Parenting a teen might seem hard—from crying and sulking to mood swings and unpredictable behavior changes, these “walking hormones” can make you quickly forget the excellent parenting tactics you were looking forward to applying through your parenthood. Nevertheless, it doesn’t have to be that way. Here are four tips for easing the tense relationship with your teen.
1. Spend quality time with your teen.
It might feel like your teenager is pushing you away. However, they could be yearning for private time with you, just on his/her terms. After learning about your teen’s hobbies and interests, suggest doing something together and let them choose what to do. If your teen feels micromanaged or overcrowded, they are likely to get angry and detach from you. However, if they know you intend to spend time with them sharing in their hobbies, they’ll be more likely to appreciate your presence. Discover your teenager’s “love language” and how they receive or show it. It can be an excellent tool for building shared boundaries and bonding.
Good bonding ideas could include:
- Movie night
- Cooking a meal together
- Shopping
- Listening to music or watching YouTube videos
- Hiking
- Reorganizing their bedroom
- Going out to eat—just the two of you
If your teen loves snapping photos of everything from kittens to cloud formations, buy them a superior quality camera. Take some photos together and put them in the family album. Go a step further and bring them an ibi made by Sandisk to make the experience more enjoyable. This device will give your teen a 1TB of storage, keep their photos safe, and help them organize and share photos across social media. The idea is to create a little time daily to talk and bond with your kid doing something they adore.
2. Don’t Take Their Behavior Personally
Sometimes, you might take your child’s desire for private space and freedom personally. Although its tough to internalize the idea, your teen’s growing appetite for privacy and space is reasonable. Other than resisting the change, stay calm, respect their privacy, guide them with love, and remember that this change is an essential part of becoming an adult.
Learn new ways of staying connected to your adolescent—even if it’s on their terms—and offer them your full support and attention. They’re likely to talk if they sense you consider them as mature responsible.
3. Stop Nagging
Today’s adolescents have a lot on their shoulders ranging from “troubles” at home to peer pressure, negative media influence, and stresses at school. School might be more challenging nowadays than it was during your days. Social pressure, together with anxiety linked to clubs, sports, and volunteering, can overwhelm your kid. You might become their avenue to vent.
You can help ease their pressure by giving them little freedom to oversleep, be lazy at times, and watch a movie the whole Saturday afternoon. If there are tasks you need your teenager to help with, prepare a list, give them ample time, and inform them precisely about your anticipated completion time. It might work better if you allow them to finish the chores on their terms. Nagging or shouting at them to finish the job on your “unreasonable” timelines and conditions might not work.
4. Never Demean Your Teen
Disparaging and talking down to your teen might make them resent you and kill their self-esteem. Even if you do it to a neighbor or a stranger in your teen’s presence, you’ll be modeling it. If those are lessons your child is learning, you’re likely going to experience the same resentment while relating with your teen.
Embarrassing your teen in private or public, and overusing mockery and sarcasm can all injure an adolescent’s inner self, and damage the trust they have in you and other adults. Telling a child, they’re a wretched disappointment isn’t an incentive for behavior change but undoubtedly reasonable grounds for agitation and rebellion.
A child’s teenage years are full of pushing boundaries and throwing tantrums. It is part of growing. No matter how they handle and behave during their adolescent stage, you should always be there to offer the necessary love and guidance. However, if a drug or alcohol addiction contributes to their deviant behavior, you might need to seek professional help. Rehab facilities have good youth residential programs that might help treat their addiction.
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