Supporting Your Teen: Finding Your Role

A Season of Becoming

The teenage years are a period filled with continuous, often difficult, transitions. Teenagers are discovering more about themselves; their interests, their identity, the world around them, and even the family members they thought they already knew. Erik Erikson, a developmental psychologist, described adolescence as the life stage organised around identity versus role confusion, a period in which young people experiment with different values, beliefs, and roles in order to answer the question, “Who am I?” (Erikson, 1968). This journey is rarely tidy, and it rarely stays private: it plays out at the dinner table, behind slammed doors, and in long silences, which is why it can be a difficult period not only for the teenager but also for the loved ones living alongside them.

Renegotiating Your Role

Many parents ask themselves how they can better support a teenager who increasingly seems to want less of their support. There is no single formula, but research on family relationships during adolescence points to some genuinely helpful shifts in communication. Psychologist Laurence Steinberg’s long-running research on parent-adolescent relationships found that healthy development at this stage depends less on parents stepping back altogether, and more on renegotiating the terms of their involvement; a gradual, ongoing transfer of autonomy that keeps the relationship close while making room for growing independence (Steinberg, 2001). In a similar vein, Grotevant and Cooper’s work on individuation describes adolescence as a period in which young people need both continued connection to family and the freedom to develop and voice their own point of view; families who manage to hold both at once tend to see their teenagers develop a stronger, more settled sense of identity (Grotevant & Cooper, 1986). It is important, therefore, to keep in mind that your role is no longer the same as the one you held in their younger years; attempting to keep roles the same can often widen the gap you are trying to close.

Trading The Advisor Hat

It is important, then, to take a stance that is not that of an all-knowing adviser. Your role is no longer the one you held during your child’s younger years, and attempts to hold on to that earlier role can create conflict and widen the gap between you and your child. Psychologist Diana Baumrind’s research on parenting styles found that teenagers tend to fare best under an authoritative approach, which combines warmth and responsiveness with appropriate, flexible structure, rather than either tight control or disengaged permissiveness (Baumrind, 1991). In practice, this often means trading the instinct to direct for the discipline to ask, staying curious about what support your teenager actually needs from you, rather than assuming you already know. Carl Rogers, founder of person-centred therapy, argued that this kind of non-judgemental curiosity, what he called unconditional positive regard, builds the psychological safety a person needs to keep communicating openly, even about the topics that are often hard to raise (Rogers, 1961).

A Transition for You Too

It is worth remembering that adolescence is not only a difficult time for the teenager, who is working out who they are and where they fit in the world. It is also a transition for you, as a parent, figuring out what your new role looks like and what level of support is genuinely being asked of you. It should be approached with curiosity rather than certainty; this season of change can become less a widening gap and more a relationship being renegotiated into its next form; one where connection is not held onto but continually re-earned.

References

Baumrind, D. (1991). The influence of parenting style on adolescent competence and substance use. Journal of Early Adolescence, 11(1), 56–95.

Erikson, E. H. (1968). Identity: Youth and crisis. Norton.

Grotevant, H. D., & Cooper, C. R. (1986). Individuation in family relationships: A perspective on individual differences in the development of identity and role-taking skill in adolescence. Human Development, 29(2), 82–100.

Rogers, C. R. (1961). On becoming a person: A therapist’s view of psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin.

Steinberg, L. (2001). We know some things: Parent–adolescent relationships in retrospect and prospect. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 11(1), 1–19.

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Related Resources:

For an overview of related MJT services and relevant information, visit Core Services, Expanded Services and Clinical Topics.

Family Communication: Rewriting Scripts

Wired To Connect

Human beings are, at their core, social beings. From the very first moments of life, we begin forming bonds; not as a matter of preference, but as a matter of survival. Attachment theory, first developed by British psychiatrist John Bowlby, describes this drive as an evolved biological system that keeps infants close to a caregiver capable of protecting them in an often unpredictable world (Bowlby, 1969). Mary Ainsworth’s later research demonstrated that the quality of these early bonds — whether secure, anxious, or avoidant — becomes a template infants carry forward into every relationship that follows (Ainsworth et al., 1978).

This template does more than shape whom we trust; it shapes how we regulate emotion. Research in interpersonal neurobiology suggests that the brain circuitry responsible for calming us under stress develops largely through repeated experiences of being soothed by another person; usually a parent, in childhood (Siegel, 2020). In other words, long before we learn to manage our own feelings, we first learn to co-regulate them with the people around us. Family, then, is not simply where we come from. It is the first classroom in which we learn who we are and how to relate to others.

Scripts We Inherit

Family therapist John Byng-Hall coined the term "family scripts" to describe the largely unconscious rules a family develops for handling closeness, conflict, and emotions. Rules that each new generation tends to either replicate or consciously correct, depending on how those that came before us handled them (Byng-Hall, 1995). We do not choose these scripts; we absorb them the way we absorb a native language, long before we have the critical thought to question them.

Not every inherited script serves us well. Family systems theorist Murray Bowen described a related process, the “multigenerational transmission process”, which describes how patterns of anxiety, conflict avoidance, or emotional reactivity are passed from parent to child across generations, sometimes intensifying with each retelling (Bowen, 1978). A parent who learned to raise their voice to be heard, or to withdraw rather than argue, is likely to unconsciously teach that same strategy to their own children, not out of malice, but because it is the only script they were ever handed. For many families, a communication breakdown that seems to appear “out of nowhere” is, in fact, the product of decades of inherited habit, patterns of blame, silence, or misunderstanding passed down like valuable belongings nobody asked to keep.

Communication Break Downs

Family therapist Virginia Satir observed that under stress, people tend to default to one of several communication stances: placating to keep the peace, blaming to regain control, being “super-reasonable” to avoid vulnerability, or becoming irrelevant by changing the subject entirely (Satir, 1972). None of these stances communicates what a person actually feels or needs, and over time, family members can become fluent in stances that protect them from hurt, making genuine connection almost impossible.

Psychologist John Gottman’s decades of observational research identified four communication patterns so corrosive to relationships that he termed them the “Four Horsemen”: criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and stonewalling (Gottman, 1994). Left unchecked, these patterns erode trust and safety over time, teaching family members that closeness is unsafe and that conflict is something to be won or avoided rather than resolved together.

Rewriting Scripts

The encouraging finding across decades of family research is this: scripts are not sentences. They can be identified, questioned, and rewritten. Byng-Hall’s own work centred on helping families become aware of their inherited scripts precisely so they could consciously choose which parts to keep and which needed to be revised (Byng-Hall, 1995). This awareness enables families to choose different outcomes.

Structural family therapist Salvador Minuchin proposed that many communication difficulties are not really about the content of an argument at all, but about the underlying structure of the family: who holds power, where the boundaries lie, and how closely members are enmeshed in or disengaged from one another (Minuchin, 1974). Shifting that structure, even in small ways, can open space for entirely new patterns of communication to take root.

This is where the support of a trained professional becomes critical. A therapist can offer what family members, immersed in the pattern, often cannot: an outside perspective from which the script becomes visible. Simply naming a pattern, such as “we always go silent when things get hard”, is often the first step toward interrupting it, and the beginning of a family consciously choosing a different way to communicate.

Closing Thoughts

Family communication is rarely a simple matter of learning the “right words” to say. It is the product of biology, history, and habit, inherited long before we had any say in the matter. But a script written for us does not have to be one we perform forever. With awareness, patience, and often the guidance of a skilled professional, families can consciously revise the patterns they pass on, replacing inherited silence or conflict with connection that is chosen, not just repeated.

References

Ainsworth, M. D. S., Blehar, M. C., Waters, E., & Wall, S. (1978). Patterns of attachment: A psychological study of the strange situation. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Bowen, M. (1978). Family therapy in clinical practice. Jason Aronson.

Bowlby, J. (1969). Attachment and loss: Vol. 1. Attachment. Basic Books.

Byng-Hall, J. (1995). Rewriting family scripts: Improvisation and systems change. Guilford Press.

Gottman, J. M. (1994). Why marriages succeed or fail: And how you can make yours last. Simon & Schuster.

Minuchin, S. (1974). Families and family therapy. Harvard University Press.

Satir, V. (1972). Peoplemaking. Science and Behaviour Books.

Siegel, D. J. (2020). The developing mind: How relationships and the brain interact to shape who we are (3rd ed.). Guilford Press.

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Related Resources:

For an overview of related MJT services and relevant information, visit Core Services, Expanded Services and Clinical Topics.

A Silent Pandemic: Men's Mental Health

I’d like you to picture this scene: a group of men gathered after work, or around a braai on a Saturday afternoon. The conversation flows easily, covering soccer, rugby, work or money hassles, and the latest news. But there's one subject that rarely comes up: how they're actually feeling. It's not a topic that springs to mind when men get together, yet the effect of men's mental health on themselves, their loved ones and everyone they interact with cannot be overlooked.

And that, in a nutshell, is why we call it a silent pandemic.

What Is Mental Health?

Mental health is not just the absence of illness. It covers many areas of functioning. These include our emotional, psychological, and social well-being. Life is unpredictable, and daily stressors are part of the deal: work pressure, finances, relationships, disappointment. None of us are immune. But when a person possesses good mental health, they are capable of adjusting to and handling these life stressors — bending without breaking and recovering when they do.

The question is: what happens when someone has never been given the tools to do that?

Why A Silent Pandemic?

The statistics around this issue tell a striking story. Among young people, only about 13% of men between the ages of 16 and 24 seek help when they experience mental health difficulties, compared with 31% of young women (Ellis et al., 2013). Similarly, research in Australia found that just 13.2% of young men with mental health needs had accessed services in the previous year (Sheikh et al., 2024). In South Africa, the picture is sobering; the country ranks eighth globally for suicide rates, with 450 men taking their own lives every month (Molokoane & Modipane, 2025).

These are not men who are unwell; these are men who are unwell and unheard. So why is seeking support such a daunting prospect for them? The reasons are layered: how men are socialised to view mental health, the narratives young men are taught about it from childhood, and what researchers call mental health literacy, simply put, the ability to recognise, understand, and articulate psychological distress (Barkley et al., 2026).

Messages To Young Boys

It often starts early on in our upbringing. From a young age, many boys are taught that life stressors must be handled individually. In many South African homes, phrases like "indoda ayikhali", meaning "men don't cry", are passed down as wisdom. The message, however, is clear: a man carries his own weight, quietly.

This isn't a myth; it's a pattern researchers have documented repeatedly. A systematic review of 47 studies found that traditional masculine norms significantly deter men from seeking mental health support (Mokhwelepa & Sumbane, 2025). Young South African men describe being socialised from childhood with the understanding that "we do not like talking about our problems," and those masculine ideals drive help-seeking avoidance (Sikweyiya et al., 2025). Adolescent boys in townships describe the feeling of being "put in a box" where mental health challenges are associated with weakness, and emotional expression is discouraged (Barkley et al., 2026). And in Mpumalanga, young men report that fear of stigma, masculinity norms, and societal expectations are exactly why they can't talk to family and friends about what's troubling them (Molokoane & Modipane, 2025).

The pressure to embody strength, self-reliance, and emotional control is so pervasive that reaching out for help can feel like a betrayal of what it means to be a man (Mokhwelepa & Sumbane, 2025).

Uncomfortable Truths

Here's the uncomfortable truth that the "men don't cry" philosophy forgets: the body is honest, even when the man isn't.

When increased stressors are left unattended, they give rise to mental health difficulties and, in some cases, physical problems. The evidence backs this up. Men tend to seek support later in their illness, leave significant health issues unattended, and are more likely to express psychological concerns through physical symptoms (Palmer et al., 2024). Delaying help-seeking doesn't just prolong suffering; it leads to poorer health outcomes and places an extra burden on the healthcare system (Yousaf et al., 2013). The suppression of emotional expression drives maladaptive coping and has been linked to depression and higher suicide rates (Kim & Yu, 2023).

Men often feel that physical illness is a "legitimate" reason to see a professional, while emotional struggles are not (Vickery, 2021). So, the pain moves sideways: it shows up as exhaustion, irritability, back pain, high blood pressure, anger, substance use, or withdrawal. The man who "handles it himself" often carries a weight his body eventually refuses to hide.

Breaking The Silence

Loved ones are often the first to notice, because the ripple effects land on those closest to the man who is struggling: partners, children, colleagues, and friends. The silent pandemic is not silent for the people who love these men; it shows up in every strained relationship and every unspoken worry.

The good news is that silence can be broken. Research increasingly points to the value of gender-sensitive, culturally grounded mental health treatments: interventions that normalise emotional expression among boys and men, meet men where they are, and challenge the rigid norms that equate vulnerability with weakness (Sikweyiya et al., 2025). It starts with small acts: a friend who asks, "How are you, really?" and waits for an honest answer; a father who tells his son it's okay to cry; a man who decides that seeking help is not a failure of strength but a reclaiming of it.

Mental health affects everything: how we work, how we love, how we cope. And it cannot be ignored in men any longer, because when a man suffers in silence, the silence affects everyone around him. Let's start talking.

References

Barkley, C., Mnculwane, S., Merrill, K. G., & Kafaar, Z. (2026). “Being a man is like being put in a box”: A qualitative study of adolescent boys’ and young men’s understanding and experiences of mental health in an urban community in South Africa. PLOS Mental Health, 3(2), Article e0000365. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmen.0000365

Ellis, L. A., Collin, P., Hurley, P. J., Davenport, T. A., Burns, J. M., & Hickie, I. B. (2013). Young men’s attitudes and behaviour in relation to mental health and technology: Implications for the development of online mental health services. BMC Psychiatry, 13, Article 119. https://doi.org/10.1186/1471-244X-13-119

Mokhwelepa, L. W., & Sumbane, G. O. (2025). Men’s mental health matters: The impact of traditional masculinity norms on men’s willingness to seek mental health support; a systematic review of literature. American Journal of Men’s Health, 19(3). https://doi.org/10.1177/15579883251321670

Molokoane, P., & Modipane, M. (2025). Young men’s perspectives on expressing problems affecting their mental health to family and friends in Ehlanzeni district, Mpumalanga province. Journal of Men’s Health, 21(3), 119–126. https://doi.org/10.22514/jomh.2025.043

Palmer, R., Smith, B. J., Kite, J., & Phongsavan, P. (2024). The socio-ecological determinants of help-seeking practices and healthcare access among young men: A systematic review. Health Promotion International, 39(2), Article daae024. https://doi.org/10.1093/heapro/daae024

Sheikh, A., Payne-Cook, C., Lisk, S., Carter, B., & Brown, J. S. L. (2024). Why do young men not seek help for affective mental health issues? A systematic review of perceived barriers and facilitators among adolescent boys and young men. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 34(2), 565–583. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00787-024-02520-9

Sikweyiya, Y., Mahlangu, P., Jewkes, R., Brooke-Sumner, C., Gibbs, A., Dartnall, E., Pillay, M., & Machisa, M. (2025). ‘We do not like talking about our problems’: Socialization and idealized masculinity as drivers of help-seeking avoidance among college men in South Africa. BMC Public Health, 25, Article 1091. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-025-22252-y

Vickery, A. (2021). Men’s help-seeking for distress: Navigating varied pathways and practices. Frontiers in Sociology, 6, Article 724843. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2021.724843

Yousaf, O., Grunfeld, E. A., & Hunter, M. S. (2013). A systematic review of the factors associated with delays in medical and psychological help-seeking among men. Health Psychology Review, 9(2), 264–276. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437199.2013.840954

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Related Resources:

For an overview of related MJT services and relevant information, visit Core Services, Expanded Services and Men’s Mental Health.