Talking to teenagers

Photo by Kat J on Unsplash Advising all Parents don’t do b******t, teenagers are experts at detecting it in adults! Teenagers need repeated instructions, reminders, prompting, guidance and direction but when it comes to insight and awareness into the adults in their life, they are watching and tracking carefully. Between the ages of 11-13 teenagers start to experience their parents as people that haven’t quite got it together in a way they expect adult life to be. In some cases, this creates a sceptical disheartened teenager who is looking for evidence of safety and security in this ‘scales fall from the eyes’ period. So, what are we to do as parents to prevent these feelings in your teenagers to deepen. Stop the b******t ·        Don’t try to wing a mistake and continue to protest it was the right course of action. The teenager knows you have got it a bit wrong, they feel it. If it goes unacknowledged it becomes the elephant in th...

Be vigilant soon to be year 9 parents, there may be some bad choices in the friend department coming! Up until this point you may have had quite a bit of sway in regards to your child’s friends. In primary you could make the excuses regarding tea invites and parties; your teenager may have stuck with the same set of friends from primary in year 7 and part of 8 of secondary school. Then year 9 comes and it seems that yourself and your teenager are talking a different language about friends. This is the time to be on the ball about all things, the peak period for peer influence is 13. This is when they are experiencing themselves as a truly separate other. They are flexing their autonomy muscles and seeing where the limit is. In my experience the period after Christmas of year 9 was when I really had to make it clear what I would accept and what I wouldn’t. Parents of teenage clients also say the same thing to me. That year 9 is the tipping point or the ‘game changer’ as one...