The Best way to Start Being a Good Parent of a Teen
Parenting your teen really begins with parenting yourself. There is so much you bring to the table from your own upbringing and this means more than sayings like “You just wait until your father gets home!” No, it’s about the feelings that your parents created in you with their parenting. Did they make you feel loved? Supported? Did they mock you? Or, were they simply never there through divorce, separation like jail or adoption?
Whatever the particulars of your situation you can never underestimate the role they play in your feelings about how you parent as well as the feelings your teen brings up in you when you are interacting with them. Sometimes when you are yelling at your teen, you are actually yelling at your parent. I realize this may sound weird, but people in general bring up feelings in us why shouldn’t our teen?
If your father was a strong silent type and didn’t believe he was supposed to interact with you (those were things mothers did). You may get very angry when your teen seems to be ignoring you. This can make you so sensitive you overact with your teen who can start to think you are absolutely crazy. “My Mom is always out of control. Anything I do just makes her crazy.” Without understanding this, your teen begins to think, “What is it about me that makes her so crazy?” This can make them question their ability to judge social situations, affect their self-esteem and of course their relationship with you.
The ripple effect is that they begin to think this is a normal way to interact with women and so when his girlfriend blows up at him, he thinks this is normal behavior too and he may end up marrying this same type of woman. Do you want this for your teen? Do you want your teen walking on eggshells in their own home because they are unsure of what may trigger anger in their mate?
People often talk about preparing their teen for their future spouse through teaching them to do a load of laundry or picking up after themselves, but we rarely mention the emotional interaction we have with our teens that helps them have a normal if not better relationship with their future mate.
Yep! Great teen parenting begins with parents giving themselves the emotional or material things that they may have missed as a teen. When you give your teen the thing you are missing from your upbringing, your teen ends up confused trying to make sense of the whole thing. With no reason to doubt you, they doubt themselves.
A great way to understand more about your upbringing is through therapy. If you need information about local counselors word of mouth is always a great way to start, but if you are self-conscious about asking around and don’t want to ask someone to ask for you, you can go to Psychology Today which has a list of psychologists in your area.
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