Adolescence can be just as much as a jungle for a teenager as it can be for a teenager’s parents. If you’ve survived being a teenager give yourself a pat on the back. If you’ve survived being a teenager’s parent then give yourself a hug if you can! It’s going to take guts. It’s going to take strength. It’s going to take patience. And it would be a good idea to mentally prepare your self for the trip. The following sections will have a number of articles which can offer useful advice, strategies, tips, and aid in distinguishing the role of the parent. These articles can only serve as a guide but it’s up to you to apply them in ways which will serve most useful for both you and your teen. For example the article Breaking language barriers between teens and their parents under Parenting Advice for Troubled Teens tries to explain how a teenager’s priorities may differ from generation to generation, The article continues to state that by finding out what’s important to your teen, you have a key into the language he/she uses with other teens. You can try and to apply these points to a teenager who loves basketball by talking to him on his terms. Maybe take him out for a one-on-one game of basketball and sneak in questions about how he’s doing at school while you’re sweating it out together. In another article What could be causing your teen’s defiant behavior? under Parenting Strategies for Defiant Teens parents are warned about how not keeping yourself fully aware of your teenager’s full capabilities and the different possibilities that he may turn to when looking for a way around a given penalty, may actually be equivalent to digging a whole for yourself to fall into. This article reminds a parent that a defiant teen will try and look for a way out when faced with a penalty. A good response to an article like this would be to keep one’s self a step ahead of your teenager by thinking up back-up penalties to use in place of your set guidelines. Remember parents, you are just as human as your teenagers are. Don’t feel pressured to be the perfect parents. As long as you hold your child’s best interest at heart, then in every case you can be sure that the choice you make for your teen is the right one.
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