Parent | Family Adventures

Keeping the Lines of Communication Open With Your Teen

It’s the time that worries every parent- the teenage years of their child. It’s as if a switch turns on right after the child’s thirteenth birthday. These are the years of rolling eyes, random bouts of attitude, and the ever popular door slamming. Any questions are met with a classic “yes” or “no” answer. How do you communicate with your teenager without driving them away more?

The first step is to notice body language and respond in kind. Use constant eye contact when talking to your teen. If you are driving, glance over every now and then to make visual connection and show your child you are listening. By crossing your arms or putting your hands on your hips, this gives the signal of anger and puts the other person on the defensive. Not what you want to do when dealing with a teenager. Also, don’t be afraid to be affectionate with your child, even if it’s just touching them gently on the shoulder in conversation.
Praise your child for their good deeds and tell them why. Positive reinforcement is vital in any relationship but especially for teenagers. The teen years are a time of indecision, self doubt, and a host of other confusing emotions that comes with growing up. To know they are valued at home is a necessary part of their upbringing. Buy them that cricket blackberry they have been wanting for a while. Rewarding them with something they want will encourage them to appreciate you as their parent, and communicate with you more. Encourage them in their endeavors and praise their success.
Set time apart in your day to spend time talking to your teen about what’s going on in their lives. Make sure to ask questions that don’t get you the dreaded “yes” or “no” responses. Perhaps instead of saying, Did you have a good day? ask What did you learn in school today? If the child is being particularly contrary, they may respond with “stuff”. At this point, you may have to find a way to reword your question.

Filed Under: Families, Relationships, Teen Tagged With: Adolescence, Child, Parent

Tips To Help Your Teen Take The Right Decisions In Life

Two adolescent couples at the 2009 Western Ida...

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Try to think about your past and try to identify certain decisions taken by your parents that helped you a lot in your future life. You will realize that most of the life changing decisions took place in your teenage years. Many parents are caring in the beginning but presume the child will take all the right decisions after becoming a teenager.

Some parents continue with their committed and interested approach but back away after the child behaves in a rebellious manner. Well, it is foolish to expect that your teenager will understand the implications of his or her decision on his or her own. You will have to fight the teenager to help him or her take the right decision. You may be speaking perfect sense but the teenager may simply not be interested in listening to you. This can be a very frustrating affair.

You have the option of letting the teenager take certain decisions so that he or she can find how foolish it has been. This approach may result in wastage of a lot of time but will help the teenager understand the mistakes. However, you cannot afford to adopt this trial and error method when important decisions are at stake.

One option is to continuously and consistently explain your position for a long period of time. If you want your teenager to choose a specific subject as his or her career, you should start working towards this goal at least one or two years in advance. To walk up to teen and expect him or her to obey all your instructions simply does not make sense.

Filed Under: Families, Relationships, Teen Tagged With: Adolescence, Parent

Improving Your Relationship with your Teen

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Parents are often told that their children will hate them when they become teenagers. Is it any wonder that this is the time when some parents forget their role in raising adults and instilling morals and critical thinking skills and instead try to be their teenager’s new best friend? Let’s face it: If you’ve done a good job in raising your child to be social and learn to play and work with peers, your teenager doesn’t need another friend. They need a parent who still works to instill discipline and supports them during these formative years.

So how do you work on strengthening that parent-child bond in preparation for the teenage years? First of all, don’t change the way you parent. If you require your children to do chores, continue to prioritize getting those tasks done. Reward good behavior, but remember that bribes can actually have a reverse effect. What’s the difference? Rewards are given after good behavior has occurred and is usually a surprise. Bribes are promises in exchange for good behavior and are expected.

Second of all, recognize that your child is changing and your relationship will probably change, too. Your teenager will probably start to have secrets. This doesn’t mean that it’s time to panic. Attempting to establish a sense of self with secrets is entirely normal. Trust your instincts but let your children have a little privacy.

Lastly, don’t give up. Talking to other parents can help to yield parenting tips that can help you continue to build and improve your relationship with your teen. Chances are, your child will grow out of any typical teenager rebellion phase.

Filed Under: Teen Tagged With: Adolescence, Child, Parent

Methods of Discipline and Their Effects on Children

Discipline is one of the most important parts of being a parent. Good discipline is a harder thing to attain as methods that work for one child may not work for another. Adults tend to discipline their child according to the way they were brought up as a child. The standard in African American families is using violence to bring their child to order. Whether it be a slap on the wrist or bringing out an object to beat the youth, this has been a disciplinary action taken for years. How many siblings are in a family could be a factor. A mother who has five kids may not be able to give individual attention to each child at one time so beating a child is more effective than giving them a time out or talking to them about their wrong action. Yet for some families, smacking the child seems to be effective and the child never doubts their parent loves them. They associate the bad action with a beating so no longer do the action. This is how African Americans and Caribbean cultures have disciplined their children for years.

Psychologists say there are far more constructive methods of disciplining the child. One way to to let the child know the rules beforehand so they know the consequences of their actions. Once the child misbehaves, you explain what they did wrong and why they are being punished. Then they can be punished in different ways. Some parents take away their electronics or toys for a certain amount of time.

Discipline must be tailored to the child’s personality as each one is unique and reacts differently.

Filed Under: Child Development, General Tagged With: Child, Child discipline, Parent

How Home Life Affects School Education

With teachers being laid off by the thousands, the education system is failing. Children are not getting the attention they need and those who don’t pay attention often slip through the cracks and fall behind on literacy and common math skills. The kids who really suffer are those who struggle at home. Many of today’s youth who rebel in classrooms are reacting to a lack of discipline at home. Scientific studies performed show how test scores and comprehensive tests lowered depending on the type of home life the child experienced. The rate was higher in single family households.

Then reasons may be parental neglect, which promotes the child to act out in other ways to get attention. Fighting between parents can cause the children to become aggressive in school. There is the other side of this spectrum- the kids who grow anti social and barely speak to others. The ones who never speak up because they feel no one will listen. These are the children that have higher levels of depression and prone to suicide.

It may not be something as extreme as child abuse that affects the children. Low moral values taught by parents have an impact, too. Kids soak up information like a sponge and carry that knowledge through all areas of their life. If the parents tend to be selfish, the child grows up to be the same way. If the mother is obsessed with being beautiful, the daughter will naturally follow in her footsteps. Why do your school work if your mother tells you beauty will take you farther than an education? Parents with low education might tell their child that hard work at a job is more beneficial than learning literature and history. So the child learns to read, write and do math but doesn’t broaden their learning experience.

Parents need to take a more active role in their child’s life and teach them life lessons that will help them succeed in school and survive in the adult world.

Filed Under: Education, General Tagged With: Education, Parent

How To Manage The Rebellious Teen Years

So here’s the harsh truth: there is no way to stop teenage rebellion. Every parent wishes they could either keep the child who saw them as the world or bypass the teen years and go straight to adulthood. Unfortunately, this is all part of the learning process for both parent and child.

The first realization to accept is the parent will never do anything right in the teenage eyes. They will do exactly the opposite of what their parents tell them to. They don’t have a desire to hurt you but want to assert their independence. The next five or six years (12-18 yrs old) is especially hard on the parents because it is the time kids start to separate their lives from them. Hanging out with their friends is ten times more important than being with family.

Now is also the time when peer pressure becomes a huge issue. The desire to “fit in” with friends is a powerful motivator to get in to stupid stunts. They are liable to get very depressed if they lose the respect of their peers and deal with that by lashing out at their parents. Never take it personally when this happens. It has nothing to do with you. Accept that some things cannot be changed, but there are ways to reduce how rebellious the child gets.

Let them know you will always be there if they need to talk. When they do come, give your full attention and don’t judge. Let them vent and get their frustrations out before you attempt to give advice.
Treat teenagers with respect, as you would an adult and don’t talk down to them. Nothing will annoy a teen more than being made to feel like a child.
Admit when you’re wrong and you will gain respect from them, even if they don’t tell you.

No matter what, try to keep a cool head at all times and be supportive in every way possible.

Filed Under: Advice, Teen Tagged With: Adolescence, Parent, Peer pressure

Teen Rebellion

Rebellion is a common problem that parents have with their teens. You can raise your child with what you think are the right values but when they get older they can very easily turn away from those values.

The first thing to do is to make sure your teens are not hanging around bad influences. Some parents have a problem with this because they think their teens should have the freedom to choose their own friends. But many parents don’t feel this way because they realize that bad company corrupts good character. So it doesn’t make you a bad parent if you want to limit the negative exposure in your teens lives. The key is, that you have to fully explain yourself. You can’t just say, “I don’t like this person, don’t see them again.” That is not going to do anything but make the teen rebel even more. Instead, you need to explain exactly why you feel the way you do.

Explaining your feelings extends beyond friend choices. People respond a lot better when they feel they understand your perspective. So if you have certain rules in your house that your teens are rebelling against, you need to make sure they understand why those rules are in place.

Don’t just say, “do what I say or I am going to discipline you”. That is a surefire way to receive rebellion. Instead, you need to explain your line of thinking while explaining that your rules are to be respected while they are living in your house.

Filed Under: Relationships Tagged With: Parent, Teenagers

Hitting Does not Help

When you have children, you have got to teach them how to be a productive, civilized member of society. And as they get into adolescence, their combination of high energy, intense hormonal changes (and their resulting instability) and emotional need to expand their sphere of influence beyond where it was as a child all combine into a perfect storm of aggression and aggravation. While they are not going to be as irritating as a small child typically is, and will know some of the social graces, they are frequently going to want to move outside of their boundaries. Even though their main period of testing is long since over with, they are going to test a bit more, just to see what you will tolerate and what you will do if your tolerance reaches its breaking point. From time to time, you are going to want to hit them, but this will not help anything.

Hitting people feels good when you are angry. If you can hit very hard, you might be able to cause your child enough pain that it will (at least temporarily) quiet them down. And if you hit them on a regular basis, you may even completely break their spirit, causing them to go along quietly like a drone. Of course, only a truly sick parent would actually do something like that. We are just saying this to make sure that you understand the ultimate futility of such an action. Drones do poorly in society, and they have terrible emotional problems.

After all, hitting a child basically just teaches them that might makes right. If you want them to think in that kind of meat headed fashion, you might as well enroll them in combat sports, and be prepared for bailing them out of jail after a lot of brawling. You should also prepare yourself for other, ancillary events, such as when your sons rape girls and when all of your kids end up stabbing somebody in a bar room fight. There is nothing good that can come out of hitting your children, so cool it.

Filed Under: Relationships Tagged With: Adult, Parent

The Transfer of Power

In every parent’s life, a lot of very important things happen with their children. For one thing, the children move out of the house. For another, they get as big as (or even bigger than) their parents are. And at some point, there is a sort of power transfer that is extremely subtle, but very noticeable to everyone involved in it. It is sort of the big white elephant in the room that nobody really talks about, but that is pretty plain. One of the most glaring moments in which there is a transfer of power is when a teen gets their driver’s license. This scary moment marks a very large turning point.

For one thing, this marks the first time in a teen’s life in which they can effectively tell their parent where they are going, as well as where the parents themselves are going. After all, the person who is in control of the automobile is also in control of the conversation, at least at the level of “we are going here, and if you make me angry enough I am going to ram us into something at high speed.” While you would certainly hope that your teen has got the good sense and reason not to do that, it is not wise to assume things.

Another way in which this is a transfer of power is that you are (at least in the beginning) giving your teen access to your car, without your supervision. They could theoretically take a turn too quickly and ram into a tree, or rack up fines through running stop lights, or do all sorts of other things that could drive you to drink if you thought too much about the possibilities. Not to mention that fact that they could be going to places that you would not approve of, and not so much as telling you, either.

Filed Under: Relationships Tagged With: Parent