Best way of connecting with Teens
Here are the Top 10 Tips for connecting with teenagers:
- Respect and listen to them.
- Reward increasing maturity with more freedom.
- Take away privileges if they can’t handle the freedom.
- Set clear and firm rules.
- Hold them accountable – set and follow through with consequences.
- Expect them to keep their word and you do the same.
- Don’t take difficult behaviors as a dare or challenge.
- Accept that peers are an important influence.
- Know that teens need you in their lives, but on their terms.
- Continue to share your values.
As teens move toward greater independence, they often rebel and resist parental rules. This requires parents to adjust some of their tried-and-true approaches that may have been effective when their kids were younger.
Changing some rules and giving more privileges as teens show better judgment are ways you can help them to slowly gain maturity.
Parents do best if they do not take their teens’ actions as personal assaults on them, but rather if they think their kids are “just doing their job” of growing up.
Teens are rapidly changing and often their lives are filled with emotional, physical, intellectual, and social turmoil. Understanding this helps parents manage their child’s new and rocky stage of development.
Remember that teens can be passionate, exuberant, fun, idealistic, and creative. Raising them can fill your life with the same.
