2012-3
16

Know What Your Teen Remembers?

Category: Parenting | No Comments

Some of the earliest memories we have are at four or five years old. What does your teen remember?

The thing about moments is that you don’t know you’re creating one. You live your life and things distract you or you say things mindlessly and your teen remembers that. Sometimes they’re funny and they’re the stuff of legendary stories in your family and sometimes they’re the things that bring tears to everyone’s face that aren’t always tears of joy.

It helps if you are present. It helps if you live like you don’t have the next one minute.   Because even if you don’t know this moment will be embossed in your teen’s brain forever, you have a sense that you took the time to be present and take everything in.  You may remember things differently from your teen, but you’ll agree that something happened and you will undoubtedly be able to share that moment.

2012-3
15

How To Change Your Teen

Category: Communication | 1 Comment

A hard life lesson is how much you cannot change someone. I’m gonna say this again for emphasis.

You can’t change anyone.

You can inspire them to change and you can certainly support them through their change, but you cannot change anyone.

Teens have an excuse because they don’t really understand this concept yet, but you? You? You’re an adult and you should know better. Just because you’re their parent doesn’t mean you can make them change who they are. You have to work with the difference and not think you can bend it like superman with the metal in his hands.

So many women in their thirties, forties and fifties finally admit defeat and divorce husbands they thought they could love enough to change. It’s not different with your teen. They were born that way. Inspire them, but don’t expect them to change until they’re ready.

2012-3
14

You Don’t Get It…Sometimes Parents Don’t Understand

Category: Communication, Parenting | No Comments

Sometimes your teen is right. You don’t get it.

For example take the teen that has difficult periods or menstrual cycles. They can’t get out of bed and they can’t function. They either miss school or activities or they ask you to pick them up when they have done as much as they can do for the day.

Your doctor offers you birth control as a way to improve the cramps, lighten the bleeding, help the acne and backne* your teen struggles with, help stabilize their moodiness that precedes their period not to mention help regulate her periods. They offer you this manna from heaven if you will and you say…

Birth control?! I’m not giving my daughter birth control!

You don’t get it. The benefits outweigh the myth and stereotype of using the birth control to help your daughter attend school more regularly. You’re stuck on the words Birth Control. Let me do you a favor and call it hormone manipulation. How’s that? Better?

 

*Backne – acne on the back

2012-3
13

Your Teen Loves You, But Like You?

Category: Parenting | 1 Comment

I love my Dad, but I don’t like my Dad.

Do you know the difference?

Here’s the thing. By the time your teen is over the hump of being a teen (e.g. 15 or 16 years old), they’re going to have met a lot of adults. By the time, they get to this age they’re going to be able to start comparing you to other adults and they’re going to start to figure out how normal you really are. You’ll end up with a distinguished honor, an absolute sucks or somewhere in the middle.

This has nothing to do with loving you. This is a like issue.

They don’t mean that they wouldn’t be sad if you died or if you left, but it means they can see your faults and not that we don’t all have ‘em, but they’re going to figure out how you work and how you work with others and you’ll end up likable or not. They’ll figure out there was a better way to do things, or say things and that they deserved more patience or more structure in their lives. They’ll figure out that its possible you didn’t really want to be a parent, why you aren’t a good one and even dare I say that you shouldn’t have been one. They’ll even figure out whether you like them.

Every time you compare your teen to someone else, think about that. Are you as likable as you are lovable?

2012-3
12

A Teen Giggler

Category: Anxiety | No Comments

Do you have a giggler? They giggle all the time. You say something, or do something and they giggle.  whether it’s funny or not.

Giggling can be cute and it can even be attractive, but sometimes the giggling can be a way your teen avoids very serious or uncomfortable issues. Take for example intimacy. Someone asks them something about how they feel. How do you feel about your parents getting a divorce? “Ha-ha-ha, well that’s their life isn’t it?” is what you hear in response.

That’s avoidance. Of course, it bothers them or at least they feel something about it.

Giggling is less intimidating and helps your teen not seem so angry or assertive. It allows them to act as if they’re easy going, but it also allows them to avoid a lot of serious issues. There’re a lot of tough issues in someone’s life and if they think you can’t handle what they’re really feeling then a carefree laugh is all they’ll give.

2012-3
9

Tricky Pronouns Parents of Teens Use

Category: Communication | No Comments

There’re a lot of pronouns that you use when you talk to your teen. If you recall a pronoun is something that stands in for a person(s), place(s) or thing(s). There’re common ones that are short, but sometimes you use a lot of words to stand for something only you know in your head.

 

Chores

Do your chores. Like what? Chores are an unpleasant but necessary task. Really. Look it up. This can mean anything your teen hates to do. I’m banking that list is long. So if you say, “Go do your chores” and you fail to be specific. Well, your teen might come back saying, “Well that was rough, but I’m glad I finally cleaned up my social network inbox. I hate doing that!”

 

Protect yourself

This is usually preceded by “Don’t be stupid” then you add,” protect yourself.” Well I want to ask you with what? Protect yourself with Karate? A weapon? A shield? Emotionally? Protect yourself with what? This is usually how the sex talk goes and the assumptions in that sentence are exactly why the sex talk needs to be done. If you code it all up with pronouns, they’ll just shrug their shoulders and go, “Okay.”

 

Be smart

Hmmm…do you mean academically? Streetwise? As in I was being stupid just a minute ago? I tell you be smart means something different to each person. They think they’re doing alright until you show them the right way or they make a mistake that is costly. When we start a job, they train us if only by giving us a probationary period. They understand that no one really comes out the gate ready to go. They need to be taught, watched and then they need a lot of practice.

 

Be tough

Okay. I’m workin’ out now three times weekly instead of two. I have noticed some bicep bulk. Is that what you mean? Ohhhhh, you mean no one should ever connect to me emotionally and I should be mysterious with my friends! You really meant I should be able to take life’s knocks with some resilience? What’s resilience? Oh, being hopeful that things can get better even though I feel completely beat up. Be tough. AND it can mean learning to walk away from a fight because that never solved anything.  Okay I think that makes sense too because I thought you meant I had to work out five times per week, doh!

 

Eat right

I do. I eat using my utensils. I always forget the side the fork versus the spoon goes on, but I think I know how to eat right. You mean that’s not what you mean. You mean I can’t eat orange chippy things for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Seriously? That’s a bummer. There’s no orange category on that pyramid? Dang! Alright I’ll try a carrot.

 

2012-3
8

Teen’s With NO Opinion

Category: Mental Health | 1 Comment

What did you think? How did that affect you?

I’m fine. It didn’t affect me at all.

More often than not, this is a lie. Everything affects someone. Everything. Sometimes the impact is huge and sometimes it’s a little ruffle that can even be a happy ruffle. It’s still an affect though. The stiff jaw and mask of nothing bothering your teen is what can create a lot of tension in the home. Your teen wants you to think they can handle stuff and you busy with all that is life wants to believe them. Still…

Don’t be so easily suckered. Something’s gonna blow.

A parent who is not around affects them. A friend who let them down affects them. You not trusting them, affects them: just like Newton’s law of physics that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You can bet your bottom dollar that every event that occurs in your teen’s life affects them and when they try and shake it off like their Joe cool they lose an opportunity to learn something about themselves that will make them stronger and smarter for future adversity. They lose the opportunity to have an equal reaction that packs a punch rather than takes them out.