Breathe through This

You try to be supportive through all the emotional ups and downs, but if you’re too supportive, they feel smothered. You want to give them the freedom necessary to grow, but not so much that they’re left vulnerable—and however you try to do it, you can count on being wrong. Parenting a teenager is a challenge, to be sure, but Eline Snel has some very good news for those facing that challenge: there’s a way to stay mindful, present, and, yes, positive throughout it all by developing a base of mindful awareness as your resource.

With her characteristic practical wisdom, Snel provides methods for developing that resource, along with strategies for forging a bond of courage, compassion, and trust with your teenager—and for making space for yourself within the process too. Mindfulness meditation helps us stay calm in tense moments and be less reactive with our children. It allows us to respond to them in ways that are most helpful and that promote dialogue rather than clashing. The practices that Snel teaches, developed in her clinical work and honed in her own experience as a parent, are supplemented with one audio download of guided meditations for parents and another one for teens. They will help you calm down during tense and heated moments and become a more focused and openhearted parent.