Parenting Teenagers

Someone once said that parenting teenagers is like “trying to nail jello to a tree”.  Let that image sink in for a moment as you take a deep breath from what may be an exhausting effort to parent a teenager. Parents of teens may face daily rebellious behavior, disrespectful or ungrateful attitude, irresponsible behavior, and a whole list of other phenomena that is all part of raising kids through the teenage years.

Recent studies on the teenage brain attemp to explain (but not excuse) why teens have a difficult time with problem solving and/or decision making. The part of the brain that handles these types of prcesses is way underdeveloped during the teenage years.  Parents will find it very helpful to understand what may be happening inside the teenage brain, to better understand the behaviors and attitudes of a teenager, and to plan healhy parenting strategies to deal with them.

Here’s information on why “96% of parents experience stress, frustration and confusion during a child’s teenage years.” Here solutions are offered as to specific steps a parent can take to start to turn things around and begin developing a more connected, down-to-earth, win-win relationship with a teen.

Parenting with Healthy Structure

For children to build their own healthy internal structure and self discipline, they must use the materials offered to them. If they don’t get healthy structure from their parents in the form of consistent and appropriate rules and boundaries, they may become unsure and insecure, perhaps unable to adequately handle life’s challenges. Many will even work on making things look like they’re okay on the outside, but something completely different may be going on inside. They may become rigid and critical inside due to lack of healthy structure given to them while growing up. This may cause inflexibility and sharpness, an inability to make appropriate decisions in challenging or, perhaps, even simple situations. This lack of healthy internal structure may prevent children from taking full account of a situation, their actions and attitudes, others’ needs and their own needs.  (read more)

Why a certified parenting coach?

What’s the benefit of a certified parenting coach and how can parent coaching help parents be more effective in relationships with children?

Many parents struggle with how to achieve the goals they have in their minds for their children and families. Most parents strive for healthy relationships with their kids, but may be unaware of many effective tools of healthy communication, building self esteem, effective discipline, coping with anger and other emotional outbursts, sibling rivalry, bullying (both physical and relational), and much more.

There is a lot of information available online that may help parents decide what strategies may work for their children, but unfortunately much of the information available misses a huge piece of the puzzle. If a parent feels challenged by something with a child, they may search online for information to increase awareness, but then what tools would be most effective in dealing with day-to-day situations? And more importantly, how does the unique make-up of each child affect how to choose the most effective strategies.

A certified parenting coach can help parents plan effective strategies in dealing with children. Parent coaching is a relatively new field, and parents should make sure they choose a coach who can appropriately assess the most effective strategies for parents, based on the unique nature of each child.

It’s vitally important to understand who a child is, his or her temperament, developmental stage and tasks, maturity level in several different areas, personality and then also how his or her closest relationships have impacted that child to be able to begin considering the most effective strategies. A certified parenting coach can help a parent better understand a child.

Parent coaching must be done is a safe and nurturing environment. A certified parent coach with the proper experience will help a parent be able to process through difficult situations and grow more confident in handling the inevitable challenges with kids. More importantly, a certified parenting coach will give parents the opportunity to practice newly learned skills in a safe environment.

And that’s the secret. The classice Learning Pyramid suggests that practice, practice, practice is one of the best ways to retain new knowledge and incorporate new skills. Practicing in a safe and nurturing environment with a certified parenting coach will empower parents with newly learned information. Once parents become more confident with effective strategies, they will begin to see relationships with children improve, and be able to celebrate the healthy growth in their kids.

Parenting styles and effective parenting

Parenting Styles and Effective Parenting

Awareness of different parenting styles can help parents better understand the impact this may have on child development. Healthy communication, effective discipline (limit setting, rules, consequences), self-esteem building and so much more of parenting are all affected by parenting styles.

A parenting style results from a confluence of a parent’s temperament, self esteem and learned behavior from family history (parents, grandparents, other family).

In 1966, Research Psychologist Diana Baumrind published her “Prototypical Descriptions of Three Parenting Styles.” These parenting styles have been studied and reconfirmed numerous times by subsequent research. (read more)

© 2008 Marty Wolner, BA, CPE, ICF, PACA