How to survive the teenage safari years

As the mother of two teenagers, you sometimes get the impression that they belong to a different species. This doesn't just apply to your own children. Teenagers in the wild, who often appear in hordes, also evoke the feeling of watching exotic animals at the waterhole, with their strange proportions, their peculiar smell and their own sense of humour. A safari of a special kind.

However, this is especially true for their own teenagers. Here, the teenage safari extends to a few years. An opportunity to learn the tricks that make it easier to co-exist peacefully with them.

The strange thing about teenagers is that they were just children, who you thought you knew pretty well, and then suddenly they are different - and that changes almost daily. Sometimes you meet them as a lion at the watering hole, then again as a wildebeest or an elephant. You never know exactly what you will encounter tomorrow. On the other hand, you have a comfortable starting point to learn more about the teenager from direct observation.

Never forget how shy - or violent - teenagers can be when they think they are being surprised by adults.

The first thing to do is to study their behaviour carefully. You hardly ever see them in the morning and when you do, they are hardly approachable. If you want to find out something about them, you have to wait until midday or evening. This is when the shy creatures come out of their burrows into the daylight and to feed. These are the best hours to elicit the secrets of their existence and to realise who you are dealing with.

In the past, I often made the mistake of being too brash. I asked them all sorts of things, to which they only replied in monosyllables, growling or grunting, without revealing anything. I therefore soon learnt to behave as inconspicuously as possible, to signal disinterest and to wait until they spoke on their own.

Especially if you have two specimens at home, you can be confident that they will venture out at some point and make contact with their sibling. This often takes the form of provocation, which does not lead to the desired result, as you rarely find out anything interesting in an argument.

Simply feed teenagers with love and understanding.

It's completely different when they're in a peaceful mood. Then they talk about memes and other stuff from the internet, for example. You may only understand what they're saying, but don't worry: that's normal. You can now hope that the relaxed atmosphere will lead to a conversation. And once they start talking, they usually give you an insight into their inner life, which they usually keep under wraps. These are the moments that a teenage mum lives for, the moments that can lead to quantum leaps in research.

For example, you can find out who is in love with whom, who has arguments with whom, who smokes and uses drugs and who does not. This is important information for a teenage mum, so restraint is all the more important now. Never forget how shy - or violent - teenagers can be when they think they are being surprised by adults. Gather the information, analyse it calmly and only use it if absolutely necessary.

Otherwise, simply feed them with love and understanding. And you will experience the day when you suddenly find the former teenager to be a normal adult.