ABSTRACT
This chapter describes a role-play intervention that therapists can use when working with older children and adolescents. The attached handout may be used to help educate parents about adolescent developmental tasks, and to provide them with a rationale for the need to modify their parenting to allow teens to develop increasing autonomy and independence. Preadolescent and adolescent children are dealing with several developmental issues, and families often get 'stuck' as they enter into this new stage of the family life cycle. The handout can be used in conjoint sessions with parents to help couples begin discussing these issues, as well as to prepare parents for this activity. This role-reversal activity can be an effective intervention in helping the parents and adolescents renegotiate the nature of their relationship to allow for more optimal development. The therapist starts by explaining some of the concerns that the parents have and some of the recent interactions that the parents have had with their teenager.
