¿At some time have you asked you what happens to your children when they come to the adolescence, which they turn unbearable?
Improve the relationship with the teen is not an easy process, since adolescence, by itself, is a difficult period for both parents and children.
For 5 years I have been giving lectures on self-esteem and adolescent parenting, and I have made more than 100 self-esteem workshops for adolescents and what realized me is that parents, in general, have misconceptions about what the children need.
For that I would like to first clarify some things:
Your kids DON’T need you
- You to do for them what they can do for themselves
- Long sermons
- You want them to protect both, you drown them
- Those solutions to their problems
- They are bogged down with physical affection
- That you treat me like young children
But YES they need from you:
- That you accept like are
- That you offer them a model to follow
- Space (both physical and emotional)
- That you should allow them to commit his own mistakes and them to amend
- Love and I respect
- Procedure and Limits
I would like to explain with more detail these points so that there is understood well what I want to say.
12 ways of improving the relationship with teen children:
1. They do NOT need that you do for them, which they can do for yes same:
We have an idea or wrong belief that he says to us that ” it’s necessary to help the children, so much since we prune”
And, from my point of view, it is incorrect.
Them it is necessary to help in the measured joust. It is necessary to give them responsibilities and allow that they should fulfill them.
In the conferences that I give they are in the habit of asking me: but what does happen if they do not expire with his responsibilities?
To what I answer with another question: If it does not expire with his responsibility, what faces you, you apply a consequence or you assume his responsibility?
And most of the times, the mothers say to me that ” it is easier ” they do it, that to put “to “discuss” with them.
You imagine this situation: you have said to your son or your daughter that in order that you should wash the clothes, it has to leave what is dirty in the basket. But it does not do it:
What do you do?
Option 1: You gather her and you wash it anyhow
Option 2: you do not wash the clothes
I am going to base what they say to me in the conferences, so I am going to suppose, that you choose the first option.
I understand that, with your better intention, “you” are “helping” your son or daughter to whom it goes clean to the college.
But, what does imply it to the level of relation?
They are fate a responsibility, she or he has not fulfilled it, but it does not take any consequence as it either.
To the practical level, which is the result for her or him?
That, without doing anything, continues having his clean clothes. Do you see it?.
Answer me now to another question:
Which is the implicit message (without words) that you/he meet on your behavior?
He thinks a bit.
The reflection to which your son or daughter can come can be something similar to this: ” it is not necessary that it expires with my responsibilities, because my mother or father already fulfill them for me. For what if this has worked with the topic of the clothes, will work with the rest of the responsibilities that I have. So, actually, it is not necessary that it does anything “.
I turn you to asking: really are you helping him?
And, please, do not take it as critique. It is not. Only I try to make yourself see a situation, from another point of view.
As if it was leaving a few glasses you, and you saw your situation with another color.
Certainly, never it is necessary to generalize. It can be that in a certain moment, really you help your son or daughter doing something that was “his” responsibility, but I refer to day after day. Ok?
In this simple example several things happen:
- On not having assumed responsibilities, he will consider that she or he “only” has right and no obligation
- His auto-esteem will diminish, because in the bottom and of very subtle form, we are saying to him that ” it is not capable ” of putting the dirty clothes in the corresponding basket.
- You since “I” “shape” you are teaching him that is not necessary that it does anything of what you say to him. The thing that it will be able to answer in the future so much with his friendship as with his pairs or with his own children.
- You are taking from you your authority as a mother or father.
- Your auto-esteem will go down because you do not achieve that your son or daughter collaborates with you
- And ultimately you become exhausted, because you have to make you everything.
Still have not I convinced you?
My phrase preferred in these cases belongs to Oscar Wilde:
With the best intentions,
The worst effects take place.
Can you see the effect that has to assume for your children what they can do for yes same?
2. YES they need that you accept them like they are
We have the bad habit of criticizing that one that we do not like and, ” give certainly “, that one that yes we like it.
Hereby, when your son or daughter shows behavior or an attitude that takes pleasure, we keep silent about ourselves (Clear it is what it “must” do) and, when it appears otherwise, we complain and, sometimes, even we criticize them.
And they need to be recognized and accepted.
It is important to differentiate his actions of his person, the being of to do and, especially, do what they do, remember that you, you value and accept them as they are.
This will help them to increase their auto-esteem.
3. They do NOT need long sermons
There are persons who grew with an educational authoritarian style and this generation of children, lacking in fondness and comprehension, they wanted to make it “different” to his parents, then, when they were adult and had children, passed to another end, that of the love and the permissiveness.
In this democratic – permissive style, you try to explain the porqué of thousand and one to your children’s decisions, which you take as a mother or father, why certain behaviors are accepted and not others…
In order that they understand it,
In order that they do not feel rejected,
So, before every “difficulty” which your teen children meet, free they the “sermon” of the day.
Since I have to say something to you: ” do not lose the time! ”
Normally, to 3 minutes, already they have disconnected … though “it” “seems” that they follow the roll …
I do not say that, before an event that you consider to be important, you could speak with your children in the matter.
I do not say that, before an event that you consider to be important, you could speak with your children in the matter.
Because it does not serve you are welcome.
And ultimately, you remain with the sensation of … ” it is that it does not use as anything that I say to him, because it continues doing the same thing ” or ” he does not listen to me “.
Clear.
Of sermons, the just persons.
It is better to show with the example those behaviors that we value, more than they to give a sermon of half an hour.
4. YES models need to continuing
What does it use that you say to your son that ” one does not have to lie ” if sly you lying to you?
What does it use that you say to him that his opinion has to value before his friends if you do not value yours before your pair or your family?
What does it use that you make clear to him that it has to have a good auto-esteem, if yours is at rock bottom?
You are giving him a contradictory message. One yes not. Because it does not square what you say with what you do. And ultimately, they finish confused.
Therefore, do not give sermons, lead by example!
If you want that your children do not lie, be honest with them and with the others.
If you want that they eat I recover, he eats healthily you also.
If you want that they have a good auto-esteem, you work yours.
That one that you want for them, show it to him with your example, so this one, it is never the best above mentioned “sermon”.
5. They do NOT need that you want to protect them so much, that you drown
There is a metaphor that I like to use in the conferences and to treat a small boat tied to a port.
The teenagers, represent the small boat anxious to go out to the sea, and the parents the port in which they feel sure.
But his desire for knowing world and experimenting will lead them to leave, sooner or later, the port and to be thrown to the sea.
At this moment, the parents, scared by ” what could happen ” will try to retain the boat to his side, seizing loudly the rope with which the boat is tied to the port.
Provoking, across sane, great inflexibility and tightness.
When more strips of the rope towards the port, more force does the boat towards the opposite side.
For what the rope every time has to support more tension.
Which is the danger?
That the rope breaks.
If the rope breaks, the relation breaks.
And would you like to break the relation with your children?
It seems to me that not.
Then, what can you do?
He remembers when you were a teen … do you remember your longings? Your desire of knowing the world?
Now I listen to you saying to me, but Miriam, the times have changed and now it is not the same thing, there is a heap of things that before did not exist.
And you have reason … partly.
There do not exist total guarantees of which it is not going to spend anything “bad” to him. But you think that if you support it you hyper-protect are going to avoid the “bad thing” that could happen to him?
Anything can happen at any time and anyhow.
Therefore, the only thing that is in your hand is to establish certain limits, in order that they could be discovering the world, little by little.
For it, you have to slacken the rope, be flex and leave that:
- Fall, in order that it learns to get up,
- Have problems, in order that it learns to solve them
- Experience life, in order that it lives in the first person, the consequences of his acts
Definitively, you have to allow that they should grow.
They are teens, need you, and simultaneously, need to go to the sea and to discover new worlds. But do not worry, that the rope remains tied to the port and it, it indicates the way of return to them.
I wait to understand my metaphor.
6. YES they need space (physical and emotional)
Sometimes the mothers make clear to me that on having come to the adolescence his children have “changed” and that, if before they were explaining everything, now already they do not tell them anything. And if before they were asking for his caresses, now they reject them.
This also is normal.
The group of reference in this stage they are the friends and it is important that like that it is. A teenager without friends, can have many problems, because it is a moment of life where they need to identify with the peer group.
And it means that they need a distance from the parents.
Physical distance, since they start preferring the kisses and embraces of another sex, that not those of his parents (he remembers that they take the hormones as the clouds).
Emotional distance, to the effect that they are in the process of turning into adults, and they have to learn to manage his own emotions.
As mother or father you can be there his emotions to help to identify them if they cannot do it, but you have to allow that they themselves should manage them.
So, if it shuts in itself in his room and before it was not doing it, nothing happens. They are assimilating all the changes that are experimenting, it forms a part of his process.
And as always I say, everything in his measured joust.
A thing is that they enclose a few hours in his room and another thing is that they pass the whole evening and every locked up day and without relating to anybody … in this case, it will be necessary to see if your son or daughter has any problem.
And finally, I would add even, “rational” or “cognitive” distance.
Since they are in the process of creating his own opinions, as an adult, you can urge them to that they share, to which they express his way of thinking and to that they justify his points of view.
For later, to refute, to remind or to accept the different opinions. It will do that they feel had in the account, and that value his own opinions before his companions.
7. They do NOT need that you solve his problems
To learn to manage and solve problems is one of the most important learnings for adult life.
And this, they can learn it already in adolescence, if as father or mother, you allow your children to look for his own solutions.
You will have to have under control your desire to ” facilitate the life ” to your son or daughter and ” avoid him ” suffering.
If your son or daughter explains a problem to you, it does not try to solve the first one.
Stop to it.
Listen to it.
Ask him how he feels.
And if already it has thought how to solve it.
Only in case it does not have any idea or the way about which he thinks to solve it is totally catastrophic, only in this case, it is necessary to give them alternatives.
Because you what do you prefer?, To feed fish today or to teach him to go fishing?
8. YES they need that you allow them to commit his own mistakes and to amend them
Because of it, if it is not serious at all, it allows that they should be wrong, in order that they learn.
From my point of view, there is no better learning that of committing your own mistakes and looking for solutions to amend them.
Because to live in the first person a consequence of your actions, it does not have a price. It is to allow your children to grow as persons, who mature and who establish relations between action and consequence.
Guide him, but do not put in his way.
Sometimes, nothing happens because they suffer “a bit” now. The important thing is that they learn, not to suffer “very much” later.
Yes?
9. They do NOT need that you harass them with physical affection
It is clear that this is going to depend much on the type of relationship that you have with your son or daughter because them there is that they are very affectionate and are they those who harass theirs you, but, in general, the adolescence is a stage in which the way of expressing the affection to our children, has to be modified a bit.
Normally, they are in the habit of asking for it you. Especially, it does not even happen to show your fondness opposite to his friends!
But it does not mean that they do not need from your love and from your caresses, clear that yes.
Nevertheless, we cannot continue expressing it like when they were children, because they already aren’t.
For the mothers especially, this is something that costs them very much, so his “small ones” reject his samples of fondness, and this sometimes, it is misinterpreted.
He remembers: they do not reject to you, simply, need to separate of you to differ.
In this point, I would like that you were doing a personal reflection:
When your children “reject” your affection or say to you that ” you should not harass them with so many kisses and embraces “, do you remain with the need to do it?
In the affirmative case, this “need” to give and receive love, is it yours or of them?
We all have needs …
Had you sufficient affection in your infancy and adolescence? Have you now?
Because sometimes, without realizing, we project (we) (see) in another one our need.
If you need to express fondness or to receive fondness but your son or daughter says to you that ” for the present time, already it has sufficiently “, can you look for another source for you?
I want to say, that if you are the one that needs fondness, you will have to look for the way of satisfying “you” need.
You can do this with your pair, your friend, your mother or even with you itself.
But it is important to separate the own needs from those of the children, to make them feel culprits, of our not satisfied need.
10. YES they need Love and Respect
To part of giving them fondness, it is very important that you could express your love to them for his person, for his being, exactly, as they are. And, that we show respect before his opinions, his decisions, his ideas, etc.
As parents, we will have to be still educating them until they grow and mature, but this function also implies respecting, on the one hand, his ideas through these are mistaken and, for another one, to give them another point of view, in order that they think.
Because if they feel accepted and respected, it will be easier that, at least, they bear in mind what you say to them, of another form, they will feel irresolute and will not want to know anything of your ideas or opinions.
11. They do NOT need that you treat them as small children
Care, neither as adults, because they are not.
They are “there”, in the way.
Trying to define those who are, in what they differ from his parents, what is what they like ” “, which are his opinions and values, etc.
And for it, they have that ” to rebel ” first of all the got for the parents, to be able to differ and create his own identity. This revolt forms a part of his evolutionary process, for what it is important that you do not take it in a personal way.
In this stage, as a mother or father, you will have to learn to be more flexible, to negotiating some things (not quite, certainly. There are things that are not negotiated) and especially, to offering them a sure space in which they could continue developing.
12. YES they need procedure and limits
The procedure and the limits improve the relationship with the teen children because they show them that a “suitable” way exists where it is possible to go, and another one for the one that is “dangerous”.
They give them a vision of what ” it is nice ” or ” it is acceptable ” and what is not. And it allows them to grow and to develop inside a “sure” space, because the parents are there to mark the way, to illuminate it and to guide them.
Because of it it is so important to put procedures and limits.
Do you know what happens when you do not put them?
They can spend two things:
- If your son or daughter feels “left” because ” it does what it does ” it is not important, you do not put any limit and he feels that, for you, it is not important.
- Since he needs limits, it will try every time to go beyond, doing every time worse things until “someone” gives birth to him. And if his parents do not stop him … will police have to do it?
Though your children rebel against your procedure and your limits, do not worry, it already you possess, but you have to remember that;
- You are stopping them before they it does others,
- You are showing him the suitable way that they have to follow,
- You are transmitting your values
This way, of adults, they will be capable of choosing his own way, of autonomous form, from what you have transmitted them.
I hope that this post helps the parents to improve the relationship with the teen children and to being able to see his needs from another angle.
The children do not come with the manual of instructions, so as mother or father, leave me you to remember that already you are doing it sufficiently well, with the knowledge and resources that you have.
If this article has helped you to extend a bit of your vision, I give myself satisfied. And, if at some moment you feel exceeded by the situation, do not hesitate to call and coordinate a visit.
Leave a Reply