Yanti, a 48-year-old manager at a financial institution in Jakarta, experienced this one evening after a long day at work. When she arrived home, her teenage daughter, Alia, was still in her school uniform, sitting in the living room and absorbed in a game on her mobile phone. Empty snack packets were scattered across the sofa.

“Seeing her like that, I just asked one simple question: ‘Why haven’t you taken a bath?’” Yanti recalled.

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The response stunned her. The 13-year-old flung her phone onto the sofa and snapped that her mother should not have come home at all if all she wanted to do was disturb her. She then stormed into her room and slammed the door.

Yanti stood frozen, trying to understand what had just happened.

“What did I do wrong?” she asked.

Scenes like this have become increasingly familiar to parents of teenagers. A minor comment can quickly escalate into an emotional rupture, leaving adults unsure whether they crossed a line or are simply out of sync with their children’s world.

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