Parenting Teens

Sometimes parents get so wound up in day-to-day activities that forget how to enjoy their children. This is especially true when children enter the turbulent adolescent years (12 – 19). The job of parenting becomes more and more complex as teens go through physical and cognitive changes. Conflicts naturally arise when a child starts on the adolescent development journey to explore and create a life of his own. He wants independence and freedom. Parents want safety and cooperation. This development process is unstable and complex because the teen is adjusting to a sexually mature body and to chemical and hormonal swings that confuse him. These mood swings often appear as defiant behavior to parents.

There are a number of things parents can do with their adolescents to reduce individual and family stress, especially in the relationship aria. The best insurance against alcohol and drug abuse or other problems is a good relationship with their teenager. Relationships depend on verbal and non-verbal communication skills (What you say, How you say it and What you do). It is very important to develop cooperative relationships between parents and teens. Each family is different but there are a number of concepts that most families report as helpful.

Understand that your child is doing through a lot of change in the adolescent years. The 12 - to 15 –year-old period is the most social phase of child development. Friendships are made and broken weekly and new found friends seem more important than family commitments. Talk about your own teen experience with friendships and how hard it was for you (keep it brief). Do not ask for details on your teen’s new friends immediately. Instead let the information unfold over the days. Teens hate interrogations and often feel pressured to lie to parents to protect their friends.

Examine your expectations for your teen’s behavior. Are they really your own, based on today’s situations, or are they just carryovers from a past generation? Then join your partner to establish rules and limits for your teenager. Both of you can talk with your teen about his understanding of the rules. He may respond that other teens get more freedom and later curfews than he does. Acknowledge this and say, that you will start with your rules, and if the child handles it well, you will look at changes in about a month. You will also need to develop appropriate consequences for the time when the rule is broken. Consequences should be fair, progressive and consistently applied.

Watch the ‘no’ word. Teens are trying to do a lot of things at once and often underestimate the time required for school work, chores and being with friends.

Do not criticize your child for making mistakes. If you want to know what is going on in your teen’s life, you have to be able to hear it without being negative or threatening.

Pick your battles carefully. Let teens learn from wearing weird clothes, getting cold if they do not remember to take a coat, going hungry if they forget to take their lunch, trying out different hair styles, planning their time wrong and missing a school assignment, flunking a class, or spending five years in high school. These are learning opportunities, not life threatening events.

Let your teen learn from natural consequences. Let him learn that mistakes in judgment and behavior have consequences. If he shoplifts, ask the store to press charges. If he skips dinner, let him cook and clean up the mess. Parents who do too much for their child rob him of a chance to build self-competence and self-esteem. Talk with other parents to build an information and support network.

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