Your problems solved by The Midults

Q: Dear A&E, I am dreading my 19-year-old daughter returning from university for Christmas. Ever since she’s gone away she’s become more entitled, is very demanding about her ‘own space’, is vile to her younger brother, comes home at all hours and doesn’t slot into the family routine. Last Christmas she returned every present she was given. I’m concerned that there will be cataclysmic rows when everyone is under one roof. My wife is as tense as I am. I don’t know what to do. Any tips? — Bad Dad

Dear Bad Dad, first of all, and we cannot stress this enough, you are not a bad dad. A child therapist once told us that problematic situations blossom when parents bring their children in and say, ‘Fix her, she’s broken,’ rather than saying, ‘I don’t want to have a bad relationship with my child. What should I be doing differently?’ So well done for the selfexamination, which can be tough when teenagers are being awful. Which, incidentally, is their job.

Anyway, Bad Dad, dreading Christmas is normal, normal, normal (*screams into the void*), as is dreading teenagers. No one knows better how to press your buttons than your adultish children. They are basically torturers with insider knowledge; they understand what is going to skewer your self-esteem and fan the flames of your fury. Ask anyone: ask your friends, ask the person in the queue at Waitrose who is carrying coconut milk because their child has returned from university and declared themselves vegan (although they will still eat pigs in blankets, just you watch). You will survive this onslaught, Bad Dad. Just arm yourself with the following.

1. Laissez-faire: do not get upset when they reject your carefully thought-out gifts. Just put a gift receipt in the box and let them get on with it. Emilie is still tortured by the memory of shouting, ‘But you know I don’t like round-neck jumpers,’ at her mother and then running off and crying for about five hours.

2. Empathy: this is the main one. It would be very easy for us to savage your daughter’s weather system (selfish, self-obsessed, self, self, self ), but what is behind the tornado? She is at university, where she follows her own rules and rhythms, and where, much of the time, she feels a bit frightened and lost. She is out in the world, but she is still a child. Probably a child with spots and a hangover but a child nonetheless. She may be confused as to where she belongs, uncertain about who she is. She’s acting like she knows everything because she’s suddenly aware that she knows next to nothing.

Home is a safe place, and she has no doubt saved up all her anxieties for her safe place – you can’t slam a door at university without everyone thinking you are a diva, so you have to keep it all inside and pretend you’re fine.

A large part of you knows what we are about to say: you are going to have to weather the storm, and be there, taking the hits and letting her know that you will always love her.

However, you don’t have to roll over and play dead: set boundaries. Make it clear that if she is polite and reasonable then you will do your best to make her Christmas as cosy and treaty as possible; that you understand she is an adult and you respect her opinion. But if she is unpleasant, then she can expect nothing from you in terms of cooperation, money or presents. You might have to follow through on this. Though probably only once. One of the most psychologically useful things you can do for a child of any age is to follow through.

So yes, she is going to wind you all up, but you know your child, and we suspect you know she is capable of utter gorgeousness. The key is to lower your expectations.

Organise things that are fun for the three of you, but have room for a fourth if she decides she wants to come. Don’t worry about late nights, don’t sweat the presents, and give her the space she needs. It’s hard at Christmas because you remember how they used to be, but slowly you will build new traditions – and they might be just as brilliant.

Do you have a dilemma that you’re grappling with? Email Annabel and Emilie on themidults@telegraph.co.uk. All questions are kept anonymous. They are unable to reply to emails personally

Teenagers are basically torturers with insider knowledge