Parents of Teenagers: This is How to Destroy Your Relationship

As you know, teenagers are very close to my heart. At the age of 16, I decided it was time for people to change their attitude towards teens if they want them to change their attitude towards their life and the adults in their life. Especially parents of teenagers.

I was a bit shocked to realize that the relationship I had with my parents from an early age had led us into constant conflict during my teen years.

Until that point, I thought all teens hated their parents. I thought all parents of teenagers lost their kids’ respect and trust during adolescence. I knew that having these thoughts did not help teenagers or their parents.

Read Parents of Teenagers: This is How to Destroy Your Relationship »

Aggressive Kids

Coach forcing aggressive boy down in fight club

Some parents have aggressive kids. Some parents have nice kids, who behave aggressively sometimes.

Teens, for example, because they are in “the argumentative age”, have more conflicts with their parents and this creates an endless cycle of disciplinary action, which creates arguments, which bring more discipline and then more arguments…

Not all kids know they need to be easy to parent. When they are born, no one tells them they need to do everything their parents expect of them. Or what to do when there are conflicts of expectations.

Read Aggressive Kids »

20 Things Teens Say to Set Parents Off

Last week, I wrote about the things that parents say that turn off communication between them and their teens. Today, I would like to talk about the buttons teens push to set their parents off and “make” them lose their minds.

From their early years, kids have an inherent sense of their parents’ weaknesses. They learn it by themselves – they do not need to go to school to study what works and what does not work. They are so sophisticated, they can tell you what works on Daddy and what works on Mommy, even if they are very different.

It is amazing sometimes to see a young baby, stepping as much as possible on the toes of his parents and making them behave in funny ways. This thing works both ways. Our children know us so well, they can make us do silly things out of joy or out of anger or guilt.

Read 20 Things Teens Say to Set Parents Off »

4 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was 15

In my life, age 15 was the turning point. 4 months before my 16th birthday, I woke up and discovered that the life I lived was an illusion and I opened up to a new life.

For me, 16 was the sweetest thing there was. Life was divided into before and after – before my awakening and after it. Later on in life, there were many times when I wished I could send my 15-year-old self some wisdom to make her life easier.

Here are the things I would send back in time.

Read 4 Things I Wish I Knew When I Was 15 »

20 Things You Should Never Say to Your Teens

Somewhere between parents and teens, the messages of love and caring get lost. Bringing fear and anxiety from their own experiences, parents sometimes forget what works and what doesn’t. It is amazing to find that the sentences we say to our teens are the same sentences we hated when our parents said to us.

A long time ago, one of the mothers in my early childhood center brought me a book about expressions mothers use. I laughed really hard and I could swear the author wrote the book about my mom. Is it possible, I wondered, that all moms uses the same phrases?

Well, surprise, surprise, when I talk to teenagers, regardless of their gender or cultural background, they all claim parents of teens use the same expressions. You have heard one, you have heard them all!

Read 20 Things You Should Never Say to Your Teens »

Hush Little Baby – Good Sleeping Habits for Kids

When my daughter was born, I did not attend a sleeping school to learn about good sleeping habits. Sure enough, we were so excited with the arrival of the new baby that we tried to spend every second with her. When she was 11 months old, we discovered that we did not have a life.

Eden was a “no-sleep baby”. She just did not want to go to sleep. Once she closed her eyes and stopped moving, she would sleep really well, so I am not complaining, because this meant that I rarely had to wake up in the middle of the night. But, the difficulty I had was in getting her to go to bed and fall sleep.

Even now, when she is 19 years old, we still see every night the struggle between her body and her mind. Her body tells her to go to bed and her mind still thinks that sleeping is the greatest waste of time.

Read Hush Little Baby – Good Sleeping Habits for Kids »

Things I Want My Kids to Know: The Door is Always Open

This week, I had a talk with my 19-year-old daughter about leaving home. Because some of her friends had left home and then had to come back due to financial difficulties, we talked about the emotional aspect of “going back home”.

When we talked, she told me about the feelings of shame, failure, disappointment and many other negative feelings that would be associated with having to go back home. It was after this talk that I realized there is one more thing I want my kids to know.

The following is a very true story.

This post is part 3 of 7 in the series Things I Want My Kids to Know

Read Things I Want My Kids to Know: The Door is Always Open »

Great Expectations

When I was training to be a life coach, our instructor said to us that our level of disappointment is related to the gap between two things – our expectations and the facts. Although this may sound simple in principle and you may be saying to yourself, “Well, of course”, stop and think about real-life situations where you find yourself disappointed and you will soon see the problem.

I went out to lunch with a few other future life coaches, and one of them, Sarah, told me about some challenges she was having at the time with her teens. Sarah was married for the second time and had two teens of her own and two teens who were her husband’s kids. Most people would already cringe at this stage, right?

Anyway, Sarah said that her kids were well organized, but her husband’s teen daughter was “very messy” and kept leaving her clothes on the floor, which drove Sarah bonkers. When Sarah tried to confront her stepdaughter about tidying up her room, she got the “You’re not my mother” treatment.

Read Great Expectations »

Talk to the Heart

One day, I got a phone call from a mother, who was interested in our child coaching. I talked to her for a while to get a good understanding of her situation. During this conversation, we talked about things that were application to many parent-child situations, which I have since repeated with many parents, so here it is for everyone’s benefit.

Margaret: I have a problem with my teenage son, Jeff. He is 13 years old and I have completely lost control of him.

Gal: How do you mean?

Read Talk to the Heart »

Just Wait Until Your Kids Become Teens

About 16 years ago, I went to visit a family member, who had her first child at the age of 42. I was very happy for her and traveled for 2 hours to see her precious new baby.

She was so overwhelmed by the 10 days of the “mom experience” she had had – sleepless nights, initial breastfeeding pains and crying – that for about 3 hours, she kept saying to me, “Ronit, just wait until you have a baby. Then you’ll see”, and I just smiled.

You see, motherhood can be hard at first, but when she said that, my own daughter was already 3 years old and I loved every minute of raising her and considered it a lot more rewarding than difficult.

Read Just Wait Until Your Kids Become Teens »