Are you a parent of a teenager? Parenting with teenagers can be challenging, but it can also be a rewarding experience with the right approach.
Here are some tips for you to help navigate the teenage years:
1. Try to be a good friend:
Simply try to be a friend, but do not involve yourself too much in their private activities. Avoid behavior that might drive them away from you.
Every parent should behave more like a friend than a strict parent. For better parenting, I suggest being an approachable mom or dad so that they can share everything with you without any hesitation.
2. Go somewhere with them:
To make them happy, you should go outside to a place they want to visit. This could be the nearest park, garden, restaurant, shopping mall, neighbour’s house, or another location.
If you live in a city, you can explore your urban area. Here, they will have the opportunity to meet new people, see natural scenery, and gain new experiences.
To keep their minds fresh and bodies strong, consider going for a morning walk or a long drive with your teenager. This can also help you understand their emotions and their innocent minds.
After providing these opportunities, you will see that your parent-child relationship will strengthen and improve day by day.
3. Be a Role Model:
To prepare your teenagers as a real human being, you should act as a role model.
Be generous, grateful, and volunteer to inspire similar traits in them.
Apologize when you make mistakes, remain positive during critical situations, be punctual at all times, and demonstrate professional behavior with everyone.
By maintaining these behaviors, you can positively influence your teenager’s attitude, which is essential for our society.
4. Avoid partiality:
If you have more than one teenage daughter or son, you should give equal priority to all your teenagers.
Parents have no right to hurt their teenagers’ feelings by showing favoritism towards their siblings.
Every child has equal rights, whether they are a boy or a girl; you should not neglect anyone.
Parents should provide everything equally to their children without creating any partiality.
5. Do fun things with your teenagers:
To maintain a close relationship with your teenagers, engage in activities with your daughter or son.
This can include cooking a new recipe, playing video games, shopping together, singing or dancing, reading a story or fictional book, watching popular TV shows, creating social media reels, painting, designing, and any type of fun activity that you both enjoy.
Through these activities, you and your children can gain new experiences and deepen your understanding of each other.
6. Provide gift box for their happiness:
Every child appreciates receiving new things from their parents and other close individuals.
During the challenging teenage years, to help manage their emotions, parents should consider giving various types of gift boxes.
These gifts need not be expensive; they can be affordable items like a nice watch, cosmetics, clothes, shoes, or favorite foods such as chocolate, ice cream, pizza, or burgers, which can be ordered from an online shop. By giving these gifts, you can easily surprise and delight them.
7. Prepare a delicious meal for them:
You can cook delicious food and surprise them. Every child prefers unusual and tasty food over regular meals.
Consider a new recipe featuring beef, mutton, and chicken without any vegetables, as most children do not enjoy vegan food. You might also choose a special type of fish, depending on your teenager’s preferences.
By offering meals they prefer, you can make them happy. If you occasionally try new dishes for them, they will be pleased with you.
8. Don’t compare your teen with others:
Comparing your teen with their peers, cousins, siblings, or other accomplished individuals is detrimental. Such behavior can lead to low confidence and self-esteem in your teenager.
Instead of being critical of their performance, inspire and appreciate their efforts. If you observe any mistakes in their actions, provide constructive guidance. This will help them excel in the future.
9. Encourage for a healthy lifestyle:
Most young people don’t know how they take care of themselves. So every parent should teach them about a healthy lifestyle.
As parents, we must inform our children about regular physical activities like exercise, yoga, morning walks, etc., which will help them feel energetic and refresh their minds naturally.
It’s our responsibility to inform them to get proper nutrition, vitamins, and minerals. They must know which food is good or bad for our health.
They need proper sleep for their mental and physical development. Teens should keep themselves clean and fresh by bathing regularly.
10. Ensure safe environment for teenagers:
As a parent, your primary duty is to provide a safe environment for your children. Educate them about traffic, online, and physical safety, as well as the consequences of premarital sex and drug use.
Take necessary steps to prevent bullying and suicide in our society.
Promoting hand washing and practising hygiene is also essential to prevent diseases.
11. Support your teen’s interest and passion:
If you want to be a better parent to your teens, support their interests and passions.
Whether they are passionate about dancing, painting, designing, singing, or other activities, appreciate their creative ideas and efforts in various fields.
Encourage them to express their talents in their pursuits and provide the necessary guidelines and tools for their favorite activities.
12. Stay involved and informed
During this adolescent period, every teenager is very restless; they are unstable in their thinking.
So, parents need to be conscious about where they are going, with whom they are meeting, which type of friends they have and which kind of task they are doing.
Parents should be involved and informed naturally and softly because adolescents don’t like parents’ involvement in their personal lives.
13. Respect their privacy
We must remember that every person has privacy and secrets about their personal life. So, we should respect our teenagers’ privacy.
Don’t check their personal notebook, don’t enter their room, don’t check their inbox and call list.
You can do this only with permission to know their activities. However, permission to check their private things is not good for parents. If you notice that anything is wrong, you can check it technically and normally.
Summary:
Parenting a teenager requires patience, understanding, and flexibility. By fostering a supportive and communicative environment, you can help your teenager navigate the complexities of adolescence and grow into a confident and responsible adult.
