Parenting Courage

Parenting is an act of courage. Every day there are decisions that ask you to either see the effect of that decision or succumb to the immediate relief or gratification of a decision. These decisions teach your teen something whether you are conscious in that moment or not.

These decisions are an act of courage. Here are three examples of courage:

1. You are infuriated because of something that happened with your teen. Still, you listen to be polite then you realize you heard something that makes sense. Your teen learned that you listen and that you don’t always jump to conclusions.

2. You decide to end a friendship with someone who is using you to make themselves feel better. You explain that you would rather have no friends than a friend that used and disrespected them so much. Your teen learned that friendships are important, but not more important than their sense of value. They’ll choose wisely.

3. You want to explain to your teen you had hard times too when you were young, but instead of telling a forbidding tale about your past, you explain how you felt. You describe how those emotions made you feel alone, and your teen connects with this. Your teen learns that you understand how they might feel in a situation and they are more willing to come to you next time.

Teen Parent Worry

There is a strong desire for you to protect your teen. You cringe at the close calls of their life whizzing around corners and shudder to yourself they’re only thirteen. Eeeesh!

The news doesn’t always help either. It seems there is always some new fangled way some mystery group of teens has thought up to make parents freak out. You frantically begin loading the list of things you must instill in your teen so they prevail.

Chilax!

Why?

Life is about lessons. These lessons teach your teen tools or life skills. We don’t wish bad things to happen, but they do and the energy spent empowering your teen and stating your belief in their ability to make good decisions is much better energy than filling them with your worry and suspicion about what they’re up to (this is no way to establish a great relationship by the way).

You know the job you did while they would listen now it’s time for them to put it into practice. Basic rules about listening to their spidy sense go much further than giving them a list a football field long of all the baddies out there.

Who Defines Your Teen?

There are moments when someone will try to define your teen. This may even be done by you, their parent.

These events, these words, these experiences and even grades, will attempt to define your teen. Remember, your teen’s job is to figure out who they are. They need to know themselves well enough to understand when someone is trying to define them and be able to recognize when that definition is not true.

This is not as simple as being the smart one or the cute one, this definition also tries to occur when your teen is abused through bullying, rape or they experience their first real failure. When you teach your teen to walk boldly in whom they are, these difficult moments bend them, but don’t break them.

Why, because they know who they are.

How To Encourage Your Teen

“No matter how encouraging I am, my teen still seems doubtful.” 

Encouragement helps your teen do better, but what should you be encouraging? Remember, teens are concrete thinkers especially early on. Encouraging things like effort or kindness and even helping out are vague and don’t always make a direct association to something they did. Encourage specific things so your teen knows what you are talking about.

I loved the way you just stopped yourself from calling yourself stupid when you made a mistake. You are clearly not stupid and a great skill is self-correction. Great job!

Now your teen knows something that pleases you, but even more importantly they know a specific behavior that is a skill to keep. They can build on this and see more great behaviors come from it. They also get an indirect lesson that if I can’t call myself names, it’s probably not okay for others to call me names either.