Teens / Teenagers

Why Can’t You Do It?

At my current job, I work with a lovely group of ladies, each at a different stage in life. Two of the ladies in the office this week were discussing how their teens seem to question their actions constantly – why they had to buy new boots, where they were going so late at night, etc.

Monica said she came home from a meeting in time to organize dinner for the family and then rush out again to another meeting. She told her girls that all they needed was to wash up afterwards. While she was on her way out, her eldest teen said, “Why do we have to do it? What have you been doing all day? You’re just going out to be with your friends”.

Of course, I have no children of my own just yet, but I have heard this before. Back in the day, it even came out of my own mouth once or twice…

Janet said her eldest was constantly questioning her actions too and that her standard reply was that she did not need to justify herself or her actions.

I beg to differ.

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Un-sense-able teens

During my parenting workshops, I ask the parents to describe the challenges they have with their kids. Parents of teens often excuse all their challenges as the result of their kids reaching the “teen” stage. “You know how teens are”, they say.

During the workshops, we discuss many of our beliefs and how they affect our kids’ behavior and I hear myself saying to parents again and again that the image teens have is worse than their behavior. Teens are considered emotional, insensitive, subject to peer pressure, disrespectful, irresponsible and moody, but what they have is just a bad reputation!

I do not think it is a coincidence that all those teens have parents who are able to see beyond their hair color, their hairstyle, their piercing, their desire to be with friends, their rebellious behavior and their academic achievements. It is not a coincidence at all. It is a formula that works. If you can see beyond what is on the surface, you will raise happy teens and you will be a happy parent.

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Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss (13): Parenting Teens

Parenting teens is considered the most scary period for every parents. I heard endless times the mantra “Wait until your kids become teenagers” and when Eden was young, I did find this warning scary. After all, I had not been an easy teen for my parents (not that I had been an easy kid either).

Yet, the more Eden grew, the more I realized that for my parents, my teen years had been years of reason, success and happiness. While other parents had talked about their kids turning into monsters during their teen years, my parents had found joy parenting me for the first time in, because I had finally done well socially and academically.

This thought made me dedicate a big chunk of my education career to teens and even today, I often deal with parenting teens in my parenting workshops. I even wrote a book for parents, educators and teenagers to bust the myth of “those obnoxious teens”.

I asked our Top Parenting Bloggers what they think about parenting teens. Some of them are parents of teens, other are not yet, but it is interesting to read what they think.

This post is part 13 of 14 in the series Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss

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Things Teens Discover Too Late

In the last 25 years, while I was working with teens and collecting information for my book Be Special, Be Yourself for Teenagers, I have discovered many important things about being a teenager. It was funny to discover these things when I was no longer a teen myself. This is the paradox of being a teen – you only understand what has happened to you when you are no longer a teen. Catch 22, don’t you think?

Fundamentally, I do not believe anything is “too late”. There is always something you can do with a new learning to improve your situation now and in the future. However, many bits of information have lot less value when your situation changes.

How many times have you said, “I wish I knew this when I was a teen?”

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Popularity Counts

Though many parents tell their teens that popularity is not the only thing that matters, not wanting them to compromise more important things in life to fit in and be subject to peer pressure, I think in a way they are deceiving themselves.

If popularity is not that important to us as parents,
where did our teens get this idea?

Grownups compromise a lot to gain popularity at home, at work and among their friends and family. Most extended family struggles runs around popularity. Siblings fight to be the most popular kids and the most popular grandchildren. When a couple divorces, there is an immediate struggle for being the most popular parent and most couples, unfortunately, compromise many of their values and much of the wellbeing of their precious kids just to gain imaginary popularity over their partners. Whether you like to admit it or not, you compromise a lot and are subject to social pressure yourself.

I think popularity counts, not because I think it should, but because it just does.

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Hormonal Teenagers (my brutal opinion)

Two weeks ago, I had a session with Ben, one of my clients, who talked about his daughter misbehaving, throwing temper tantrums and being very disrespectful. I think what hit me was when he said, “You know, teens are just hormonal”.

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Seeing I to I

If you have been in a long term relationship long enough (and since you are reading a parenting blog, it is likely you have been), you can probably come up with quite a few examples of things “the other person” says to you on a regular basis, which you find infuriating. In fact, saying them is just like pressing some invisible button in your mind and triggering anger and resentment.

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Troubled Teens

In the past few weeks, I overheard talk about a teenager (let’s call him Jonathan), who used to be friendly and “normal”, besides being very talented, but who recently started to miss classes, show up late, fail various subjects and behave indifferently. One speculation was that he might have started using drugs, but he was clearly troubled.

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Stories: Fact or Fiction?

As an author, people ask me about the origin of my stories. Almost every person who has read my stories has asked, “Are they real?” Maybe this is a good opportunity for me to write how I came up with them, because some of the stories are so real it was painful. All my characters are based on real people whose personalities I borrowed without their knowledge, but some parts of the stories are twists I created to convey a message.

Read Stories: Fact or Fiction? »

How to Avoid Abusive Relationships

I am sometimes surprised to meet new clients who cannot understand how they got themselves into an abusive relationship. As you can imagine, getting a women out of an abusive relationship is much harder than not getting into such relationship in the first place.

Read How to Avoid Abusive Relationships »

Teens / Teenagers

Why Can’t You Do It?

Un-sense-able teens

Top Parenting Bloggers Discuss (13): Parenting Teens

Things Teens Discover Too Late

Popularity Counts

Hormonal Teenagers (my brutal opinion)

Seeing I to I

Troubled Teens

Stories: Fact or Fiction?

How to Avoid Abusive Relationships

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