Adolescence is often lived as a bewildering journey. Amid the storm of hormones, defiance and change, it is essential to find a map to guide you. And that is precisely what Carmina Benamunt offers in her book Put Yourself in My Shoes.
A mother, mentor and a figure in family support, Carmina invites us to completely rethink the way we relate to our children. With less judgement and more presence, less urgency to correct and more capacity to see who they can become. Her message blends practical clarity with a sensitivity unusual in the field of teenagers. And in this interview, she offers some answers that heal the soul.
-Why do families find it so hard to address adolescence?
Because they settle into a place of criticism, judgement, wanting to change the other, and blaming external factors. And this prevents connecting from the heart, from what is valuable, and much less from being able to see my son or daughter, whether they are in adolescence or preadolescence, in the long term. In other words, we stay very much at the short-term level of what has gone wrong, what isn’t going well, the problem.
When we only look at the problem, families stay trapped in that labyrinth and cannot escape. To exit the labyrinth, we must lift our eyes and set a goal for the relationship I want to live with my child and what is valuable about it. For me, that would be a hugely important point: stop judging, criticising or blaming, and start learning to relate in a way that contributes wellbeing to everyone.
-In your book you invite us to find our inner adolescent. What does this involve?
While studying personal development I found a lot about the inner child and the importance of returning to one’s childhood to heal wounds. But I found little about the adolescent stage.
I believe the inner adolescent is that part of us where we have been connected with the desire to step out into the world, with audacity, with bravery, with courage, and also with fear. And at the same time I think many parents, when they reconnect with that stage and remember how they felt, what happened to them, what they needed, place themselves back in those shoes. And from there it is like a direct catwalk to the life experience and trajectory of your child.
-From your perspective, what do parents need to know about adolescence to approach it better?
One of the things I do when working with families is to enter a space that is, in part, very spiritual as well. Adolescence is a change and change is inevitable, but growth is a choice. In this stage and in all life stages that involve a transition, we should choose to grow.
The adolescent person undergoes a transformation, a change. And the father or mother should move towards that place as well. What happens is that, typically, the father or mother wants to hold on to the roles, the dynamics of early childhood, without moving, without developing.
It is very good that parents are open to change to see that our child is no longer that child. And then there will be less struggle.
And since change is inevitable, the only thing I can do is prepare for that life process. That will minimise more anxieties and clashes and allow connecting from that change to accept what my son or daughter is becoming and what they will become. One of the things that heals a lot and helps parents is when they allow themselves to see what their child could become.
-In the book you put on the table a key word in the era of overprotection, which is “responsibility”. What role does responsibility play in adolescence?
I would say it is the axis of everything. Because, inevitably, the adolescent will demand more freedom, more autonomy, more independence and will want to live their life in their own way. A teenager prefers to make mistakes in their own way than follow mum and dad’s criteria.
In the early childhood years we were educated under a more authoritarian pattern, inadvertently disabling things. Disabling means solving everything. Saying, “let me do it, I’ll do it myself” without safeguarding that developmental process. So the adolescent grows up without learning that they can decide, make a decision, make a mistake, adjust and decide again.
That is why I always tell families that responsibility must be returned to the teenager. To be responsible, we have to activate a process of thinking, and thinking well, thinking productively, thinking collaboratively, thinking that we are a team, thinking for the common good.
-Is this something we can work on from when they are small?
Yes, if this is done from early childhood, it becomes integrated by adolescence. But what I usually see is that it isn’t integrated, and then during adolescence we demand that our child be responsible.
-When we talk about balancing life, we often think of children, not teenagers. But what role does the presence of a father or mother play in their well-being?
Completely, there is a lot of disappearing in this stage because we see them as older than they were as children. So, physically they have grown; they may be undergoing a maturation process, but they still need presence to connect, to be able to talk. If I am a teenager I need to be able to tell someone how I feel, to talk to my father or mother if something happens at school, I need to be connected.
If for days, weeks or even years a child only sees their parents for an hour and a half during homework and bedtime, and that brief time—ten or twenty minutes—is not marked by real presence, by attentive and calm listening, by that inner quiet that says: I am listening to what my child is going through, then, as parents, we will not come to know our child’s inner world.
We need them to know that there is a path to knock on the door — or the heart — of mum or dad and say: “this is happening to me at school.” Because one only opens up when they know the other will respond. If there is doubt, the step is not taken.
That is why I always say: do not give crumbs at home. I know we are tired, I know the day has been hard, we carry tension and stress. But before you get home, undertake some transition. Do sport, meditate, breathe, smile if possible. And when you walk through the door, give your best, because, by the law of cause and effect, that is what you will get back.
-What role does our own well-being play in the relationship we are going to have with the adolescent?
It matters everything, because you cannot create anything new or good from distress. The most important relationships we have are the family ones, because we always come home. You may be doing very well professionally, but if at home there isn’t a good connection, if you don’t feel truly understood, if there’s no harmony, that taints everything. I urge families to persevere and strive not to settle for family distress.
We need to take a step forward to create the family environment we want. All that is required is to decide and be prepared to do what is necessary.
-Another topic that concerns us more and more is the issue of screens. How has adolescence changed with these new paradigms? And how can we address the problem of new technologies in parenting?
At the centre is presence. Anything that prevents me from being present must go; it has no place here. And what stops us being present? Sometimes it is worry; other times, a screen. Everything that pulls us away from presence, everything that distracts us, needs to be reviewed and adjusted.
How do we do this? By inviting — and taking responsibility — for parents to take the helm. In other words, putting into practice two fundamental values I always speak of: firmness and flexibility.
We will have to be firm, take a step forward and make decisions that are not always comfortable. Because telling a teenager that we will adjust screen use, that there will be a moment of the day when everything goes off, is not easy. But the key is that parents take responsibility and step forward, one step or several, understanding that this is their remit.
A partir de ahí, toca ajustar. Las familias que trabajan conmigo en procesos de mentoría o en la escuela de crecimiento personal saben que este es un camino, no un cambio inmediato. Se va afinando, poco a poco, aquello que se quiere transformar. Se trata de desechar lo que no queremos, como se tira la basura: nadie la guarda en casa. Y si sabemos que algo es dañino para nosotros, no podemos ofrecérselo a nuestros hijos.”
-¿Algún truco en particular para aplicar esa firmeza con el tema de los teléfonos?
Two techniques. The screen blackout after a set hour. Or the control-tower approach—leaving all devices in a single physical place and the person using them is the one who moves. We don’t need to carry our mobiles everywhere.
