Parenting Teens: Parent Your Teenager Well, Then Get Out of the Way

The years of adolescence are loaded with feelings and thoughts found as these youngsters almost grown up approaching adulthood. Parents often wonder what happened to their precious children, who have gone from being happy and content to being temperamental, frustrated and conflicted teenagers.

Lifezette recommends differentiating between adolescence and childhood because the when the former takes play, the person is controlled by emotions and puberty and various other physiological changes that are absent in childhood.

Most teens are heavily influenced by people outside their family about music, clothing, and other fashions that their parents may not approve. Parents should realize that this is normal and that they are still important in the lives of their children, even though it seems that adolescents are trying to reject them. Adolescents try to exercise their independence as they approach adulthood.

As teens grow older, they may try to fight for more control, which can lead to conflicts with their parents. This can make parents feel hurt and rejected, creating tension because there is a constant battle of wills. As the teenager asserts his independence from friends, dress, music, time of arrival, and other matters, he is taking the risk of overcoming his fear of not gaining control and becoming an independent adult.

Parents have expectations of their children about everything from grades at school and how they dress until their college and career choices later on. Disappointment in parents generates conflicts and problems in the relationship with adolescents. Many times it expresses itself as anger, giving the adolescents a feeling of rejection with respect to the people who at one moment were the most important of their life.

Teenagers struggle with a confusion of their role and identity, according to Psychology Today. They are constantly trying to filter the confusion between the labels of society about who they are against what they really are as individuals, and they need to feel belonging to a unit while remaining as unique individuals. Theravive points out that this fight is responsible for so many teenagers being attracted to gangs.

When parents fight, teenagers may feel that they are somehow the cause, according to Teen Advisor. This can lead to alienation if parents allow their words and actions to get out of control. Teens may feel that their parents do not love each other, making them think about what will happen to them. Although discussing can be a healthy way to ventilate differences and solve problems, heated discussions with hard words can leave a negative and lasting impression on all family members, including teenagers. If parents can not solve their problems and end up separating or divorcing, the world of the adolescent is even more disturbed and unbalanced as everything changes in his life.