Paws to Consider: Choosing The Right Dog For You And Your Family I’m Counting to 10 … Hope and Humor for Frazzled Parents How to Have a Happy Marriage When You’re Busy Being Parents What Our Words and Actions are Really Telling Our Children Ten Talks Parents Must Have With Their Children About Drugs and Choices Laughter is the Best MedicineHeart Murmurs Giving Your Heart a Scare? Children and Anger When Should My Child Brush His Own Teeth? Raising Responsible Children Standing Up for Your Child Reading to your Baby Parents and Discipline Potty Training on Vacation Eating Healthy for Your Kids 60 One-Minute Family-Builders 60 One-Minute Memory Makers Understanding Teenage Depression |  |
 |
|
Suddenly They’re 13 or The Art of Hugging a Cactus A Parent’s Survival Guide for the Adolescent Years Regroup By the time we had the answers to our kids’ questions, the questions changed. It seemed we were always regrouping. The paradoxical statement, "We change in order to remain the same," certainly applies to parenthood and to parenting adolescents. We constantly change the way we relate to our children over the years. We didn’t treat our eight-year-old the same as we did our toddler. But it all happened so gradually that we didn’t realize we were changing in order to remain the same loving, caring parents. As the teen years approach, once again you need to change to remain the same. If you drag your feet or push too soon you can mar your relationship. So as you approach the adolescent years it’s time to regroup again and to rewrite your job description. At this stage of family life, you need a plan. Start by analyzing your current situation by looking honestly at yourself, at your adolescents, and at your relationships. Release Adolescence is, by definition, "the state or process of growing up." You need to prepare your teens to make their own decisions, which means gradually releasing decision-making power into their hands. By their senior year in high school, teens need to be making most of their own decisions - to practice this process while they are still at home. One dad commented, "The missing element with my kids was this: Starting at age thirteen I didn’t communicate that we wanted to guide and develop them instead of control them." Your challenge as a parent is to learn to release your adolescents so they can graduate into adulthood. We’ll talk about two great tools - the Teenage Challenge and Birthday Boxes - for beginning this process.
| ||
 | ||
