This is an excerpt from the book Bridges Not Barriers: The Art of Building a Better Connection with Your Teen
It was a typical early morning for me.
I am at home doing “home stuff,” the kids are off to school, and my husband is at work.
I’m listening to music while I water the plants and run the vacuum to attack the dog hair. I pass through each bedroom to pull up a comforter, open the blinds, and pick up the abandoned dishes from yesterday’s late-night teenage eating marathon.
As I am about to leave my younger teen’s bedroom, something stops me. I can’t explain what it was, but something told me to go back and look around a bit.
Some things in parenting teens never change
I should mention here that I am all about personal privacy – to a point. But while my kids are under 18 and living in my home, I tell myself I have a right to know what they might be harboring without my awareness.
Ok, if I’m being completely honest, I remember very well a few things that were hidden (poorly) in my own bedroom as a teenager that my mom found when she cleaned out my sock drawer while I was away at camp.
Things don’t change that much as generations pass.
Hidden out of sight, but not hard to find, I encountered the reason why I believe I had that gut-nagging feeling that pulled me back into his room.
Vaping is a growing problem among teens
What I found was a long, slim, metal device that I had never seen before, not here or anywhere else for that matter.
My “mom instinct” knew this wasn’t a good thing. So, like any typical mom trying to keep up with the fast-moving trends of her tweens and teens, I immediately contacted Google.
What is this slender device that looks like trouble? Immediately Google knows. It’s a vaping device.
Ugh. Ok, Google, what could my son be doing with a vaping device?
I learned that vape pens use a battery to heat up a special liquid into an aerosol that users inhale. The “e-juice” that fills the cartridges often contains nicotine, as well as many other harmful chemicals. Next to this slender pen are two little plastic bottles with 2-3 ounces of liquid with handwritten labels as to their contents.
As a storm of emotions competes for dominance in my heart and mind, I sit on the edge of my bed feeling my heart race, and pause to take a breath.
What am I feeling?
What is he thinking?
How should I approach this?
What is the end goal for him and for us?
What to do if you find a vape pen in your teen’s bedroom
As I anticipate his arrival home from school, I rehearse my words over and over in my head.
Then the door flies open, and there he is.
He looks different. He is different. And I am different.
From the time he left for school that morning to the time he came through the door in the afternoon, a whole new awareness had been birthed.
He is growing away from me. He will no longer tell me everything he is doing, and his peers have pulled the magnet of the compass away from me and towards them. The shift is happening.
Related: Teen Boys Need These 9 Simple Things from Their Parents
More deep breaths and inner pauses, but this time on my feet as we move toward each other and toward the hard conversation that is about to take place.
I scan my mind for the questions I asked myself earlier: What am I feeling? What is he thinking? How should I approach this? What is the end goal for him and for us?
I feel clear about most of this, but I am also feeling very much like a novice entering into these more complex conversations with him.
I am afraid for his safety and the new kinds of choices he is now making for himself, and I feel sad that I don’t know everything he is doing anymore. I feel rejected by him.
I realize that I can’t know what he is thinking until I ask him. I believe in my soul that I must approach this with love, grace, patience, acceptance, and honesty. And my end goal is that I am able to secure this footbridge between his heart and mine so that we can walk across it to meet each other somewhere and know that it will not crumble beneath us.
Related: Heart-Centered Parenting Can Help You Navigate the Tricky Teen Years
So, I ask him to come up to his bedroom. We sit together on the edge of his bed, me with the slim, black metal vape pen in one hand and my heart in the other.
I simply ask him to tell me the story.
And he does. He tells me what it is, the name of the friend that gave it to him, and of course, that “everyone is doing it.”
I ask him if he knows what is in the handwritten colored bottles of “juice,” and he tells me that someone just made it. One says “nicotine.”
Without a lecture, we talk openly about chemicals, how addictive nicotine is, and also about his life and future as an athlete. I stay curious with him, and he freely shares his thoughts.
He listens as I share mine.
In the end, he knows that I don’t want him to do this.
Staying connected to your teen as they navigate decisions is important
In the end, I know that he is at the threshold of my teen making his own choices for his life despite what I want or don’t want for him. This is the beginning of me letting go of my boy as he finds his own path to being a man.
I realized at this moment that my job title was changing. My new assignment is no longer about control but about staying close as my teenager gains new skills to self-regulate and to navigate his way through uncharted territory.
I can’t force what direction he chooses or tell him how to get there, but I can be the banks to his river, his support, the softener to life’s sharp edges, and forever a safe place for him to land.
This is a contributed post from Carol Moore, author of Bridges Not Barriers.
Are you in the thick of raising your tweens and teens? You may like this book by Whitney Fleming, the co-owner of Parenting Teens & Tweens: Loving Hard When They’re Hard to Love: Essays about Raising Teens in Today’s Complex, Chaotic World.
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Mom says
My question is after the conversation what did you do with the vape that was found? Did you allow the kid to keep it or “give it back to the friend” or did you take it?
Sarah says
What an absolute pile of garbage. You’re going to just allow this to happen?? Parenting is about teaching your children to make the right decisions not just letting them do whatever they want. It’s YOUR job to handle this. You’re not teaching him to make the right decisions. No wonder kids are so screwed up today. My god…
Take that vape, search his room, take all other contraband, make sure he detoxes and help him do that, then there are consequences if he tests positive for it. No wonder kids today aren’t accountable and can’t handle the real world. It’s BS “handholding” parenting like this that has led this generation down the wrong path. Safe space my a&%. Take his door off. God knows what else he’s doing in there.
Tiffany says
How old are you children? “No wonder kids today aren’t held accountable” what children are you talking about? If anything, the kids today are handling their own confrontations. They talk things out. They feel safe in their own homes. You’re acting like finding a vape meaning they’re strung out on Meth. If you were 10 mph over speeding and they repoed your car, how would you act? Would that teach you never to speed again or would you FREAK OUT until the situation was resolved? Were teaching children how to be adults one day. That means processing your emotions in a healthy way and understanding your actions have *specific* consequences. This is a situation in which the child needs to know what can happen if they continue on that path. If all I instill is fear of ME, what do you think they hold on to when they move out? Certainly not “nicotine/drugs are bad”. They’re left with “sounds like a part of my life I only have my “friends” to turn to.”
Tiffany says
Thank you for this. My first instinct was to lose my mind. He’s 16 and I need to have a conversation with him. I could punish him, but I was punished without conversation at his age and I’ll tell you right now.. it made me “rise to the punishment”. I don’t need him doing that. Deep breath. We’ve got this.