How to Befriend Your Teen?!

• Post Time - 2021-04-24 12:52:50

Being a mom or a dad to a teenager, you need to be more involved in their lives than controlling. Also you need to establish the kind of distance that would give them a sense of confidence and independence for their personalities to develop, grow and take a shape.

You don't need to show them your love and compassion more often as much as you need to show them respect and understanding. 

You need to befriend them rather than being overbearing.

It may be one of the most challenging and hardest phases your kids and the entire family will go through. And unless this challenging phase goes smoothly many turmoils may erupt hampering the smooth expansion of the family and the kids personalities. Whereas if such phase was handled wisely and with attention, it can be the best phase in the history of your relationship with your child, where you finally realise that your little child has grown into your best friend.

So what is exactly needed to befriend your teen and handle him well?

For any critical issue there's always a general golden rule that may include more specific and detailed rules that also need to be applied.

In case of raising a teen and handling him well, the golden rule is;

"Let Go and Watch from a Distance, Yet Be Available for Help All the Time."

Meaning; don't pick on them in watch and every situation, for sometimes teens say things they don't mean, but they say it just seeking attention and to show that they're different and for their parents to realise that they've grown up and changed. They most of the time express themselves wrongly and it’s your role to help them know how to express themselves.

Here I will list a set of main issues teens go through and another list of main guidelines for parents to follow in order for them to pass the teenage phase of their children peacefully and come up with the best outcome.

Teens

1- Have difficulty understanding the great and fast changes they undergo.

2- Always have a need to break free from their parents' control without being misjudged.

3- Need others to know and feel that they've changed and grew up. They no longer accept to be treated as little kids.

4- They need to try new things and are curious to explore the world, and they don't want to be controlled, it belittles them.

5- They are worried and tense all the time and this could be related to the hormonal changes they face and physiological change as well.

6- They are more introverted and refuse others to penetrate their privacy without permission. They kind of have their own world, which is mostly online and are comfortable this way.

On the other hand, Parents’ need to:

1- Be more understanding and less controlling.

2- Be involved in their lives without forcing themselves.

3- Be available for advice and perhaps offer it in an indirect way.

4- Be more cooperative than stubborn.

5- Be more friends than parents.

6- Be more calm than tense for their teen kids sometimes become disappointing.

7- Get to know their friends.

8- Join their teens interests and hobbies and learn more about their world.

9- Offer alternatives rather than rejecting their teens’ choices.

10- More hopeful that this phase will pass well than worried about its many challenges.

Look at the two lists and you’ll find that parents’ need to change their attitude to fit in their teens’ changes, so that to avoid any possible conflicts.

And know that love and respect starts from the heart and is radiated through attitude and situations, so know that the more you love your kids and the more you stay calm and confident, the more you will pass this challenging phase in their lives peacefully.

Maha Youssuf

Mamas' Guides Editor