When the kids are little there is an avalanche of baby books telling you at what age you should do things or when your children should be reaching certain milestones.
Introducing solids – got it covered.
Crawling – should be happening.
Talking – under control.
Toilet training – we’ve got an age span where it should be happening.
But then your children grow up and the books on dealing with teenagers are a much smaller collection – and many tend to focus on the downside of living with teenagers – anorexia, behaviour issues, problems communicating – a quick survey of the book store is enough to fill the heart of a pre-teen parent with dread.
However, at the moment (touch wood) parenting a teenager is proving to be quite a lot of fun. It’s interesting to hear her views and watch her formulate her opinions. It’s fascinating to be getting a much clearer picture of the person she is growing up to be.
Where the struggle occurs is there is no clear set of guidelines for parenting teens. At what age do you leave them in the house alone while you go to work? At work age do you leave them in the house alone while you enjoy a night out? At what age do you let them stay home alone while you go away for the weekend?
Then, for those of you dealing with teenage love, there are issues like at what age do you let them stay overnight at their boyfriends/girlfriends house or go away together for the weekend (if ever)? What sort of curfew do you enforce?
You turn to the rules of the community and they are not that helpful – you can have sex at 16, but you can’t vote or drink until you are 18. You can start learning to drive at 16 and get your licence by 17. Good Lord she can be driving next year.
Right now with 16 fast approaching it seems way too young to be doing ANYTHING, but that could just be an over-protective parent speaking.
Parenting a teen seems like uncharted territory when you get there. You have to learn give and take. Let them have a little freedom while desperately trying to keep them safe. The world is a completely different place than when we were growing up – new pressures and problems – the internet creates a whole new set of issues for a start!
At the end of the day communication has become my number one strategy – if you can drag them out of their bedroom and have a conversation – letting them voice their opinion, even if you disagree with it – listening to what they say, recognising when you are wrong, adjusting rules to suit changing circumstances. Will that be enough? I’m hoping so.
Are you parenting a teen? What’s your coping strategy?
My former teen(age 37 now) has a teen of his own and he keeps a much tighter rein on his son than I did him. I was a bit naive about what he was up to at that age. I wish I’d had a coping strategy, but I basically just hung on and make a vow to myself to never say anything to him I would regret later. We got through it (sometimes I wasn’t sure we would) and our relationship is awesome now. He’s a great dad.
It seems to me that you’re doing things right. I wish the best to all parents–it’s a tough job.
When you discover the answers to these questions can you please let me know. Although we are a few years behind you, some of these issues (although not boys thankfully) are rearing their heads. It doesn’t help when they have friends who are pretty much given unlimited freedom to pretty much do as they please… I find it also make it more complicated when the younger sibling wants to do the same (and be given the same freedom) as the older sibling. That creates a whole other issue!!!!
Just regard me as your crash test dummy – if my girls end up in a mess you’ll know what NOT to do! Yes the older/younger sibling issue is a BIG problem.
I feel like every time my parents were going to “let me loose” – go to the movies alone, go to the mall alone, there would always be an ease into it phase. It would always involve going places with 1 or 2 friends that my parents also thought had good character – and I guess they figured that anything one of us couldn’t handle we could figure out on our own between the three of us. My parents came to the movies with us once and my mom was shocked – she was impressed that there was no chaos, she was impressed people clapped at the end of the movie – I’m not sure what she was expecting, but I just wanted to see I Walk to Remember. When Christmas shopping at the mall my parents would do periodic check-ins. “Meet me here in an hour and a half.” I guess this is what we did before cell phones. There were a few times that they were too overprotective and I feel like I missed out on a few things unnecessarily, but overall – I’d say they did a pretty good job.
(Aside: There was a co-ed sleepover I really wanted to go to at my friends church with her youth group. I tried to think about it rationally – I knew begging wouldn’t work, I knew sneaking wouldn’t work, I felt too guilty about lying – so I made a PowerPoint presentation. Which also failed. But I like to think that I actually did try everything.)
I so loved you made a PowerPoint presentation – you make me laugh!