Three of my four children survived the teen years.
And you know what else? So have I.
Years before any of my children were thirteen, fourteen, fifteen and so on, I was tired of parents bad-mouthing their teens.
"I can't wait until my child is eighteen and
gets out of my house!"
With that kind of attitude, what did the parent expect? How could the teen years be anything but bad?
There had to be a better way to parent teens--and I determined to find it. In my quest--and thanks to my three older children--I developed a relatively simple Teen Survival Plan for Parents. It consists of three easy steps:
1. Maintain my relationship
I saw too many moms and dads losing track of their kids once they hit thirteen. These same parents had been intensely involved in their kids preschool and elementary school years--attending band concerts and sporting events and parent/teacher conferences--even helping their kids with their homework.
But once their kids attained the "Magic 13," these parents took a hands-off, no-involvement required approach to parenting.
I worked hard to have a relationship with my kids when they were younger. I determined not to lose that during the teen years. Yes, there were times I was tired and didn't want to go see my daughter play soccer or listen to yet another vocal choir. But that's just life. And being a parent means, tired or not, you go.
It goes without saying--but I am saying it anyway--that if you want to have a relationship with your teenager, you better develope it when they are young.
And once you've developed a relationship--one where you talk and they listen and they talk and you listen--protect it!
2. Maintain my sense of humor
It's said that laughter is the best medicine. I learned that's especially true when you're helping your child navigate the teen years.
I'm not going to lie to you and say raising a teen easy. You know better than that--you were a teen once yourself long, long, ago.
Teens are all about hormones and right choices and peer pressure and wrong choices and life decisions about college and careers. If you can't laugh about it, you'll cry. Sometimes you may do both.
I'd had fun with my kids when they were younger. I wanted to have just as much fun with my teens. You can't stay mad at someone if you're laughing with them. My kids and I watched lots of funny movies where we laughed ourselves red in the face and had to rewind the video because our giggles and guffaws drowned out the dialogue. For my girls, fun meant shopping. This was not true for my son. So, there were times my son and I wandered the book store or went and had breakfast--just the two of us. One time I bought a roll of quarters and took him to the local arcade. I dutifully stood by him and fed quarters into the video game while he played.
3. Maintain my perspective
Teens have a lot of choices to make. (Why is it kids are expected to make such major decisions as "What college do I attend?" and "What career do I pursue?" at the same time their hormones are raging? Sorry. That's another article.)
My parenting style changed during my kids teen years. I stopped assuming they were immature and would make the wrong decision without my brilliant insight on life, love, and their pursuit of happiness. I decided that, while yes, they were immature, they could make good choices. Maybe not the best. Maybe not the decision I would have made--but still, a reasonable, workable decision. It boiled down to this: For them to grow up, I had to let them grow up.
Were my kids' teen years easy and worry free? Hardly. We argued. We cried. At times we just didn't understand one another.
But through it all, we had relationship. Through it all, we enjoyed one another. And through it all, my kids matured.
And so did I.
(October 2006) (
