'Connect Before Correcting': Psychologist Explains What Parents Should Know About Their Teenage Children

It's 9 pm, and the door is shut again. Dinner is untouched again. You knock, get a one-word answer, and stand there in the hallway wondering the same thing many parents of teenagers eventually do: Is this just being 15?

Or is something actually wrong? Slammed doors, monosyllables, a sudden obsession with how they look, a friend group that changes every other month — most of us have been told this is ‘just hormones’. And most of the time, it is.

But sometimes, ordinary moodiness has a different texture. It lingers, starts affecting everyday life, and you can't quite put your finger on why it…