Don't have heart-to-hearts before 9pm, turn YOUR mobile off... and a simple ploy to get them to eat healthily. Must-read tips for every parent from a brilliant new book on improving your relationship with your teenagers

We live in a time of huge worry about our teenagers – from fears of a mobile phone-obsessed adolescence to concerns about an offline world of bullying and drugs.

But what if we parents don't need to be so fearful? What if our teenagers are a gift we can all learn from?

'Teenagers a gift? More like a nightmare!' you may be thinking. Moody. Snappy.

Communicating via the occasional WhatsApp from a darkened room.

But I believe raising my five children in an anxious age has led to many gifts for me – learning how to stay calm, for one thing. Another is the chance to connect with them as young adults and establish a whole new relationship.

No parent can ever not worry at all and I've had plenty of heart-stopping moments on what has been, inevitably, a choppy ride.

But my aim – through the building of increased understanding, closer connections and better relationships – is to help bring your parental anxiety levels down from an eight or nine out of ten to a more manageable three or four, and take your enjoyment levels up to an eight or nine. If our teenagers are truly to be a gift to us, we need to dial down the worry.

Here, I offer ideas on how we, as parents and carers, might go about doing this...

Until around 15 years ago neuroscientists believed that most of our brain development happens in the first few years of life.

But more recently, brain scans have shown that teenagers undergo a period of intense change starting at around age 11 and lasting until the mid-20s.

In general, adolescent girls' brains develop faster than those of boys. In boys, connections to the prefrontal lobe – the bit of the brain associated with logical reasoning and regulating impulses – are, on average, around two years behind those of girls. This makes many teenagers vulnerable to online scams and liable to dramatic changes of mind. It's a time when dyeing your hair blue, smoking weed or ordering an ear-piercing kit online feels sensible.

It's not their fault and there's no need to blame them for poor impulse control. Our role is to try to create the healthiest environment in which their malleable and ever-changing brains can develop.

Taking risks for today's teenagers is less about sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll and more about social media and the online world.

The still-maturing 'brake' circuitry at the front of the brain may be overwhelmed by the 'accelerator' region, compromising teens' decision-making ability. This is why young men are prepared to sign up as soldiers.

Studies have shown teenagers balance 'social risk' – whether they will be thrown out of their peer group – against the consequences of doing something we as adults might think dumb.

Brain imagery reveals that for teenagers, physical danger is less frightening than the fear of losing face among their peers. Risk‑taking doubles for boys when their friends are around but reduces if they are with girlfriends.

What to do: Guide teenagers towards thrills that will help them grow – join a boxing club, audition for a school play or run a marathon.

With my children, I'd talk to them ahead about risky situations, helping them to rehearse ways of ducking out (blame it on your mother!). I tried to get to know their friends and their friends' parents to set common rules around risky behaviour.

Most of a teenager's brain development happens at night. Sleep-deprived teens are less healthy, make worse decisions and are at greater risk of drink or drug abuse.

Most of us probably knew that. I didn't know, however, that adolescents release the sleep hormone melatonin later in the day, which means that they naturally stay up later and get up later than adults

What to do: Let your children lie in and allow them to match up with their natural sleep patterns. Stop nagging them to get up in the holidays, it's bad for their brains. And knowing their sleep patterns has a nice bonus as it can help you plot when is a good time to chat. Peak wakefulness for teenagers tends to be around 9pm: an ideal opportunity to get them to open up.

Given the immaturity and volatility of their brains, teenagers need a high level of adult guidance to make positive and sensible choices. But the reality is messy.

This is a confusing push-and-pull period for our relationship. One minute teenagers are independent, pushing us away; the next vulnerable, pulling us close.

When our children are little, we, their parents or carers, are the centre of their world. Then, at around the age of 12, things begin to change and teenagers start to assert their independence.

They begin to argue with us, finding fault with how we dress, how we sip our coffee (I slurped, it turned out). We can be embarrassing. Our rules seem old-fashioned and silly. And as for our politics!

In truth, during this phase many young people are not even sure they like their parents any more.

What to do: The good news is that out of this conflict can emerge a unique human being, with ideas of their own, who is forging their identity through all the different interactions they're experiencing.

It would be impossible for our teenagers to become their true selves if their parents continued to be the centre of their world. Faced with a child's hostility or rejection, we should try not to take the negativity personally.

Helping with practical day-to-day stuff might not seem intimate or a way to foster connection – it's easy to feel no more than a personal assistant-cum-taxi driver.

But I found that these are ways to have pockets of time together; it can be easier to foster connection walking down the supermarket aisle chatting about the virtues of one shampoo over another than it is at home.

Surprise your child with invitations. We can be spending all day, every day with our child and yet not convey the message that we enjoy their company.

There are hundreds of ways to connect, and if one doesn't work, no big deal, try another. Make a point of putting your phone aside, closing your laptop or pausing the TV when your teenager is trying to engage with you.

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Let your face show you are listening. One of mine, then 16, once said to me: 'There's literally nothing I appreciate more than when you switch off your phone to talk to me.'

Build rituals into your day. Taking a dog out together has proved a good one for us. But don't forget there are also times you will have to step back and leave them to it. Think of it as a dance in which we sit out some rounds. Only by facing their feelings themselves can our children build the coping skills they will need down the road.

What parent has not walked back downstairs, reeling from a teenager's slammed door, suddenly wrong-footed because a topic we thought they were fine with now turns out to be off-limits?

Our relationship with them can change, fast. We no longer know them in the way we once did as small children when we understood what every laugh or tear truly meant.

According to one study, children start tuning out their mother's voice as they enter adolescence because they no longer find it uniquely rewarding. Using MRI scans, researchers found that teenagers do not neurobiologically register their mother's voice in the way that they did as younger children – which is why they ignore your plea to tidy their rooms.

Instead, from around the age of 13, the reward circuits in the teenage brain prioritise unfamiliar voices. And although this shift is a sign of a healthy brain, it makes communication harder. And then there are mobile phones...

Conversation became even harder in our house when my children, whose ages range from 21 to 30, started sporting little white cordless earbuds, or wearing flamboyant, outsized headphones.

The older ones, who were less influenced by social media, tended to be chattier than the younger ones, who spent more time online.

What to do: One approach is to lean into their interests, especially their digital life.

Be curious about the games they are playing, the music they are listening to, the videos they watch, the YouTube influencers they admire or the podcasts they are enjoying.

My life has been greatly enriched by knowing a bit more about my children's interests. The digital age has narrowed the attention span in teens and adults alike. They, and we, are used to shorter interactions. A tip here is to try the five-minute chat. Naming and labelling the interaction in this way formalises it and can make it feel more special.

Say hello to your teenage boy and ask if he has time for 'a five-minute chat'. Begin with something that happened to you today to get things started. Then ask how his day was.

You can also try side-by-side conversations, for example sitting in the car or on a walk, rather than talking face-to-face: teenagers (especially boys) may find it hard to look people in the eye when chatting. Avoid mentioning your role as their parent, and abandon childhood nicknames.

My life changed when I realised that my teenagers' challenging behaviour was a way for them to communicate what they were feeling. They were just trying to tell me something for which they could not find words. It was not designed to punish me personally.

Here's an example: I cooked one of my son's favourite pasta dishes for him. He didn't eat a thing. More than that, he scraped the food off his plate into the bin, put the plate in the dishwasher and went back to his room.

A younger version of myself might have seen this as spoilt brat behaviour. I went to the trouble of cooking for him and far from being grateful, he was rude. I might even have imagined that the rejection of the pasta was a rejection of me.

Now I realised that his not eating was not to do with me. It was about his emotions. About his relationship with himself. Something was being communicated, in a non‑verbal way.

Perhaps he was feeling angry, or maybe sad. Maybe there was something he needed. Or maybe he just wanted some space.

While I was keen to know more, I couldn't force communication between us. I had to accept that at a time of his own choosing he might or might not tell me what was going on. For now, all I knew was that his behaviour meant something was up.

What to do: The trick is to connect and communicate with your teenager in the way that suits them.

You, too, can respond through your actions, not words: get them a cup of coffee in the morning, be their taxi service from time to time, put their favourite snack in their packed lunch.

These are small acts of love, which speak of your affection.

Meanwhile there is much to be said for physical communication. Some teenagers respond best to a hug, which reduces cortisol, the stress hormone.

Boys often can find it easier to communicate through touch, especially with their fathers, be that through mock wrestling or gentle jostling.

Don't take rejections personally. Be patient. Hang in there. The more I've seen my children as individuals with their own destinies, the more our relationship has improved. I have a personality and so do they.

Be honest if you're imposing your wishes on them: the sports-mad father who expects his son to make him proud on the playing fields, or the chic mother who demands that a tomboy daughter should follow her stylish example.

Our teenagers can be our teachers. They can show us that the more we allow them to be the people they are destined to be, separate from us, the more we, too, can be the people we are, not just narrowly boxed into our role as parents. They give us permission to flourish in newly independent ways.

Despite all our best efforts, conversations will, at times, be fraught. This is a messy period of separation when it's normal to disagree, as our teenagers forge their own identities. Discussions get shouty and voices are raised.

What to do: If you can feel a row brewing, you might want to step out of trouble's way by going into a different room. Vent privately before you talk to your teenager – going upstairs and punching a pillow can disrupt anger mechanisms, crazy as that sounds!

If a row is unavoidable, focus only on the matter in hand. If it is about how late they returned last night, don't also complain about how they never listen, leave their rooms in a mess and spend too much time on their phone.

Two techniques help me to de-escalate. First, at the end of every sentence, I add a 'power pause'. I stop, breathe, and notice any escalation. Second, I list any points of agreement or appreciation instead of adding other grievances: a sort of positive escalation/ In the case of a late-returning teenager I might say I appreciated the fact that they had kept their phone switched on and that they had been apologetic. The exact words and the tone in which you use them matter. Research suggests harsh words and excessive yelling are as damaging as physical abuse.

One magic trick is to begin sentences with 'I'.

Let's imagine the argument is about a teenager staying out late and you didn't know where they were. Focus on your undeniable feelings rather than on what may be disputed facts. Instead of saying, 'You were out until 4am and behaving in an unacceptable way,' say, 'I don't feel comfortable with not knowing where you are.'

It can be surprising how well teenagers take it when you tell the truth about your own feelings with sentences beginning with that magical 'I'. We do not have to be silent martyrs or emotionless robots.

While social media technology is new, teenagers are still remarkably conventional about what is deemed attractive. Being sporty and athletic makes for male popularity, while being conventionally pretty – such as being slim with long hair – makes for female success. Far from challenging convention, when it comes to appearance, teenagers are fundamentally conservative – but still obsessed with their looks.

What to do: Talk with them about the inauthenticity of digital images and how they are curated and edited. See if your teenagers can acknowledge that they, too, present a sanitised version of themselves in their own social media.

How they feel about themselves and their appearance will naturally be influenced by how we feel about our own bodies.

If you can, be relaxed around your own nudity, such as when swimming or getting changed. One study suggests that children who grew up around nudity were more comfortable with their bodies as adults. They had slightly better levels of self-esteem and a more positive body image.

Give your teenager a range of compliments, rather than focusing solely on how they look – be that kindness or courage, or skills from baking to remembering to walk the dog.

© Rachel Kelly 2025

Adapted from The Gift Of Teenagers: Connect More, Worry Less, by Rachel Kelly, to be published by Short Books on May 8, priced £16.99. To order a copy for £15.29 (offer valid to May 17; UK p&p free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.