Basic Facts About Parenting Teens
Parenting teens can be hard work! Here are some basic facts about parenting teens that if you take them into consideration, can make parenting teens easier. These facts about teens are well-known, logically. See which you are already doing – and which need some improvement.
Set Healthy Limits To What Your Kids See And Read
One of the facts about parenting teens is that we have to monitor what media our kids are exposed to. Kids have access to much more information than we did when we were their age. They often watch a lot of TV and movies – not just on the living room couch, but also over the internet. There are internet sites where you can watch previously aired episodes of television shows, as well as movies. With this much availability, it can be tough to monitor what they see and read. Set limits anyway. Let them know when a show isn’t acceptable. They may still find a way to view it, but at least your opinion is clear. Also, total time will be lower if you do set limits to the amount of time they can spend in front of the TV or computer.
Magazines and books can also be beyond the limits we would want for our homes and our children, so don’t be oblivious to what non-electronic media is entering your home. Be willing to say “not in my house” and make viewing such things more difficult for your teens.
Have Wise Rules
If you have your teenager help set the family rules and consequences, they will be more likely to follow them, as well as cooperate with consequences when they break the family rules. If your family includes step parenting, remember that “family rules” are much easier to enforce. This fact about parenting teens is easy to understand.
Parents Need To Be Informed
Your teen knows a lot about the viles of the world – the sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll – although now we aren’t worried so much about the rock ‘n’ roll as we are the other dangers out there. Teens tend to take more risks than we want, and experimentation with risky things can be among them. We can’t just ignore the tough topics, though. That won’t make them disappear; and if your teen doesn’t ask questions about sex or drugs, it doesn’t mean he or she hasn’t thought about trying them.
A fact about parenting teens is that the parents need to discuss the difficult topics with their kids before they are confronted by them along with peer pressure. They need to know that they are dangerous – and how we feel about them. If we have some experience in using (drugs, alcohol, tobacco, sex…) it can be a particularly difficult conversation to have, but that makes it all the more important. Teens need to know how we feel about the tough stuff.
Know Who They Know
About parenting teens, it’s a fact that we need to know their friends, and their friend’s parents, too. If we know who they are talking about, their personalities, the red flags (if we see them) we will understand much better what is going on in our teenager’s life. And if we do see a red flag, our teen is more likely to respect our opinion than if we go on gut instinct alone. Knowing their parents can help us all keep track of our kids without appearing clingy or nosy. Talk to the other parents, and know who they’re really with, and when, and where.