A Quiet Lesson from the John Lewis Christmas Ad: Seeing Each Other Again

This year’s John Lewis Christmas advert has stayed with me — not for the music, not for the nostalgia — but for a quiet decision a teenager makes.

He doesn’t discover that his dad had a life before fatherhood when the gift is opened. He already knows. That’s the point. He chooses a record because he understands: “You’re not just ‘Dad’. You’re a person with a past, with tastes and dreams that existed long before me.” The present isn’t a surprise; it’s recognition.

That, to me, is the quiet lesson. Not a big speech. Not a dramatic hug. Just a simple act of seeing. If you are a parent parenting teenagers, read on...

In my work with families, that’s where things change. Not with perfect strategies, but with perspective.

The moment that matters (and why)

We often talk about empathy. It’s essential. But there’s another skill I’m always inviting families into: mentalising — holding another person's experience and mind in mind. It isn’t sentimental. It’s cognitive. It’s tabout asking, “What might this feel like for you?” even when I don’t agree, even when I’m tired, even when I’m certain.

That teenager in the advert is mentalising. He’s saying, without words: “I know you had a life before. I’m interested in it. I respect it.” And the father receives not just a record, but a moment of being known, recognised and seen as an individual not just as a parent.

What changes in a home when this happens? Arguments reduce. Respect grows. The roles (“provider”, “problem”, “rule-maker”, “rule-breaker”) are not the dominant influences but two people.

“You don’t need to wait until you’re a parent to understand your parents”

We usually learn this too late, don’t we? We grow up, have our own responsibilities, and suddenly think, Oh… so that’s why they were so tired. That’s why that mattered. The advert offers something braver: you don’t need to wait.

Teenagers can practise this now. Parents can, too.

And here’s the part we often miss: when parents remember they had a before — the bands they loved, the risks they took, the heartbreaks they carried — they become a little softer with themselves. #

From that softness, it’s easier to be softer and understanding with a teenager who’s still finding their way.

If your home feels tense right now

Maybe your teen is shutting down. Maybe your teen is displaying various difficult Teenage Behaviour ( smoking weed, running away, refusing to go ot school).

Maybe every conversation turns into a debate about tone, chores, phone time, curfews.

Maybe you feel that you can continue to deal with difficult teens at home.

Maybe you’re both exhausted by the dance: you push, they pull away; you back off, they drift further.

Before you reach for new rules, let's think about empathy and menatlising.

Empathy vs. mentalising

Empathy says, “I can feel your feeling."

Mentalising says, “I can imagine your experience, and why you’re or might be feeling it.”

Both matter. Together, they move us from reacting to relating.

When a teen rolls their eyes and mutters, “You don’t get it,” empathy hears the frustration. Mentalising wonders about the why: Is this about control? Fear? Embarrassment? A need for space? 

We don’t have to approve of a behaviour to be curious about its meaning.

And when a parent snaps, “Because I said so,” empathy hears the fatigue.

Mentalising wonders: How many invisible challenges are they carrying today? What does respect and freedom mean to my parent? How do they see me as their child?

This isn’t about letting everything go. It’s about letting understanding lead.

Quiet Ways This Looks in Everyday Life — A Mentalising Lens

Mentalising isn’t a technique. It’s a cognitive moment — a pause — where you say:

“Let me try to understand what life feels like for you right now.”

It’s not about agreeing, approving, or fixing. It’s about being curious about the other person's experience, feelings and thoughts and what it might feel like to be them in a particular circumstances.

These are the kinds of questions that strengthen that skill — for both parents and teenagers.

For Parents

Instead of “Why are you being difficult?”a mentalising parent asks:

• What might my child be feeling underneath this reaction?

• If I stepped into their mind for a moment, what would this situation look like from where they stand?

• If they are telling their friends about me, what would they say?

• If they are sharing the difficulties or problems they are experiencing at home to their friends, what would the share and how they would describe it?

  
  

These questions don’t excuse behaviour.They simply help you see the person inside it.

For Teenagers

And teenagers, if they ever learned to mentalise their parents, might pause and ask:

• What is my parent worried about in this moment?

• What pressure are they under that I rarely acknowledge?

• If they seem strict, what fear might be underneath that?

• If I wasn’t defensive for a moment, what are they trying to show me? what are their intentions?

  
  

I am not asking you to idealise your parents. Just to see them.

It’s not about being perfect. It’s not a technique. It’s not a script.

It’s the quiet micro-moments when someone in the family says:

• Hold on, I’m trying to understand you.

• I wonder what this feels like for you.

• Let me pause before I react.

• Maybe there’s more to this than what I see.

  
  

Nothing flashy.Nothing cinematic. Just small, repeated acts of curiosity — the kind that turn down conflict and turn up connection.

And that’s exactly what the John Lewis advert captures:that brief pause where a teenager sees his father as a human being, not just a role.

That is mentalising. That is what changes relationships.

When families rediscover each other

After three decades with parents and teenagers — high-achieving families, complex histories, beautiful mess — I’ve learned this: families don’t transform because they find the perfect script.

They transform because someone, often the adult, decides to see more.

To see the person behind the role. To see the fear beneath the fury. To see the longing beneath the laziness. To see the history that shaped the habit.

That kind of seeing doesn’t erase boundaries. It makes them kinder. It doesn’t silence conflict. It makes it safer. And it often begins with something as small as a record chosen on purpose — a nod to a life that didn’t start with you and won’t end with you, but includes you, deeply.

A gentle invitation

If this lands for you — if you’d like support to move your family from power struggles to partnership — this is the work I do every day.

At Rainbow Parenting Practice, I help parents and teenagers rebuild trust, reduce conflict, and learn the quiet skills that hold relationships together: perspective, presence, and language that heals rather than hardens.

If you’re ready to begin, work with me here

Pei-I

🌈There's always hope, endless hope.