Adolescence is the time of life when rebellion is the most important thing. The rapid changes in hormones, the untiring search for one’s own identity and the frequent frustrations that these rapidly changing situations entail mean that, very often, adolescents tend not to assume commitments and always act on their own .

This means that, if a certain balance is to be found in everyday domestic and family life, negotiating with these teenagers is very necessary. However, this is not an easy task and often trying to reach an agreement can lead to even more conflict and anxiety. But it is not mission impossible.

Making pacts and agreements with adolescents

The first thing that we must bear in mind before embarking on a negotiation is that this is a long-term project that requires ongoing efforts. To believe that having reached an agreement has already made the teenager enter into the dynamic of reaching agreements and keeping his word is to ignore the way people behave: actions must be converted into habits so that they last and appear spontaneously with hardly any effort.

That means that all the effort and effort that we save when the adolescents have already assimilated the negotiations must be invested at the beginning of this process, to be withdrawn little by little.

Let us therefore begin with the keys to negotiating with adolescents and young people at the stage of puberty .

1. Making the adolescent seek negotiation

Parents and guardians of adolescents have a lot of power over the things that happen in their lives, and using them to improve the degree to which they can accept negotiation situations is totally legitimate.

This means that, if at the beginning these young people do not want to negotiate, we should not force the appearance of pacts , because the agreements we may reach will be fictitious: they will only exist in our imagination.

Therefore, when faced with the refusal to take the first steps to accept a negotiation process, it is necessary to act consistently with the attitude of the adolescent and make one’s own position inflexible. This simply means that we will set rules unilaterally .

Ultimately, if a teen is not willing to assume a degree of freedom in which he or she can accept or reject options in a negotiation, then he or she must follow rules. The message here is that moving towards a greater degree of independence involves making agreements as an adult . Negotiating at any price is not an option.

But it is essential that these rules are the ones that we can enforce if they are broken. If breaking them doesn’t have any consequences, it’s as if the rules don’t exist . That is why we must work on our own assertiveness.

2. Negotiating in an emotionally neutral situation

It is important that the first steps of negotiation are taken not in the midst of anger and tantrums, but when calm reigns. This will make sure that the conditions of the other party are not interpreted as attacks or provocations , and it will also help to detect those points that you are really not willing to accept because of their objective characteristics and those others that are not accepted because of what that would mean in the context of a discussion.

3. The sacred rule: always keep the word

Not doing what was said before is devastating for negotiations with adolescents, even if it only happens once . This applies both to cases where the adolescent keeps his word but we do not, and to cases where it is the adolescent who breaks the agreement and the adult does not act accordingly.

In the end, the value of negotiations is based on trust and consistency . They serve to remove a degree of uncertainty about what will happen if the adolescent behaves in one way or another, and if they do not fulfil that function, they are worthless.

That is why it is necessary to comply with the facts that negotiations have a value and can be useful for both parents and adolescents.

4. Going back to previous stages

If we are on a streak where a teenager is willing to negotiate but at some point stops, it is important not to try to continue to negotiate by force; as we have seen in point one, that will be like building a fiction in the air, and the deal will not happen.

Therefore, in these cases we have to do the same thing that has been said in point number one : do not negotiate and set rules unilaterally. We should not be blinded by the feeling that we have made progress, nor should we see this as a sign that all previous negotiations have served no purpose. On the contrary, when comparing the return of unilateral rules with the agreements reached in the past, the second option is more attractive .

5. Knows the interests of the adolescent

The best thing to do with negotiations is to make them fit the needs and aspirations of the other party .

This means that the effectiveness of negotiation depends on the degree to which we tailor our options to the unique and individual characteristics of the person in front of us. In the case of negotiation with children, parents can make good use of their knowledge about this person.