“You never understand me!” » If your child is going through adolescence, you are likely to hear such complaints. Communication between adolescents and their parents sometimes poses great challenges, observes Sheilla Fortuné, general director of the L’Ouverture youth center. This is why his organization set up the Teen Parentheses workshops. The Press attended a meeting a few weeks ago.
“L’Ouverture Youth Center”. The name says it. The activities of the organization, which has been dedicated to adolescents in Montreal North for 40 years, are aimed at young people.
However, the Teen workshops in parentheses are an exception. On this Thursday evening, the first floor of the premises on Boulevard Saint-Vital welcomes a few mothers who sit quietly around a long table. While waiting for the two facilitators, they chat while enjoying the meal offered by the organization.
“We are in a neighborhood where there are many socio-economic issues that can have an impact on the lives of young people. […] We intervene with [d’eux] to do prevention, but we also wanted to include parents in the process,” underlines, in an interview, Sheilla Fortuné, general director of the L’Ouverture youth center.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Sheilla Fortuné, general director of the L’Ouverture youth center
In 2021, in collaboration with the Entre parents family house, the organization created these workshops intended for young people aged 12 to 17 and their parents. Since then, around fifteen families have participated each year in this program supported by the Ministry of Public Security, which has just announced the renewal of its funding for three years.
“Family is a protective factor [contre la délinquance], explains Marie Loudy Lucien, speaker who participated in the development of the project. If the child feels good at home, he will be less likely to associate with people who can be a bad influence. […] He doesn’t go looking for validation elsewhere because he knows that where he lives, he has value. »
Strengthen the family bond
The Teens in Parentheses program aims to strengthen the family ties of participants.
The key to achieving this? Communication. A subject that comes up in the eight meetings, during which adults and adolescents are divided into two groups.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
The speakers who lead the workshops: Mithridade Alexandre, Suze Orphilus and Marie Loudy Lucien
On this Thursday evening, while the theme addressed is violence and intimidation, Marie Loudy Lucien and Mithridade Alexandre explain to parents how encouraging your child to assert themselves can help limit the risks of intimidate. To do this, adults can invite their young person to name their emotions, says Marie Loudy Lucien, a practice “which is not necessarily natural for a teenager”.
“Is it easy for you to put your emotions into words? », Asked, a few minutes earlier, the speaker Suze Orphilus to the young people gathered in the basement. A unanimous “no” echoed in the room.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Suze Orphilus presents the workshop to young people.
“We give the same workshop upstairs with the parents and downstairs with the young people. […] The same tools are presented, but differently,” explains Sheilla Fortuné. While upstairs, the adults take notes and ask a lot of questions, in the basement, Suze Orphilus invites the young people to play a game to transmit information to them while keeping their attention.
Young Quebecers
The vast majority of participants have an immigrant background. The differences between the ways of doing things in Quebec and those of their country of origin sometimes accentuate communication problems in families, observes the general director.
Born in Montreal-North to parents who immigrated from Haiti, Marie Loudy Lucien can attest to this.
I often felt incomprehension within my family regarding the needs I had as a young Quebecer.
Marie Loudy Lucien
Years later, she noticed a similar speech among the teenagers she met.
“We are not asking the parent to leave their entire culture aside,” explains Sheilla Fortuné. We seek to help her better understand her child’s reality. »
Connections with an entire community
Arriving in Quebec in 2022, Ylner Point Dujour confirms that participating in Ados entre parentheses allowed him to better understand the functioning of Quebec society. “The workshops improved my relationship with my daughter,” he adds, during a discussion punctuated with words in Creole.
PHOTO JOSIE DESMARAIS, THE PRESS
Sheilla Fortuné and Nour Mallem
Mother of a boy and a girl, Nour Mallem agrees. “It helped me strengthen family ties, to understand how to understand my children,” confides the one who participated in the workshops about a year ago. She loved the youth center team so much that she now works there.
“It’s also a time to build relationships with other families,” says Sheilla Fortuné.
“It often happens to us that a parent explains a situation that they are experiencing in their family and that there are other parents who will say that they have been there,” she continues.
The sixth cohort of Teens in Parentheses ended last month, but already a new group is getting underway. The start of the meetings will take place on Thursday.
Visit the website of the L’Ouverture youth center