Advice For Parenting The Teens In Your Family

There are many things that parents can do to make parenting teens better. Advice is sometimes given from the perspective of the giver, as “what worked for me.” There are school and community programs to help with parenting teens, and they offer advice, too. What are the best tips for making your way through those hormonal years? See below for some teen parenting advice.

Look Forward – And Backward

There’s a lot to be said for “ages and stages” learning. In other words, if you learn what typical behavior is for children of that age, when it happens to your child you won’t be blindsided. This method of educating works terrific for the preschool and elementary years, but what about during the teenage years? Is that good advice when parenting teens?

Learning about ages and stages is still a great benefit – but you can also remember what it was like for you. Were you always in a good mood? Likely not. Were you embarrassed when you woke to find a zit on your nose? Probably so. Remembering can help you as you deal with your teen – no one wants to be told that their concerns are “no big deal” – understanding can help. “I remember when I had that happen” can go a long way to building a connection with your teen.

Try To Empathize

Remember that it is normal to be self-conscious as a teenager, and to feel like everyone is watching you all the time. It’s also normal to sometimes feel grown and sometimes feel like a kid – to want adult priveledges and still want your teddy to hug at night. Good teen parenting advice is to not expect your teen to always act as mature as he does sometimes.

Pick Your Battles

There are enough issues that parents can fight over with their kids that you need to decide which are the deal-breakers for you. Hair grows (or can be cut!), fashion fads are just that – fads, and they won’t always want to wear black nail polish. Sometimes teens just want to shock their parents and other adults in their lives. Don’t let them scare you. The parenting teens advice on this topic? Save the energy for the bigger issues – like smoking, drugs, alcohol, and sex. Those are the issues to put your foot down on.

Have Expectations

Some parents thing that having expectations can frustrate their teen who feels they can’t live up to them. But teens need to know that their parents care enough to have expectations of them about such things as school, citizenship (no tagging in my neighborhood!), and drugs and alcohol use, as well as sexual behaviors. If the expectations are appropriate, teens will try to live up to them.