Adolescence is a very difficult stage for children, but also for parents. Family dynamics change suddenly and many parents do not know how to face the new situation or how to dialogue with adolescents. Here is a small guide with tips to make these years simpler. Do not forget the importance of seeking a balance between authority and dialogue.
Survival guide for parents
1. Prepare yourself. The father who knows what awaits him is better prepared to face this convulsive stage of his son’s development, with his ups and downs of state of mind and the conflicts inherent in his search for his place in the world. Learn, read and remember your own adolescence (what went through our head, our perplexity about physical changes, the concern for our appearance …) will be of great help to understand the children.
2. Inform him. Leaving conversations about adult-talk and the physical changes of puberty by the time children have already experienced them is too late. Children should be answered when they ask the first questions in that regard, but without saturating them with details, so they will be on notice when the time comes; a moment, in addition, in which the majority usually closes in a band. The earlier you openly discuss these issues with them, the more likely you are to keep that communication channel open during adolescence. In this stage, which is usually experimental, which sometimes leads to risky behavior, parents should not avoid topics related, for example, to drugs, alcohol or tobacco, but again before the adolescent, expose yourself to these risks so that you can act responsibly when the time comes.
3. Respect their privacy without lowering your guard. You have to always know where they are and with whom; for this, it is essential to know their friends and maintain a fluid relationship with their parents – but you cannot expect a teenage son to share with his parents all the details about what does. In the same way, their bedroom, their correspondence and their telephone calls must be a private territory, which parents should only invade if they detect any warning signal and this allows them to get to the bottom of the possible problem. That does not mean, however, that you do not have to be aware of what they read, of the programs they watch on television, of the pages they visit on the Internet or with whom they chat through the Internet rather it means to monitor them from a distance that is possible with the use of parental monitoring app such as FamilyTime. In addition to being attentive, parents should not be afraid to set limits on the time their children spend on these activities which again becomes simple with FamilyTime’s screen limit feature.
With these 3 simple tips, you can surely survive your kids’ teen years while helping them become better individuals. Simplify parenting with the use of parental monitoring app such as FamilyTime and let your kids explore the world on their own. Happy parenting!