By Lynne Smith, LMSW | June 14, 2025
By: Lynne Smith, LMSW
Parents naturally have authority in their homes because parents create and manage the home environment in which their children learn and grow. And how we use this authority in our relational connection as parents shape what children learn and how they grow. Children who experience validating environments are more likely to feel connected and understood, to learn how to communicate needs and emotions effectively, and to experience meaningful relationships as they relate to others and develop their sense of self. These things are important for adolescents to develop a sense of identity. So how can we validate our teen’s emotions when their behaviors don’t make sense to us, are disrespectful, or create problems for themselves or others?
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) teaches us both how to do this and why it’s important. According to DBT, “validation of others’ feelings, beliefs, experiences, and actions is essential in building any relationship of trust and intimacy.” But what can we validate when the behavior we see doesn’t make sense to us? We can start by validating the facts of the situation.
When your teen refuses to get up in the morning and screams, “I’m not going to school today!” from their room. Instead of yelling back and telling them to get up, they’re going anyway, consider going up to their room, making eye contact, and gently saying, “Hey, I get that school can be challenging, and I’m wondering if something happened that makes going to school today especially difficult?”
Or when your teen walks away from you when you bring up a challenging topic. Instead of snapping, “You get back here right now!” consider thinking about what’s been going on with your teen, how they reacted to similar conversations in the past, and say something like, “I understand these conversations are difficult for you. Talking about this would be difficult for anyone. And I find that talking through it can be helpful. Let’s take a 5-minute break, then come back together.”
Notice that we didn’t validate the school refusal or the walking away. Rather, we validated the emotions and the difficulty of the situation. By validating what is true about a situation, we can keep the conversation going and work together to solve the problem in a way that’s effective.
Still concerned about losing authority if you validate your teen’s emotions? Consider that people generally need to know that we care about them before they’re able to listen to us and learn from what we have to say. Our teens are no different. By prioritizing our relationship with our teens, we first seek to understand our teens and acknowledge their emotions, opinions, and any other thing that’s true about a situation. Then, once we’ve connected, we can share our own feelings about the situation and even re-direct a problematic behavior if needed.
Validation de-escalates conflict and reduces emotional intensity, which helps us as parents remain calm as we influence the behavior of our teens through modeling effective behaviors, prompting for the behavior we want to see, and reinforcing effective behaviors when we see them. When we’re calm, we’re less likely to be critical or judgmental, to dismiss our teen’s concerns, to make threats, or to insist on being right – all of which can feel invalidating to our teen. Invalidation hurts our relationships and reduces the probability that our teens will come to us when they need support. And frequently we aren’t trying to be invalidating, it just happens. So when you notice a situation or conversation is getting worse, consider the possibility that your teen has experienced something as invalidating and use your validation skills to repair and re-connect.
In DBT, there are 6-levels of validation:
- Pay Attention (look interested, listen, and observe)
- Reflect Back (say back what you heard or observed without judgmental language or tone)
- “Read Minds” (be sensitive to what is not being said and pay attention to body language)
- Understand (look for how what you’re observing makes sense even if you don’t approve of the behavior)
- Acknowledge the Valid (show that you see your teen’s thoughts, feelings, or actions are valid given their history and current situation)
- Show Equality (be yourself and don’t treat your teen as fragile or incompetent)
Practice using validation the next time your teen does something that doesn’t make sense to you, is disrespectful or causes a problem for themselves or someone else. And be open to the possibility that by first seeking to understand and communicating that your teen’s feelings, thoughts, desires, and goals make sense given the situation, you may actually increase your authority in your home because your teen may be more likely to come to you for support when they need it most.