Teenage girl - Parenting?

Question

My neice is 14. Since my sister is the only one Im close to that has a teenager this is all I get to see - I have younger kids under 5. Im dreading the teenage years. Are all teens like this, How to you handle teen years. During the family and friend all beign together during Xmas, She walked around saying smart disrespectful comments. I would have grounded her to her room with the mouth on her. Maybe Im just not use to this age but I just do not want my kids to be like that, I will "beat" them. My neice has began an online relationship with a 17yr old boy several states away. First off she isnt allowed to talk to anyone online other than who she knows in person. Her mom found out about this and grounded her (which last 2 days @@). After her mom spoke to the boy on the phone and she is now ok with this...The 14yr old, is basicly a good girl, emo/goth crowd in the flag line in band.But still a teenager.My teen years wasnt that long ago and even what seems good always isnt.input on teens

Answer 1

Hi, I raised eight children, and yes, the teenage years are by far the most difficult.

The message I want to share with you is that teens need their parents even more than any other age group. While very young children depend upon their parents for their very lives, older children need a deep emotional bond with their parents long before they reach teenage years.

Children need a firm but loving hand. They do not respond well to physical discipline, and these day with how Social Services butts their nose in every aspect of family life, it is not possible for us to raise our children as our parents raised us.

I would never speak to my parents the way I hear many teens today speak to theirs. I would have gotten the flat of my mothers hand across my mouth, and my father would have beat my butt silly. I am not the worse for wear for that type of discipline, but those day are over, and I think it a step in the right direction.

You see, while I say I was not injured by the physical discipline my parents dealt out, I was also not able to communicate with them durring my teenage years. I was basically alone, as were my siblings, to find our way through early teenage life, and early adulthood. It was very difficult to say the least to try to sail those sharp shoals during the most difficult and painfull period of life, while attempting to grow into an adult and find my way in life.

Because I didn't have a close bond with my parents in my teenage years I didn't feel that I could talk with them about the issues I faced daily. I had to make all of those decisions on my own, without any guidence to help me out, and all those years of personal life experiance that my parents possessed were lost to me during those years. That is a shame. I would have loved to have an adult whom I could have turned to for advice, or just a listening ear, no judgements, no guilt trips, just understanding and some words of wisdom on their experiances while they were teenagers, and who life grew around them as they entered adulthood. I would have appreciated hearing of any mistakes they had made and appreciated seeing them as human as the next person.

I decided that I wanted to be there for my children when they entered their teenage years. I began to develop a strong bond with them prior to their reaching ten years old. It is easy to develop a relationship with younger children because they are so eager to please and to belong.

However, if you parents do not develop the habit of truly just listening to their children while they are younger, just listening to them, and allowing them to speak their piece, they will not turn to those parents when they become teenagers. There will have been astablished a lack of mutual communication.

Parents mean well,, they really do. However, parents tend to speak "at" their children, rather that too, or with their children. When we speak at our children we are not communicating, we are lecturing and not allowing feedback, nor are we understanding our children at a very basic level.

As parents we always want to see the best of our children. Many parents make the mistake of refusing to see the negative qualities of their children. Due to this they fail to really know their children, and their children think they have to hide that portion of who they are, and that denies true understanding that you are known and loved for the whole person, for the good and in spite of the negative. Children who think their parents do not truly know them, will not think or believe those parents can understand them, or what is affecting them.

Not long ago parents and children lived in close proximity to extended family. Boys working with their fathers were taught how to be men, through natural conversations which developed on their own, and were not forced. The boys were not sat down and lectured about the facts of life, they were taught the facts of life as the opportunity during daily work and living brought them up. When a situation arose which could demonstrate a life truth or situation, the father would use it to show the boys how to deal and how to respond, what not to do, and what to do. The boys had a role model because they were with their father's on a daily basis, and they grew up with that presense every day. A father who showed maturity and wisdom, and was willing to admit when or if a mistake was made, helped teach their boys how to be men.

The same goes for mother's and daughter's. They worked on or around the home, everyone had chores, everyone had work, and while that work of daily life engaged them, the mother would teach her daughters how to become women. The first and foremost was by example, and the second was by conversations on a daily basis, in a natural manner.

We start by teaching our children what it means to be a family. Everyone has a place, responsibility within that family. Everyone pitches in and helps out, it is not up to just one or two people to take care of all family and home related responsibilities.

We then show by example how to treat other people. We also communicate with our children by having normal converstaions with them, not by lecturing when something has gone wrong. While we do talk to the children when they misbehave, we do not try to shame them or guilt them. We give a punishment which is predictable, and once it is over with we get on with life and don't rub their noses in their mistakes.

We take our children to do charitable work. This does two major things for their developement. It shows them that they are well off, much better so than many other unfortunate individuals. We show them that they have reason to be grateful for what we have provided them, not tell them this. Secondly, it teaches them compassion, to reach out a helping hand, and not simply be takers.

We keep up a daily dialog where we talk together,not talk too them or at them. We listen to them, truly listen, and we love them well, but we don't spoil them.

When we have developed this type of bond, where they know they will be excepted no matter what, that they can turn to you regardless of what mistakes they have made, that discipline will be both fair and predictible, when they know you do not make threats you won't or can't carry out, then you have a supurb chance to survive teenage years without your children winding up in Juvinile Hall, or pregnant.

You be the one to discuss birth control, your husband can do so with the boys, or if not, you can do that too. One son of mine (their father passed away when they were young) didn't want to hear about birth control and responsibile sexual encounters, from his mother. He would cover his ears, and I would say one or two sentences and stop. In a couple of days I would do so again, and again, until he showed me one day that what I had been attempting to teach him had taken root and bore responsible fruit. When a condom broke it was me he and his girlfriend turned too, and we dealth with it together, the three of us.(this was a situation with a mother who refused to even discuss birth control, like if she ignored it it would never become an issue).

So, my point is to develop a deep bond with your children now while they are young. Teach them responsibility, that they have a role in the family that is only his/her's alone, and what a family is all about. Teach them compassion and charity, and listen to them, don/t talk at them.

Then, while they are teenagers, slowly give them freedom, and act as though you trust them, don't show distrust before they actually do anything wrong. As they show maturity and responsibility add to their freedoms.

Always know who they are with, and where they are at. Provide a cell phone so they can call you and you can call them. Let them know that if they get into any type of trouble that you should be the first they call, regardless of what the situation is. That you will always be there for them, and while punishment is to be dealth with, you always love them no matter what mistakes they have made. Always be there for them, do not give them time to wander the streets.

What they do not receive at home they will look for on the streets and then those horrible adults who use and abuse children will get their hands on your children. Make sure they know how deeply loved and wanted they are, that they are the world to you and of unlimited value, even when they are not always the angles you wish them to be.

Know that they are going to make mistakes. However, you can reduce these by being in contact with them constantly and consistantly. Explain before they are teenagers that their level of freedoms will depend on the level of maturity and responsibility the demonstrate.

This sounds like a lot, and it is. However, what is at stake is crucially important. Your children's lives and futures. It takes only a split second for a child not seat belted in, who got into a vehicle with somebody who has been drinking, to never come home again.

What you do is you begin now, while they are still receptive of what you have to say. You make sure they feel heard by you, allow them to speak their thoughts.

I explained to my children that they did not live in a Democracy, but a dictatorship. I could not allow my children to run the show by out voting me! lol I let them know that they each could discuss what was important to them, and they knew that I had to make the decision, but that I would do so with their needs and thoughts in mind.

Make your children your number one priority. Please understand that you are going to make mistakes. Tell your children you are sorry when you do, and let them know you were not born a parent, but are just as human as the next person. When a parent says they are sorry, and makes amends to who them wronged, the children see this and learn from it. They will be more likely to own their own mistakes and make amends too.

The bottom line is your children as teenagers will need you more in those years than in any other age group. The way you are there for them is by developing that bond now. Listen to them, value them, teach them responsibility and what a family means and represents, and how to be compassionate, and appreciative for what you provide them.

If nothing else, listen to them, really listen, take the time so they know you hear them. Children who know they are truly heard, feel valued. Children who do not feel heard will continue to say, "Mommy, mommy, mommy" etc.

Have you ever been somewhere in public and heard a child keep repeating Mommy? That is a child who does not feel heard, because the mommy is too harried and busy to stop and listen to the child. That child will eventually stop trying, and as a teenager will begin to act out in negative manners to get that parents attention, even if it is negative attention. Then that child will turn to the streets to find what s/he is not receiving at home. Period.

Your teenage neice is not feeling heard. She is acting out in disrespectfull manners so be seen and heard. She has not been taught the correct way to behave. Oh, she may have received lectures, but not shown by example and not heard.

I do not mean any disrespect to your sister. I am sure she loves her daughter very much, but is at a loss how to deal with the child now she is a teenager.

Setting up a punishment she does not follow through on, allowing contact she initially denied, is inconsistant and causes the child to feel insecure and she will only grow worse in her wild ways. She needs solid bounderies, predictible results for failing to adhere to the family rules, daily responsibilies, and constant attention.

Children crave bounderies and they only push them to feel how strong they are. Children feel safe and loved with solid and strong bounderies. Children need to feel heard, and needed and valued. They need responsibilities from a young age which grow more detailed as the grow. They need constant attention, and ways to demonstrate their growing maturity and responsibility.

Hold on tight, because if you don't you may lose your children. Don't be punitive, be just and predictible.

You are going to be fine, you know why? Because you are now wishing to know what to do with your children, long before the trouble hits you in the face. You are reaching out to find answers, and that is why you are going to be OK, and as you are OK, so too will your children be OK. Expect troubles, it is not easy even in the best of situations. Don't over react.

You would be amazed how teenagers who act out, but who received a solid foundation while they were younger, turn out perfectly Ok in the end.

Good luck and please don't obsess over this. If you wish you can locate a good counselor who can assist you through the difficult years and help prepare you now. There are great parenting classes which can give you a solid foundation on which to meet your children as teenagers. Don't be afraid or ashamed to ask for help, there isn't any shame in that, only pride that you sought out that which you need to be the best parent you can possibly be. It is OK to make mistakes, just acknowledge them, and move on.

You are a great mother. Please have a wonderfull day.

Answer 2

It all depends on the parenting; and really, the teenager. I had a friend growing up who would rather hang out with her dad than anyone else, and had never been grounded. It was just her personality- she was more mature than myself and others around her.

My kids are 5 and under as well, and I know I wont let them run wild when they are teens. I certainly wouldn't let them date someone online, and then ground them for only 2 days after I found out. The best way to handle teens, I believe, is to set down firm rules and back them up. No iPod, no phone, no internet, no this if you do that.

Answer 3

Teens: once you've got one in your home, run like the wind! There is no where to hide! Its true, they begin a path of destruction yet you are caught picking up the aftermath. Get yourself armed with lots of psychological information. I worked in the field of psychology which helped alot in dealing with the teen years. They are going to thrash around the rude comments to shock you; they are going to "gross-out" when you make a suggestion. So don't go there when it comes to fashion or fades. Just make sure you continue giving them structure as you did before they crossed into the land of terrorizing teenhood. Don't ever let your guard down during this period because they are testing and they will try harder. Once you slip into a soft zone, they got you and you're going to have a hard time getting yourself from under them. Just think yourself like in a horror movie when the demons come out to get you; what do you do? Arm yourself for the next 6 years. It is going to be a rough ride but stay persistent and be the strong mother that every kid that finally grows out of the stage wishes he had when he was a teen.