What should I do when my teenage son says, "I don't care"?

Tips on how to approach it when you know he is disappointed

Your teenage son doesn’t make the travel baseball team. He makes a C on the test he studied really hard for. His girlfriend breaks up with him. As a concerned parent, you approach your teenage son to talk. You have thoughts and advice rehearsed in your head that you want to impart to your son about how he can recover and be a better person. When you ask your son how he feels about what happened, hoping to start a meaningful discussion, his response is, “I don’t care.” It can be a jarring response, especially if you have expected your son to open up to you about how he feels and want to help him deal with the disappointment he has experienced. As a parent,  you want to console him, guide him, give him profound words of wisdom, but what do you do when he slams the door shut to conversation and says, “I don’t care” in response to something happening in his life?

1-Give him space to process in his own way.

While he may not be willing to talk about it with his parents, teenage boys still experience emotional response to events in their lives. As they go through adolescence, they are learning and developing individual coping strategies, so it is important that teenage boys have space to process experiences in their own way. As the parent, you need to be okay with giving him a little space to deal with disappointment how HE sees fit. Try to back away a little and give him some time.

2-Do something physical.

If you know your teenage son is coping with disappointment, it might be worth it to propose some kind of physical activity. Ask him to go for a hike. Take him to the gym. Throw a ball around. Teenage boys often prefer physical movement for emotional expression so think of activities, even helping pull weeds in the yard, to suggest. Physical activity can give him a tangible outlet to cope with emotions he is experiencing.

3-Discuss other topics to keep the communication door open.

When your teenage son responds with “I don’t care,” switch gears and talk about something else. His response is an indicator that he does not want to discuss the topic, but does not necessarily mean he does not want to discuss ANY topic. In therapy with teenage boys, I learned quickly how to pivot conversations when I could tell it would not be productive to try to pull information. So find something else to talk about to keep the door to communication open.

4-Be okay with watching him deal with disappointment.

How can he say, “I don’t care,” when he worked so hard to try to achieve this goal and did not make it? Parenting typically involves wanting to pave a way for our teenagers that does not involve disappointment or heartbreak. But we all, as adults, know that avoiding difficulties is not possible. Take his response as a signal to just step back and handle your own disappointment. You, as the parent, need to be okay with the inevitable disappointment your teenage son will experience.

5-Pay attention to what he does care about.

If he keeps saying he doesn’t care, even when not facing disappointment, whether it is activities, events in his life, possibilities for dinner, then pay attention to what he does care about. How does he spend his time? What does he choose to focus on, when given the opportunity? Because usually, even though your teenage son may say he does not care, he really does.