5 things you can't expect from your teenager right now
And what's realistic instead. Five points, one page, no parenting theory.
Between 12 and 20 the brain rebuilds itself — and while that happens, individual abilities temporarily work worse than before. This list shows you five of them, so you can align your expectations with what's actually possible right now.
This isn't a list of excuses. Adjusting an expectation doesn't mean dropping it — it means setting it where your child can actually meet it. That's exactly where they grow.
That your child reads your mood correctly
The ability to recognise emotions in faces is temporarily weaker during puberty than it was in primary school. Your child reads neutral expressions as anger or rejection far more often than average. They're not reacting to you — they're reacting to a misread version of you.
Your child understands what you say — not reliably what you radiate.
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That knowing and doing line up
The frontal lobe — responsible for braking in the decisive moment — matures until roughly 20 to 30 years of age. Your child can fully understand a rule and break it an hour later anyway. That's not a breach of trust; it's a gap between insight and execution.
Your child keeps agreements when the environment helps — not on resolve alone.
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That mornings are a good time to talk
During puberty the sleep-wake rhythm shifts biologically later — falling asleep and waking up genuinely and measurably slide back. On top of that, the brain processes what it has learned during sleep, so the need is real in this phase. In the morning you're not meeting your child, you're meeting a brain that's behind.
Mornings work for arrangements, barely for conversations. Late evenings, on the other hand, are often surprisingly open.
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That decisions consistently follow values
The orbitofrontal cortex, where values and weighing-up come together, is one of the last areas to finish — value formation runs until around 17 to 18. So your child already has values, but no stable access to them when feeling and peer group pull the other way. The contradictions you notice are work in progress, not statements about character.
Your child decides situationally. The through-line forms over years, not over announcements.
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That your child shares your view of the situation
From your child's point of view, you are the ones who changed — same phase, mirrored perception. Closeness can't be produced through consistency in this situation, and rigidly insisting on principles creates distance rather than insight. What carries here is a flexible response and repeatedly trying to build a bridge.
Your child accepts your rule before they share your reasoning. Agreement comes later — often years later.
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"What children and adolescents need is understanding and a very flexible way of responding — one that precisely does not insist on principles, but keeps bringing understanding and keeps trying to build a bridge." — Spitzer, 2014 (translated from the German original)
Five points, one principle: understanding instead of a power struggle. Not because it's the nicer stance, but because it's the one that actually works in this phase.
And the most important sentence for the years ahead: your connection to your child matters more than any single rule you enforce.
You now know what doesn't work. That leaves the question of what does.
The NUNIVIA Parent Course translates exactly that into everyday life: how to set rules your child can accept, and how to keep the connection while everything changes. Step by step, with practical templates.
Explore the courseBased on: Manfred Spitzer, "Pubertät ist, wenn die Eltern seltsam werden", Schattauer 2014. Quoted with attribution under § 51 German Copyright Act; English rendering is our own translation.