiosity to that? Can you also explore your needs and find ways to meet them - the more we are aware of how our unmet needs now might be making play hard, the more we can take some steps to be meeting our needs more now.
How often do you play with your teen, giving them your full attention and letting them lead the play? Can you remember the power of small moments of fun, connection and playful silliness? Are you able to offer your teen regular special time?
It is also helpful to explore a bit about our own relationship with fun and joy. What do you do that you really enjoy? What makes you laugh? Are you willing to bring more of that to your life? And if not, what might be stopping you from doing that? What is one thing you could do that really makes you laugh?
And can you offer yourself compassion for when you don't have it in you to be playful? If you are "shoulding" yourself to play, can you stop and offer yourself support and loving acceptance instead? Can you find small ways to increase your capacity for play by meeting your needs more, getting more listening and support and connecting with what you enjoy?
Attachment Play looks different as our children get older but in many ways it is the same as when they were little. We are finding moments of fun and playful connection wherever we can, responding to their invitations to connect and play together, getting support for ourselves when we aren't feeling playful and don't have capacity and exploring with support what is preventing us from being willing to join our teens in playful fun. This is so powerful whatever their age!
