Understanding Your Teenager’s Feelings: What Might Lie Behind “Nothing”
Recently, a conversation with my 16-year-old son made me reflect on something I had not fully understood as a parent.
We can listen to our children and still miss what they are experiencing.
And even when we do not understand them at the time, continuing to talk with them can matter.
My son helped me recognise both of these things.
“Mummy, no one at my new school says anything about my hair.”
He mentioned it casually one day, some time after changing schools.
My son has long hair.
It was only when he said those words that I began to see his experiences at his previous school from a different perspective.
Understanding your teenager’s feelings can be difficult, particularly when you know something is wrong but cannot work out what it is.
You ask whether something has happened, and they say:
“Nothing.”
“I’m fine.”
Even when they do tell you something, you may not understand what it means to them.
I had spent a long time wondering what was happening as I watched my son’s behaviour change.
I Believed Him When He Said He Wasn’t Being Bullied
About eighteen months ago, my son suddenly became unable to go to school.
Until then, I had not realised how much he had been struggling emotionally.
I contacted his school and tried to talk with him as much as I could.
During one of our conversations, he told me that some children in his class had touched his body about six months earlier.
He said he had firmly told them never to do it again, and that it had not happened to him since.
I asked him:
“Are you being bullied?”
“No, I’m not being bullied,” he replied.
I believed him.
But he was also telling me other things.
His classroom was so noisy that he could not concentrate.
The dining hall was too loud for him to go into.
He had stopped talking to his friends as much and wanted to be alone.
During breaks, he increasingly spent time by himself in the music room.
One day, he found out that the music room would be unavailable for several days because of building work.
He burst into tears.
I remember feeling confused.
Why would not being able to use the music room upset him so much?
There were also occasions when he suddenly began crying during lessons, and the school contacted me.
When I asked him why he had cried, he told me:
“I don’t know why. I just started crying.”
Sometimes, Young People Do Not Yet Understand Their Own Distress
As a parent, I wanted to know why.
What had happened?
What was upsetting him?
What could help him return to how he had been before?
But people cannot always explain their feelings clearly.
Adults experience this too.
I don’t know why I’m so exhausted.
I don’t understand why I keep crying.
I just don’t want to go there.
Sometimes we feel distressed without being able to identify or explain the reason.
Adolescence can bring experiences and emotions that are particularly difficult to put into words.
If a young person does not recognise something that has happened to them as bullying, they may genuinely answer “No” when asked whether they are being bullied.
They are not necessarily hiding the truth.
They may not yet have understood the experience as something serious enough to seek help for.
I have also wondered whether my son might have felt uncomfortable with the idea of being bullied.
Perhaps acknowledging it would have made him feel weak.
Perhaps that was why he did not want to describe himself as someone who was being bullied.
But these are my reflections now. Only my son can know what he was feeling at the time.
Later, I learnt that children at his previous school had been making comments about his long hair almost every day.
They would say he looked like a girl.
When I found out, I asked him:
“That’s bullying. Why didn’t you tell me?”
He replied:
“It didn’t bother me, so I didn’t think it was bullying.”
Looking back, I still wonder whether those comments might have affected him in ways he had not recognised.
I cannot say that the comments about his hair were the reason he stopped attending school or experienced emotional difficulties. Several factors may have been involved.
But being in an environment where people repeatedly comment on your appearance could carry a burden, even when you believe you are not bothered by it.
Did it affect him?
I still do not know.
What I began to realise was that a young person may not fully understand the impact of an experience while it is happening.
Understanding Your Teenager’s Feelings: When Behaviour Speaks Before Words
Looking back, my son had been telling me many things.
The noise was unbearable.
He could not go into the cafeterior.
He wanted to be alone.
He felt more comfortable in the music room.
Losing access to that space was deeply upsetting.
Sometimes, he cried without knowing why.
But at the time, I could not see how these experiences might fit together.
I wondered whether he had particularly sensitive hearing, so I took him to hospital.
His hearing was found to be normal.
After that, I began asking myself a different question.
Other children manage in the same environment.
Why can’t my son?
Gradually, my thoughts became more critical.
Perhaps he needs to learn to tolerate things.
Perhaps he is being spoilt.
Perhaps he is simply not resilient enough.
Not knowing what was happening was deeply unsettling.
When we cannot understand something, we may search for an explanation that makes the situation feel more manageable.
I was doing exactly that.
Perhaps it’s his personality.
Perhaps he’s being spoilt.
Perhaps he’s too sensitive.
But looking back, none of these explanations began with what my son was actually experiencing.
Somewhere along the way, my attention had shifted.
Instead of asking what was making his experience so difficult, I had begun wondering whether there was something wrong with him.
What I Began to See After His Environment Changed
Later, when my son moved on to a different school, his daily environment changed.
Gradually, he seemed brighter and more energetic.
That does not mean I can conclude that his previous school was the cause of his emotional difficulties.
Our emotional wellbeing can be influenced by many different factors.
Nevertheless, seeing the change in him made me reflect on what I might have missed.
Then, one day, he casually said:
“Mummy, no one at my new school says anything about my hair.”
That was when I learnt that comments about his hair had been an almost daily occurrence at his previous school.
Despite those comments, he had never cut his hair or changed the style he liked.
For the first time, I saw something else in that choice:
his determination, his strength, and perhaps a little stubbornness too.
I told him:
“You’re such a strong boy. Mummy is so proud of you. I’m really sorry I didn’t realise you were being bullied. But you need to tell Mummy these things too, because otherwise I can’t know.”
I thought I was acknowledging his experience and apologising for what I had failed to notice.
But what he said next made me reconsider much more than that.
Listening and Believing Are Not Necessarily the Same Thing
Somewhere in the back of my mind, I had hoped that if I apologised sincerely, my son might forgive me and feel able to open up a little more.
Instead, he said:
“It’s fine, whatever. But Mummy, when I told you things, you didn’t believe me.”
I was shocked.
Since he had stopped going to school, I had contacted the school, taken him to hospital and spent hours trying to understand what was happening.
I thought I had been doing everything I could to listen.
Yet from his perspective, I had not believed him.
At first, I felt confused and hurt.
But when I reflected on our conversations, I began to see what he might have meant.
When he told me:
“The classroom is so noisy I can’t stand it.”
“The cafeterior is too loud. I can’t go in.”
I had been thinking:
But the other children manage. Why is it so difficult for him?
When he told me:
“I want to be alone.”
“I don’t want to talk to anyone.”
I had responded:
“If you want to be alone right now, that’s fine. But people can’t live entirely on their own, so I think you should try to talk to other people too.”
I had heard his words.
But before fully taking in what he was telling me, I had placed my own questions and concerns over his experience.
Why?
Will he be all right if this continues?
From his point of view, he had been telling me that the noise was unbearable and that he did not want to talk to people.
Perhaps my responses had made him feel that I did not believe how difficult those things genuinely were for him.
That was when I began to understand an important distinction.
Listening to someone and believing what they say about their own experience are not necessarily the same thing.
This is something I also recognise as important in counselling.
When someone describes an experience, it can be tempting to move straight towards questions or possible solutions.
But why?
Other people seem to manage.
Wouldn’t it help if you tried this?
Yet before looking for an explanation, there is value in beginning with something simpler:
This is genuinely how the situation feels to this person.
I do not have to understand another person’s experience completely in order to recognise that their feelings are real.
Not understanding how someone feels is not the same as refusing to believe that they feel that way.
My son helped me recognise that distinction.
You Can Keep Talking Even When You Do Not Fully Understand Your Child
There was another important part of this experience.
At the time, I did not fully understand what my son was going through.
I sometimes misunderstood what he was trying to tell me.
But we continued talking.
When you ask a teenager what is happening inside, the answer may be:
“Nothing.”
“I don’t know.”
My son himself could not explain why he sometimes started crying.
Over time, I began to feel that maintaining everyday conversation mattered more than trying to draw out an explanation for everything he was experiencing.
It did not always have to be about school or his difficulties.
We could talk about music.
Something small that had happened that day.
Something we had seen that made us laugh.
Sometimes, something important emerges during an ordinary conversation, without anyone deliberately asking for it.
That was how my son told me about his hair.
I had not asked him a question about bullying or his previous school.
He simply mentioned it while we were talking.
I had not understood everything he was experiencing at the time.
But because we had continued talking, I was there to hear what he wanted to share when he was ready.
Even as parents, we cannot expect to understand everything happening in our children’s minds.
We may not recognise every sign immediately.
We may misunderstand what they mean.
But not understanding does not have to mean giving up on communication.
Ordinary conversations can help keep a connection open.
And that connection may allow us to hear something important when our child eventually feels ready to say it.
Parents Are Allowed Not to Have All the Answers
When a child begins to struggle, it is easy to feel that, as their parent, you should understand what is happening.
And when you discover something you did not know before, you may find yourself asking:
How did I not notice?
But a child’s inner world is not an extension of their parent’s.
Even when we are close to them and care deeply about them, there will be things we cannot see.
Perhaps our role is not to understand everything correctly from the beginning.
Perhaps it is also about being able to stay with the uncertainty of not knowing, while keeping the relationship open.
Something that makes little sense today may become clearer through an ordinary conversation much later.
Not understanding something the first time does not mean the opportunity has gone.
We can return to it.
I didn’t understand that at the time.
So that was how it felt to you.
Perhaps communication between parents and children is less about finding the right interpretation immediately and more about continuing to discover who the other person is.
When we cannot understand what our child is feeling, our worry may also make us want to offer advice, intervene or tell them what to do.
I have written separately about that experience of wondering how much to step in and when to stand back.
🌿 When Worrying About Your Child Leaves You Struggling Too
When you are worried about your child, you may find yourself thinking:
Have I got something wrong as a parent?
Should I have noticed sooner?
I don’t know how to respond any more.
Alongside your concern for your child, you may be carrying uncertainty, guilt or a sense that you should have done something differently.
Counselling is not about being told the correct way to raise your child.
But it can offer time to talk through the feelings that have arisen while trying to understand what your child is going through.
Why didn’t I notice?
Could I have done something differently?
You can bring those questions into counselling without having found the answers.
If you would like some time to reflect on how this experience has affected you, Locus of Life offers a quiet space to talk about your own feelings, as well as your concerns for your child.
[🔽 Book your free 30-minute online session here]
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