That's space, Lydia.

Hi, I'm Sam. Welcome back to Radio Headspace and to Wednesday.

So if you're a parent of a teen or a teen yourself, you may relate to a general feeling of disconnection.

It's just hard sometimes to relate to each other's feelings and experiences with such a big age and experience gap.

It's helpful to think of the teenage brain as being under construction.

It may take longer for teens to formulate a response to simple questions like,

how are you feeling or how is school today?

Over the last month, I've been spending more time than usual with my stepdaughter.

She's 13 years old and in the throes of adolescence, complete with blasé shrugs and a hesitancy to talk about anything related to feelings.

So after being in Sweden for a month, when my husband and I were preparing to go back to Los Angeles, I could feel the tension among all of us.

We all wanted to address the elephant in the room.

My stepdaughter going back to her routine with her mom in Sweden, and my husband and I transitioning back to LA life.

It'd be a while before we'd see each other again, and I, of course, wanted us all to talk about it with openness and vulnerability.

I decided to focus on helping her learn about how feelings and needs interact.

So I first asked her if we could try to figure out exactly what she was feeling, since she couldn't find the words to describe it.

I tried words like frustrated, sad, disappointed, angry, but each attempt was met with a shake of her head.

Then I looked at her closely, and I thought about what her life has been like lately, switching households with different norms and expectations, and having little choice in the matter.

One word came to mind from the nonviolent communication needs list that I've used with clients and studied over the years.

The word was autonomy, the extent of our freedom of choice in her lives.

And I asked her if she felt like she had enough autonomy over how things were going in her life.

She shook her head, no.

Do you wish she had more? She nodded.

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