This Post: 10 Powerful Tips to Become Your Teen’s Secure Home Base
Written By: Nicola MacDonald, Author of Resilient Teen
They may roll their eyes. They may push back. They may act like they’ve outgrown you. But deep down, your teen needs to know there’s one place they’ll always be accepted, heard, and safe to be fully themselves. That means, as parents, we need to be our kids’ secure home base. And, yes, that can be challenging, at times. But we need to be the unwavering, stable mountain in their lives… the lighthouse they can always find no matter how dark it may be.
The world is loud, fast, and often confusing for your teen, and while they might not always show it, they desperately need the calm reassurance of your love, patience, and presence. Being your teen’s secure home base means being the steady place they can return to no matter how far they wander emotionally, socially, or physically.
When you offer safety without judgment, guidance without control, and love without conditions, you become the anchor they can count on. And that steady anchor can make all the difference – it’s the one thing they’ll carry with them forever.
10 Powerful Tips to Become Your Teen’s Secure Home Base
Here Are 10 Tips to Help You Become Your Teen’s Secure Home Base:
1. Fill Your Cup
You know the saying, ‘you can’t pour from an empty cup’? It means you can’t nurture others without first nurturing yourself. The calmer we are, the more control we have over our emotions and reactions. It can help us better handle the tuts, eye rolls, and other teenage behaviours that come our way. (And, parenting can be stressful!)
- Are you carving out enough time to release your own stress? That might include exercising, walking in nature, practicing Yoga, hobbies or relaxing in a comforting bath.
- Are you making space in your life to nurture yourself? If not, become more intentional about dedicating time to activities that bring you peace and comfort. Find ways to tell your body everything is okay and reset its equilibrium.
2. Role Model Emotional Regulation
How do you respond when your teen pushes your buttons? Are you calm? Do you react (or overreact) to their behavior? It’s hard to stay calm when it feels like you’re being treated disrespectfully. However, rather than reacting (and unnecessarily escalating the situation), we can teach our kids emotional regulation by role modeling it ourselves.
- Try Conscious Breathing: When taking slow, deep breaths, you can calm your nervous system and allow yourself to see the situation more clearly. Conscious breathing shines a light on your breathing. This helps ignite the parasympathetic nervous system, signaling to the body that everything is okay.
- Step Away, If Needed: If or when things get heated, walk into another room, go for a drive, or escape to your room for a while.
- Dive Deeper: Ask yourself: What’s underneath this behavior? Are they overwhelmed, tired, or anxious? Teens often act out what they can’t put into words.
- Remember, it’s Not Personal: Even when it feels like a personal attack, most teen outbursts aren’t about you – they’re about their internal battles. You’re just the safe target.
NOTE: This doesn’t mean that you tolerate your child’s lack of respect. Rather, you continue to maintain boundaries and clarify when they have crossed the line, but from a place of calm, strength, and balance.
3. Become More Self-Aware
To understand your child’s pain, you first need to become aware of your own. We all know our teens’ behavior can rattle us. We need to ask ourselves if we are being triggered by our own unresolved pain. After all, you have been shaped by your upbringing, and the last thing you want to do is project your negative experiences onto your child. Parenting shines a light on that which needs to be healed within you.
Perhaps when you were growing up, you often felt ignored, and now you are triggered because no one is listening to your requests. Perhaps you had a traumatic experience in your childhood, and now you are projecting related fears onto your child. Turning inward allows you to grow and become more self-aware as you identify the areas in which you may be holding yourself and your child back. Find 20 minutes in your day for mindful self-compassion meditation. (You can try a short exercise known as the 3-step breathing space, on page 66 of my book, Resilient Teen.)
4. Choose Compassion and Self-Kindness
While we often heap love onto our children, we need to remember that we also deserve love, compassion, and kindness.
If your teen is taking their frustrations out on you, whether your behaviour is to blame or not (often, in the teenage years, you are merely the target), it is important to spend time releasing any upset. Allow yourself space to cry and/or meditate so that you can acknowledge the pain and, in turn, set it free.
5. Try Connection Over Correction
It can be easy to get caught in a cycle of nitpicking your child’s behaviour. When we frequently focus on the negative, we can forget to make time for the positive. Reflect for a moment on the balance of criticism versus encouragement in your household. Only receiving criticism or rarely receiving positive feedback can affect your child’s self-esteem. After all, how we talk to our children becomes a big part of their inner voice. So, we need to find moments to give them a boost.
- Tell them how proud you are of them and how much you love them.
- Praise their progress – even the small “wins.”
- Listen and validate their feelings so they feel comfortable coming to you no matter what.
6. Choose Present-Moment Parenting Whenever Possible
Spend quality time with your teen by being emotionally and mentally present. This means you don’t have a phone in your hand or another task up your sleeve. A good question to ask yourself is How much time do I spend having fun with my child? How much time am I in the present moment, smiling or laughing with them? As they get older, this can be tricky with all of their hobbies, get-togethers, and other distractions. Yet, it’s essential to make time for your teen.
7. Set Boundaries and Stick to Them
Someone once said, ‘A lack of boundaries invites a lack of respect.’ Step into your power, your fierce inner strength. Build up deep self-assurance that doesn’t waver. If you struggle with this, I recommend learning more about assertiveness skills so that you don’t fall into the trap of aggression/passive aggression/or passive communication styles.
When we feel under attack, our demeanour can inflate, our voices rise, and we start to make demands through gritty teeth. We apply greater force. This can lead to greater counterwill from your child, with reactions leading to more reactions, which can affect your relationship with your teen over time.
8. Apologize, When Needed
When we react rather than respond, it’s important we acknowledge this and apologize once we have calmed down. This is yet another opportunity for role modelling positive behaviour. We’re human, after all, and an apology shows your teen that we all make mistakes and that we can own those mistakes and learn from them so we behave more appropriately next time.
9. Forgive Quickly
It can be hard to forgive teenagers who can go for the jugular, at times. It can be tempting to hold a grudge when they hurt you. However, holding onto insults prevents you from connecting and doesn’t model forgiveness. Instead, remind yourself (often) – This isn’t about me. This isn’t personal.
10. Give Your Teen the Unconditional Love and Acceptance They Truly Crave
In a world that often feels unstable, you need to create a safe space of unconditional love and acceptance for your teen. After all, even friendships during our kids’ teen years can come and go. Teenagers will often put on masks to protect themselves from hurt or discomfort at school and around their friends. You can provide the safe space they need where they can let down their guard and be their most comfortable and authentic version of themselves.
Above all, please remember to be kind to yourself. The more you love yourself, the more love you can extend to others.
Parenting is hard work, and we’re all just muddling through. So pat yourself on the back for reading this article. You’re already showing up for your child through greater knowledge and understanding.
Sending love and warmest wishes from one parent to another.
About Nicola MacDonald:
Nicola MacDonald is a Resilience Coach and Author of Resilient Teen, specializing in Youth Mental Health, Conscious Parenting, Mindfulness, and Technology Addiction. She’s also the founder of My Resilient Mind and co-founder of The Digital Detox Club.
If you would like to learn more tips, check out Nicola’s book, Resilient Teen, on Amazon HERE!