A few weeks back while travelling in a metro I saw a girl crying. After over-hearing her conversation over the phone I discovered that she had, had a quarrel with her parents. Yes, she was having one of those endless fights with her parents! It’s a vicious cycle, every teenager argues with their parents on how they’re grown-up’s now and parents should provide them with their share of freedom and responsibility. But when these teenagers turn parents they do the same thing their parents did with them. Now, we know where the problem lies, if parents remember what they wanted from their parents while tackling issues with their children, the world would be a better place. Here’s what teens want from their parents
Talk to your child
You may know what was it like to be a teenager – but the teenage knows what it’s like to be a teenager today. Teenagers wants you to talk about what’s happening at school and in their relationships.
By talking to them not only can you learn a few things from your teens, but in the process you will become more closer to your child and gain their trust to discuss each and everything thing in their lives.
Teens need help managing the stresses and pressures in their lives
We know that you may think you know what it’s like to be a teenager – after all, you once were one. But times have changed, and now teenagers have a whole lot of new pressures in their lives, they need to manage their studies, the growing competition, their body looks, relationships and not to forget there parents
Adolescents is the phase when they are neither children nor adults and to turn into healthy adults they need support from parents. Teenagers are in hurry to grow up, what they need is guidance for this. This may come in the form of weekly counseling sessions, game nights, discussions on the dinner table. There may be times when the discussions don’t end on a happy note, or agreement from both sides. Parents need not become strict, as it doesn’t helps. They need to find an all together different approach.
Teens want more responsibility and elders to trust them
With growing up comes responsibilities and that’s what teenager wants from parents. All they want is little motivation and trust from parents which helps them to prove their maturity. When they are entrusted upon and are entitled responsibilities they feel vital as well as valued in the family. The confidence parents’ show while assigning chores to their children helps the feel confident about themselves and their abilities. This helps them to take up further chores in school and with friends, which in turn helps them to build up leadership qualities, time management and much more. With parents guidance and love teens can turn into responsible human adults.
Teens today are very competent and they just need to be given the right responsibility.It is difficult for the teen to behave like a child when there body tells them that are an adult, at this age the teenagers do not like their parents treating them as a kid. They want to be heard and their opinions respected so the parents should recognize the skills of their child and allot them work according to their skill in the household work and important decisions. Parents need to make them feel that they are contributing to the family in an important and positive way.
Teens need time to relax and unwind
Parents need to relax after their daily work in office and at home, and also on weekends! And when it comes to teens..? Yes, just as parent’s teens also need a break from the stress which they deal with on a daily basis which includes studies/career, family ,conflicts, peer pressure and a lot more. So, rather than scolding them or banning them from going for movies, playing videos games, watching videos or television for that matter fix the amount of time they can indulge into these activities. For those teens who spend all their time indoors it’s important that parents tell them how important it is to indulge into physical sports.
Parents and children can discover activities to relax and unwind together, like going to shopping, playing cricket/ badminton etc, watching movies. In this way they can spend more leisure time together with each other.
Image courtesy of Sira Anamwong at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Teens want their parents to be proud of them.
“When I told my parents that I want to pursue theater as my profession they were all critical about it. It hurt me when they used the term we don’t want our society to mock on us saying your daughter is a nautanki-walli,” said Amrita Bisht, 17. What teens want their parents to be proud of them and accept them for who they are! This also includes not comparing them with other children, as it transfers the message that you should be more like someone else rather that being yourself. Yes, it’s true that as parents you don’t want your child to be in trouble but this is the age of experimenting and risking. As far as it won’t land up your kid in some major problem you should respect their decisions or at least convince them with adequate reasons for your no.
Teens want to experiment and push to the limit.
Teenage is an age where the child would want to experiment with a lot of things like a new dress, a different hairstyle, new friends, new ideologies and etc. The parents should not barge in everything that their child does rather they should save their biggest objections for the really important things, like smoking, alcohol, drugs and sex.
Teens need responsible adults to guide them but at the same time they need their space and freedom. Parents should understand the different kind of stress in their life and support them in overcoming them. Teens should be encouraged to undertake their dreams in their lives, their point of view should be respected. At the same time it becomes the responsibility of the parents to set themselves as good examples for their child so they have something to learn from. The parents should be true to their adult selves so their teenage children can learn and inspire to be true to their teen selves.
A lot of responsibility also lies with the parents in dealing with their teens and setting themselves as good example for their child. Small positive steps taken by parents can relieve the pressure off them to handle their teenage child.
I hope this guide is useful for the parents!!! Happy Parenting.
