How to Parent Teenagers

Many parents with teenagers wonder what hit them when their relatively well behaved child suddenly disappears and in their place stands a troubled teenager who relentlessly challenges their parental authority. Parents wonder where the angry teenage behaviour and lack of respect has come from and they often wish they could go back to dealing with the previous child behaviour problems that they knew how to control.

If you are a parent with teenagers and desperately want to know how to parent teenagers you must first understand that your role as a parent begins to change when your child becomes a teenager. It has probably become apparent to you that your previous parenting skills have become less effective as your child approached these teenage years. Please understand you are not failing as a parent. You have not done anything wrong. This is simply a natural transitional process for both of you. Challenging teenage behaviour is normal and you simply need to change the way you parent your teenager in order to adapt to the new teenage behaviour.

Just for a minute stop worrying about how to parent a teenager and consider the young adult you would like your teenager to become if they follow your parenting advice. You probably will want them to be responsible for themselves and their actions, considerate of others, honest, successful, able to make good decisions and good choices, confident and able to speak up for themselves, and ultimately happy. Now consider the teenage behaviour you are having to deal with. They begin to challenge your right to tell them what they can and cannot do, they have an opinion and they want to be heard, they want to be able to make more decisions for themselves, they want to be treated as adults not children, they want to experiment and experience new things and when you object to any of this your parenting advice falls on deaf ears and they get angry, very angry. The dichotomy here is that your teenagers instincts are pulling them in the right direction towards more personal responsibility and decision making but as parents you are fighting these choices because you do not believe they are ready. Of course they are not ready to take full responsibility for themselves but they are ready to start learning. It is your job as parents to adapt your parenting advice to allow your teenagers to learn how to make good decisions, to take more responsibility and to express themselves calmly and eloquently.

So if you want to understand how to parent teenagers you must first :-

1. Accept that your child is growing up.

2. Know that you are not failing as a parent but that your role is changing.

3. See beyond the bad teenage behaviour and understand why this is normal teenage behaviour.

4. Stop the battle and learn how to communicate with your teenager.