I am a parent of a teenager.

I am currently on a course for parents of teenagers. Let me be clear my teenager and I love each other in a dad/lad sort of way. You might be forgiven for thinking that this is not true, especially at the interchange that takes place virtually every school day concerning the need to get out the bed to actually get to school.

I am though clearly from a different planet to my teenager. We sometimes look at each other like Christopher Eccleston’s Doctor first looked at Rose, which a sense of humour, bemusement and then lets give it a whirl

Sometimes, I appear like I know things. I knew what it was like to split up with a girlfriend, which surprised him… and I knew what it meant to be feel the pain of a friend moving away.

But I do not know what it is like to be a teenager today. I have no idea of the pressures. I could of course attempt to get a visa and some currency to go there, but I would still be out of place.

…. and what I have learnt over the past two weeks…. is that it does not matter that I don’t get it… that I am out of place…. as long as I make time to listen. Listening on the planet teenager is not the same as listening on the planet adult.

Intentionally listening and being on the planet teenager might be my biggest bilingual challenge