Teenagers are well able to cope with unpleasant facts if they are presented in a straightforward fashion, by the people they trust and care for most. You can enlist their help and invite their understanding by telling them what is bothering you, or what might be about to happen to you all, in a round-table discussion. You may find it surprisingly helpful, as well, to ask them for their opinions. If they trust you to listen, young people can fully explain how they feel. With their viewpoint uncluttered by adult preconceptions, prejudices and social conventions, they can give a highly original view of the situation. They also benefit from being brought in on even the most unpleasant duties of a family, such as sick or deathbed visiting or attending funerals. They may react in embarrassing ways, sloping off in a pet or scowling the whole time, but such a response often arises only from their difficulty in coping. They haven't had your practice over the years in hiding their feelings. They may be hurting a lot more than you, or than you realize, at the death of a special friend. Or, they may be unable and unwilling to hide, underneath the veneer of good manners, that they actually did dislike the person intensely. However they act at the time, being involved in an unhappy event paves the way for their being able to put it behind them.
Asking young people for their opinion, for example on the decision to move house, or on whether grandma should come to stay with you, is not the same as abdicating your responsibility to them. You have a right to your own life, and their dislike of, for instance, an intended spouse should not necessarily put a barrier in the way of a marriage. But, if you have listened to their feelings, you have far more to go on in sorting out a compromise. And inviting them to the negotiating table sets the scene for bargaining and an eventual constructive outcome. If you have explained to them how you feel, they are far more able to see your decision as a sensible and understandable one, rather than interpreting it purely as selfishness or an attack on them. And if you have heard what they have to say, you may find that they see drawbacks that you have not suspected, or for which you hadn't allowed.
Arguments are sidestepped if you listen without having to be shouted at. Whatever the crisis, you could defuse the situation by sitting down with a pre-arranged agreement. Once you have explained what is going to happen, why it is going to happen, and how you feel about this, everyone will have a chance to say how they react, and why. You may then find that not only do you get the result you want more efficiently, but that everyone is happier and more cooperative about the situation.
Very few families see their young people grow to adulthood without all of you coming under some strain or other. However, even the most extreme of crises can be weathered if you have managed to give your youngsters two gifts. The first is the knowledge that you love and value them. Emotional security will keep them afloat even when everything else seems to be falling apart. The second is skill in communication. With this, you and they will know what is going on and understand each other's viewpoints, feelings and behavior.
