Helping teens is sometimes just basic instinct for the older and wiser. Parents of teens often can't help but hand out suggestions, hints, and well-meaning advice. Well, the only other thing more common in a house-hold with teens is the steady resistance to all that from the part of the teen-being. Helping teens is no cake walk and is certainly different from buckling the toddler into his car seat.
In case you're wondering, yes, there could be any number of reasons for this resistance.
- May be the advice was tinged with sarcasm or harsh words.
- Or even worse, threats real or imagined. Such as, if you don't do what I am suggesting, you can kiss that car/camping trip/new psp goodbye.
- Valiant attempts at self-hood.
- A need to show maturity.
- Don't agree with parent's views on the issue.
- A belief that nobody understands what the real problem is.
- Inability to accurately figure out the problem to see what needs to be done.
- Getting into a funk or state of depression and cutting out the world including parents and friends.
Helping teens requires the sensitivity of a philosopher, the diplomacy of a spineless politician, and the tact of a hostage negotiator. Now, you simply can't expect a normal set of parents to be that accomplished, teen or no teen. But they can certainly work at figuring out what makes their teen-being tick and take it from there. Parents and teens can thus find patterns of similar wave lengths where they vibe rather well even if they can't see eye to eye on most other things.
Teens and parents can thus get along even if they don't completely agree with each other. The greatest help for a teen is an understanding parent. Parents need to actively think back about being a teen themselves not so long ago. Of course, times have changed and issues have changed. But basically speaking not much has changed. If you worried about a zit on your nose before a date, your teen now practically goes through a similar worry when faced with how they come across in MySpace.
In spite of their generic looks teens are as unique as bar codes and each have a frequency that makes them go beep. It's not too far-fetched to imagine that parents, of all people, should be able to figure out their teen-being. Once this pattern has been worked out helping teens with their issues becomes less of an ego battle and more gratifying all around.
Sometimes helping teens might mean just letting them be and giving them the space to work things out on their own. This doesn't mean you totally ignore the fact that there's a problem. Just letting the teen-being work it all out step by step does wonders for their self-esteem and is a giant step to that big fat job of maturing into confident adults.
On important issues, always give straight forward advice and see that you don't keep repeating it. Even if they pretend lack of interest most of the times they do hear you. At the same time show your teen that you are confident of their capabilities. Always recognise and acknowledge their efforts at being independent.
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