Adolescence is a time when a child turns out to be "difficult" not only for others, but also for himself. Parents, as the closest people, should be patient and be able to competently build warm and trusting relationships in the family.
Parents for a small child are an indisputable authority precisely because without them he is still defenseless and inexperienced. As time goes on, the child grows up, and the parental reputation is no longer based on the advantages of age. The teenager begins to actively defend his independence, the right to satisfy his own needs and goals.
Dangerous age
Parents find themselves at a crossroads - how to improve relationships with older children? If adults choose the path of unquestioning obedience, prohibitions, threats and pressure, this will inevitably lead to the loss of parental authority. And then inevitably - to the loss of contact and mutual understanding. A teenager will reckon with the parental opinion only when he trusts him.
As a result of significant hormonal changes in the body of a teenager, his psyche is also transformed. The behavior appears:
- anxiety;
- impulsiveness;
- irritability;
- diffidence;
- negativism;
- feeling lonely;
- increased attention to their appearance.
The most significant activity is not the educational process, but communication with peers, orientation to their opinion. Teens come together in groups of different kinds, large or small. The hardest thing now for a teenager is to be rejected in a group of guys. Indeed, his future success depends on how he can express himself in it.
Parents of a teenager at this time need to be extremely careful in prohibitions: do not walk, do not make friends, do not wear, do not participate … You need to prepare for the fact that if the status of the child in the group and the parental prohibition are on the same scales, in most cases it will outweigh first.
You will have to be patient when faced with teenage fashion, unbearable music, unusual slang, defiant appearance. At this difficult time for both sides, it is dangerous to enter into a long conflict with a rebellious child, since there is a risk of finally losing his trust.
How to communicate with your teenager
To maintain understanding with your own child, you should use the advice of psychologists:
- The manner of communicating with a teenager is fundamentally different from communicating with a primary school student. You need to talk with a teenager on an equal footing as with an adult, referring to his mind.
- There should not be any monologues, elicits, lectures, criticism, comparisons with others, especially orders and orders. What we managed to bring up, we managed to do it. Now only dialogue is possible.
- The intonation during communication is always calm, warm and benevolent.
- You can not ridicule the flaws or treat him like a small person in the presence of other people, especially his friends.
- It is advisable to meet friends of your son or daughter, invite them to your home for joint events. This is the only way to prevent the possible negative influence of friends in time.
- It is important to "adjust" to the teenager's fashionable youth hobbies, to the circle of his interests. Gather the necessary information, participate together, or gently suggest something less radical.
- More often ask the adolescent's opinion about everyday things and about "life in general." When expressing your position, it is useful to ask questions, what do you think and why so? It is questions, not ready-made answers, that develop a person's thinking.
- Find positive reasons for expressing approval on a daily basis.
- Do not interfere with long-term communication with peers, because it is at this age that communication skills are actively learned. In modern realities, the well-being of an adult is 80% dependent on the ability to successfully interact and only 20% on his professionalism.
Despite the difficulties that arise, parents must continue to prepare their teenage children for independent living. They need to be taught:
- in relation to affairs - volitional behavior, responsibility, the ability to define goals and achieve them,
- in relation to interaction with others - endurance, a constructive way out of disagreements,
- in relation to oneself - a positive perception.
Not only to tell, but also to be sure to back up with your example - this is the only way you can help your child become a successful adult.
Such relations should be based on:
- abandonment of parents from an authoritarian style of communication;
- recognition of the teenager as a person;
- attentiveness to his needs and affairs;
- respect for his rights to his own desires and feelings.
Parental skills and family atmosphere largely determine the emotional mood, skills and self-esteem with which a teenager enters adolescence.
