Raising teenagers comes with an entirely different set of struggles compared to raising younger children. In their early years, your job was to keep them alive until they could learn not to cross the street alone and that fire is hot. As they grew, it was your responsibility to teach them the importance of being honest and doing the right thing. Now, your teenager is striving for independence while still enjoying the creature comforts of home. You are now the parent of a young man or woman.
Because teenagers are striving for independence, they don’t always make the best choices. Often, they want to live in the adult world without adult responsibilities. They enjoy their friends more than their family, and they want to go about their own business without parental interference. However, quietly inside, they still crave parental guidance, love, and attention. Relating to your teenager doesn’t have to be terribly difficult, and there is no right formula. Teenagers tend to push their parents away just when they need them the most. Your teen, regardless of their outward appearance or standoffish attitude, craves a parent’s approval, understanding, and support. Most teenagers don’t seek guidance from their parents because they believe their parents won’t understand their issues.
Understanding Today’s Teenagers
It’s impossible to say that things are exactly the same as they were when we were kids or that they are entirely different. Kids today have access to a lot more information, more illegal substances, and the adult world than even those of us in our late twenties or early thirties did. The issues are almost the same, but the venues are different—and in many cases, more tempting and more dangerous.
Many parents today try to be their kid’s friend instead of their parent in an effort to relate to them better. It is possible to be a “cool” parent without losing the parental role. Raising teenagers is not an easy job, and it may take a few attempts to find the right parenting style that works for everyone. Being too harsh drives kids away, while being too soft allows kids to walk all over you. Of course, there are times when the actions demonstrated by the teenager call for harsh discipline.
It’s easy to forget, as kids enter the ages of 15, 16, and 17, that even though they look grown up, they are still very much kids. And kids like attention. They like to be noticed and need their feelings and opinions taken seriously. When kids feel they are being heard, respected, and honored, they tend to respond better to parental decisions than when they feel they are not being heard or respected.
It is possible to respect your teenager while still being a parent. Most kids can get on a soapbox and preach for hours about their right to privacy and how parents should never search a child’s room. However, what if it’s a matter of safety? What if it’s potentially life-threatening, such as a search for drugs? Five world-renowned psychologists recommend searching a child’s room only when a parent feels their child may be in danger. They also suggest informing the teen about the search beforehand and giving them the opportunity to step forward and offer anything that the parent might disapprove of. They recommend searching the room with the child present. Random searches without reason send the message that you don’t trust your teenager. However, if your teenager is giving you reason not to trust them, their safety is more important.
Kids also feel as though they are subject to too many rules. Many experts recommend setting up a real-life scenario for one summer to teach kids that adults have just as many—if not more—rules. A job, bills to pay (most parents put the money paid for bills aside in a savings account), and real-life consequences for not meeting those requirements, such as a mock repossession of a car or forcing them to solve the problem of homelessness when they haven’t paid their rent on time (this does not mean they should actually be homeless). These scenario exercises often help kids realize that the rules are there to protect them and to teach them how to be healthy, responsible adults.
It’s not uncommon for parents to dislike their child’s choice of friends. Forbidding these friendships on the grounds of dislike is not fair and may teach them judgment instead of acceptance. However, forbidding friendships that have caused significant trouble, such as the introduction of alcohol or drugs into their lives or skipping school together, is reasonable. Just remember that they will still see each other in school, and the most you can do is forbid them from hanging out after school or on weekends.
Teenagers operate best when they are well-rested, getting good nutrition, and have a stable home with set rules and understood consequences. As time goes on, rules can relax, but not until the teenager has proven they are responsible enough to handle extra freedom, as well as extra responsibility. Raising teenagers takes an understanding of what is going on in their lives, the issues they face, and how they are choosing to deal with them. This requires communication—something teens are not always willing to participate in. The stronger the communication, the better the parent is able to judge and determine what is most appropriate for their child.
With every headache, fear, unknown possibility, sleepless night, and error in judgment a teenager puts a parent through, teenagers can also be the greatest joy. It is a miracle to watch as the hard work from previous years unfolds into moments of thoughtfulness, good judgment, kindness, earnestness, honesty, and humor.
Teenagers are a joy when their world is in order. They are helpful, funny, and offer a parent a view of the world they could not otherwise know. Despite the anger and tension a teenager can inflict on a household, they can also become the center of a household’s joy.
