How are you going raising your tweens and teens?
Raising adolescents is both a wonderful period of change and a tricky stage for parents and can be a really difficult time for your children. I like to think of it as our children turning into butterflies. It is a time of massive physical development, hormonal changes and development of the cerebral cortex. For parents it s time when we need to be brave and to understand when to interfere, when to offer guidance and when to quietly observe (fingernail chewing allowed).
Adolescence is a time of change, our children seek greater independence (whilst still very much needing us there) , they are experimenting, testing boundaries and trying new things, all on their path to discovering who they are. Because so much is going on it can be a time of anxiety, perhaps angry outbursts at times, risk taking and a lot of button pushing (it’s so not easy being a parent at this time either is it?). However our children, even if they are acting with maturity, do not have the life experience or the self awareness to necessarily know when they are making a poor decision. Peer pressure, friendship groups, seeking validation and fitting in are all very important to a teen and this can sway them to do things or to act in ways which away from that pressure they might not normally do. This can affect their self esteem and confidence in either positive or negative ways.
Into this mix we now have a world which is made up of face to face and physical contact, and the online world of texts, photos, tweets, posts, comments and blogs. So what happens when you take teen angst, boundary testing, risk taking and give them access to a smart phone or other device? We open up another set of issues to navigate with our teens as they grow.
It is vitally important for parents to have knowledge about what to expect, or what to look out for, and to feel empowered to either help or know where to find help so that poor online behaviours or experiences are not prolonged before any intervention. Prevention is always better than trying to repair damage after an event.
Demonstrating strong family values, particularly that of Respect goes a long way to creating a foundation stone upon which your teen’s future is built. Our recent post on finding the balance and apps which can help you as a parent feel more at ease as your teen heads towards independence can be found here.
There is not enough room on this page to cover every aspect of raising your adolescent, and that is why we partnered with Happy Parenting and the Raising Adolescents, Teens and Tweens Online Conference.
This is a FREE live event running over the course of the week and you will find experts in all kinds of fields available with great advice, guidance and assistance with your questions. Don’t worry if you can’t watch it all live, there is an option to subscribe to have access to all the content and transcripts (along with lots of bonus material) so you can watch and listen in your own time. You can register for Free (there are limited places so we do advice you register as soon as possible.
When you sign up you will be granted immediate access to bonus content including our new eBook “The Social Media Diet” all about getting balance between the online and offline world.
Depending what part of the world you live in the conference start dates are:
|
We really hope to see you there.