At some point, the shift happens, and you don’t see it coming. One day, you’re the person who knows things. Next, you’re the person who doesn’t know anything, which you mostly find out through the look on their face when you speak.
If you’re trying to figure out how to get a teenager to respect you, here’s the honest version: you can’t demand it. The harder you push for it, the faster it disappears. Teenagers know when they’re being handled. The second they feel it, you’ve lost them.
TL;DR: Respect from a teenager isn’t given because you’re the parent. That stopped working around grade seven. You earn it the same way you’d earn it from anyone else: by being someone worth respecting.
My oldest is into fitness. Diet, training, the whole thing. At some point, I offered an opinion, and he was polite about it, but what he was really saying was that he had this one covered. He probably did. The information available to a motivated teenager now, compared to what I had at his age, isn’t even close. He has access to coaches, programs, and research I found out about through trial and error and whatever was in the back of a Men’s Health.
I’ve been him, though. Same age, same phase, same certainty that I had it figured out. I didn’t. That’s just not something you know yet.
He also runs a thrifting business with a friend. Maple City Threads. I’m a marketer. He’s never asked for my input on it.
Early on, I offered some anyway. Mostly got ignored. At first, that bothered me. Why wouldn’t you want to hear from someone who does this for a living? Then I got it. They want to build it themselves.
Got a thank-you recently for an AI recommendation that’s actually helping with schoolwork, something that teaches rather than just telling you the answer. Turns out they’re listening. If you’re thinking about how your kid is using AI, worth a read.
I used to offer a lot more unsolicited opinions than I do now. Most of them I keep to myself. If one of my boys wants to go to school in a t-shirt when it’s raining, that’s their call. They will be cold and figure it out. If it’s -25 and the boys are heading out without a coat, I step in. That’s not a character-building moment. That’s just a bad idea.
The other stuff is smaller, but it adds up.
Do what you say you’re going to do. If you said you’d be there, be there. If you said you’d look into something, look into it.
Admit when you’re wrong. Not as a big moment, just cleanly. You were sure about something, it turns out you weren’t, you own it and move on. Nobody respects someone who can’t do that. Teenagers included.
Give them their space. Knock before you walk in. Don’t share things about them without asking. Treat their life as theirs. That goes for their online life too. It also helps to actually know what they’re saying.
None of this is quick. It builds over time, and some days it feels like you’re getting nowhere.
But there’s usually a moment, quiet and unremarkable, where you realize the dynamic has shifted. They ask your opinion and actually wait for the answer. They tell you something they didn’t have to tell you. They laugh at one of your dad jokes without checking to see if anyone is watching.
That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
You don’t get their respect by being the person who doesn’t know anything. You get it by being someone worth respecting.
Some days that’s a high bar. But it’s the right one.
