Less Parenting, More Love And Example

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

Adolescence is the period most parents fear. During this time, there are a number of physical changes associated with puberty and entry into adulthood. At this time, adolescents are characterized by increased emotionality and excitability, excessive activity and a high spirit of contradiction.

What to do about it? How to deal with this so as not to lose the love and trust of your own children?

The world around us has changed - the children have also changed. Education based on fear of punishment no longer affects them. The old methods of intimidation are no longer able to break the will of our children; they only turn children against their parents and encourage rebellion. When parents cry to curb their child, they get the opposite effect. The teenager simply stops hearing and listening. He listens to his parents when his parents listen to him.

Therefore, we, parents, need to change the old methods of upbringing. After all, when company leaders want to remain competitive in the market, they need to change and improve all the time.

First, the parents themselves need to understand and accept that their girl or boy has grown up. Stop treating them like babies. Give the teenager the necessary personal space, some degree of freedom and respect for his personality and his choices. After all, the way parents relate to him, so he or she relates to the world around. Love for oneself and others develops on the basis of the attitude of the parents and their reaction to the mistakes of the child. if adolescents are not ashamed for mistakes, but try to sort them out together, this gives them the opportunity to learn the ability to love themselves and accept their own imperfection.

Teens tend to focus on the immediate results of their decisions, while parents pay more attention to their consequences in the future. This difference in the vision of the situation is the source of many conflicts.

When a parent forces or tries to force a child to make a certain decision, he is usually less concerned about the short-term consequences and pays more attention to the more distant consequences of that decision. There is, however, a much more distant consequence that is ignored by both the parent and the child, namely, the adolescent's learning to see and take into account all the consequences of the decision. Learning to trust the child, allowing him to make his own decisions and follow them, the parent achieves both the short-term advantage of a conflict-free relationship with the child, and the long-term benefit, because he is convinced that he gradually learns to see more clearly and take into account the long-term consequences of his own decisions. When a parent prevents (or tries to prevent) the child from making a decision that leads to undesirable long-term consequences, the child is less able to experience these negative consequences; even if he encounters them, he does not pay enough attention to them, because he is too preoccupied with the struggle against parental control.

Thus, your belief in your child's ability to make good decisions has a stimulating effect on that ability. Imagine: you are watching a butterfly trying to get out of its cocoon. In fact, the butterfly must make a lot of effort and in this sense experience a lot of "suffering", getting out of the cocoon, if it is stubborn enough, before flapping its wings and flying; if she is "helped" to get out of the cocoon, she will soon die. Knowing this, and realizing that a son or daughter is making decisions that will certainly lead to trouble, an intelligent parent will nevertheless allow the child to accept them.

It is very useful for communicating with your own teenage child to remember, and what did you do at this age? What were you like? How did you feel? What did you dislike and outraged most of all? Answers and reflections on these questions will make it possible to better understand your growing and maturing child.

Such reflections and recollections were very useful for me personally, for understanding my children. My oldest girl grew up as a hardworking child, but with a very tough and stubborn character. And when she turned 13, it became very difficult to communicate with her. Coming from school, she locked herself in her room and could not go out and not communicate with us for a long time. Then I remembered myself, and what happened to me at this age. I found the time and talked to her "heart to heart". I had to take off the "sleek" image of an excellent student and tell how I fought with boys and girls, how I skipped classes, how I bought ice cream instead of fish oil, and told my mother that I had already drunk it. I also used to get lonely, because I liked to read a lot, and the girls teased me and called me a nerd. In general, the conversation went well. We discussed with her many different situations from her school life. We came to the conclusion that it is normal to be different from others. Each person is unique. You can love classical music while communicating with a person who loves Heavy Metal. Moreover, it is neither better nor worse, but simply different.

We discussed that making mistakes is also okay. We are all just human beings and we can be wrong. And this does not mean that something is wrong with the person. You just need to sit down and think about what happened, take a lesson from this. For example, stop lying to my mom and say honestly that I hate fish oil and really, really love ice cream. And together to find a middle ground. In general, you need to negotiate. Talk about what you don't like. It's okay to disagree, but remember that your parents are in charge. As parents, we, in turn, need to allow children to say no. After all, when a child can say “no” at home and defend his opinion, then he will be able to say no to others, for example, those who offered him a cigarette or drugs.

Well, of course, the burning issue of washing dishes and cleaning the room was raised. This negotiation process turned out to be the most difficult. My daughter and I have developed rules and agreements that I do not touch and do not put her things anywhere without permission, and she, in turn, cleans the closet once a week and cleans the room once a week. When I want to remind you about cleaning, I ask her: “What time will it be convenient for you to do this today? “And it works. After all, the child himself makes the decision "When". This gives the teenager confidence and support that he is independent and can make decisions for himself. But, in turn, I must monitor the fulfillment of obligations. And of course, do not forget to praise for what you have done. And then for not done a hundred times a day, we can reprimand, but for the accomplished say "thank you" and other warm words of support - we forget. After all, our children take our models of behavior. If we only criticize them and forget to encourage them, then they will only get angry and snap back, see only black everywhere.

It is also very important in what form the requests are made. If you say, "Won't you do …?" and “Please do…” (instead of shouting: “Get out, finally!”) this radically changes the situation and works wonders.

The conversation was long, but my daughter and I managed to find a common language. We began to discuss more often what is happening at school, what problems she has with friends, to discuss and support her hobbies for dancing.

But with the dishes … We agreed to buy a dishwasher (thanks to progress, it helps to save nerves), but the cost of the machine was deducted from her pocket money (solely on her initiative).

Yes, and my son is growing up, and he is also approaching adolescence.

With the boy, we turn on completely different levers. But the meaning is the same: love, respect, control, trust and … long, interesting, exciting stories of the father about life.

Illustrations: Eric Hibbeler. When a girl is home alone