Young people will be acutely sensitive about their 'crushes'. They may want to share their enthusiasm with you - showing you pictures and telling you the fascinating details of’ the loved one's' life, thoughts and ambitions. You may well find the subject tedious, the person unattractive and the whole thing either embarrassing or ludicrous. Make this clear, and you won't be telling your teenager that the two of you have different tastes; you will be telling them that they have lousy taste!
Looking to other people for confirmation of their views does not mean that young people no longer want your approval - they do. If they don't get it, instead of changing their taste to be in line with yours, they will stop approaching you. The more you criticize, the more you object to their tastes, the more they will pull away. Life with a teenager can appear to be one unending round of carping and complaining and daily there can be new things that upset you. Part of the problem can be that as soon as you have become resigned to one craze, another replaces it. You need to be on your toes to keep up with them!
Parents do need to maintain a balance between dismissing every friendship and enthusiasm as a 'passing phase', and lining to every utterance as if it were inscribed on tablets of stone. It is acutely embarrassing to your young person for you to ask fondly after a particular friend if the relationship was shot down in flames six weeks ago, or for you to confidently inform a neighbor that Jane wants to be a nurse if Jane gave away her nurse's outfit when she was 12 and has been into computer programming for the last year!
Equally, parents can often stifle genuine interests and friendships if they refuse to take a request seriously, for instance, for a chance to spend a weekend or holiday with a particular person, or to take guitar or skiing lessons. The chances are that many of these passions will be dead ends and might involve you in wasted expense and energy. But can you place your hand on your heart and sweat you have never been guilty of the same mistake, in the distant or recent past? And are you sure that trying and eliminating a person or a pursuit is not as necessary a lesson as finding it has value? Both are infinitely more worthwhile than never giving it a go.
