Yes, I know I just said that talking was what mattered, and now I’m saying listening is what matters. Don’t get picky with me, smart-arse! Haven’t you been listening yourself, anyway? We’ve just established that being a teenager is a mass of apparent contradictions which do actually make sense deep down. So now I’m joining in. Talking and listening are both what matter. And not only with teenagers, as I hope you’ll realise. This Rule goes for anyone.

You know, sometimes parents can be just like teenagers – they think they know everything. They’ve been teenagers themselves, they’ve learnt stuff since then that their kids don’t understand, they can see the bigger picture – yep, they’re confident they can tell their kids where they’re going wrong and what they need to do to get on in life.

But that’s not true. Your child isn’t the same as you, or the same as anyone else. They’re growing up in a very different world from the one you were raised in. They have their own unique plans and dreams and strengths and fears and hopes. And you have no idea whatever where they’re coming from or where they’re going, apart from the few snippets of information you can glean from them. If you’re listening.

Your only hope of understanding your child is to listen to what they’re telling you. That doesn’t mean pausing until they’ve finished talking and then carrying on regardless. It means properly paying attention, and taking it on board. If their feelings don’t make sense to you, it doesn’t mean your child has no sense, it means you haven’t managed to understand them yet. So try harder.

If your child can see that you’re actually making a real effort to see things from their perspective, they’ll help you. Maybe not every time – they have busy lives, and lie-ins to find time for, and days when expressing themselves doesn’t come easy – but they want you to see things their way, so by and large they’ll explain themselves. But only if you listen and adapt to what they’re saying. If they know that whatever they say you’ll go back to your usual theme – banging on about how they need to work harder, or how the world doesn’t owe them a living, or how they’re too young to understand, or how manners cost nothing, or how early bedtimes are important – why should they bother even trying to explain themselves? Why make the effort if it’s going to fall on deaf ears?

So do your very best to imagine what it must be like to be them, rather than what you would do if you were in their position yourself. Ask questions that show you really want to get your head round their perspective. You don’t have to agree with everything they say, or abandon all the rules they don’t care for. But understand why they struggle with them. They might have a point, you know. Maybe there’s room for compromise, or keeping to one rule but allowing them a different freedom in exchange.

In the last Rule, the third parent didn’t play the heavy-handed enforcer because they listened. They understood how a teenager might want to explore the world for themselves and not just take the adult view at face value. And they realised – because they listened – that their child had learnt for themselves that they didn’t want to repeat the experience. That’s how they knew they didn’t need to berate or punish their child.