TEEN ADVICE:It is important to remember that the transition from child to adult is difficult for teenagers as well, writes JOHN SHARRY
BEING A parent is a bit like being the captain on a long boat or plane journey with your children. You start the journey with a destination in mind and a navigation plan, but throughout the journey you can get thrown off course by different challenges and problems, much in the same way as a plane is put off course by the weather or other air traffic. Being off course as a family is, in fact, quite normal. As Stephen Covey says, “Good families – even great families – are off track 90 per cent of the time!”
What matters most is that you keep returning to your original course, you keep the destination in mind. You don’t let events throw you off course permanently and you keep in mind the final destination.
Some of the challenges that throw families off course are stressful outside events, such as illness or family breakdown, and some are the natural childhood stages, such as the toddler years or starting school.
For many people, adolescence and the teenage years represent a particularly stormy period in the family journey, and becoming a parent of a teenager brings many challenges. The happy-go-lucky child who went along with a lot of what you said can suddenly become this argumentative and resentful teenager who challenges everything.
Or the child who used to enjoy your company can become secretive and suspicious, and even appear to lock you out of their lives. In addition, as a parent you can be full of fears for your teenager, whether this is for their safety when out, or how they will deal with the pressures of drugs and alcohol.
As they enter the teenage years, often the map you had as to how to parent your children no longer seems to apply and you have to learn to chart a new course through the teenage storm.
It is important to remember that the transition from child to adult is difficult for teenagers as well. So many changes occur in these short years that it is not surprising they feel at times confused, frightened and lacking in confidence.
Physically, their bodies grow and change in ways that might make them feel awkward and self-conscious. Emotionally, they can be subject to great mood swings, from intense feelings of love and infatuation to anger and hatred.
Intellectually, teenagers become more sophisticated, being able to analyse things and to develop their own opinions and views.
They can begin to see the inadequacies in the parental world (and often are very eloquent in pointing them out) and wonder about their role in life.
Being a good co-pilot:Parenting as a long plane journey is also a good metaphor for the long-term aim of parenting teenagers. When a child is born, the parent is in the pilot's seat and is very much in charge of the controls. Parents make all the decisions about children's lives, about what they wear, where they go, who they see, and so on.
As a child gets older, a good parent allows him or her into the cockpit and begins to teach him or her how to operate the controls.
As a parent of a teenager your role is really one of “co-pilot”. Your aim is to teach your children all they need to become confident adults and to be able to fly their own plane responsibly.
A good “co-pilot” is supportively there for his or her children, letting them learn from mistakes and achievements, and handing over one by one the responsibilities of being an adult.
Being a good pilot is far from easy. Many parents fear letting go and battle with their children to take back the controls. Others are critical and undermining of their children’s ability to fly, never releasing them in the first place. And other parents do not give children any lessons at all, letting them learn the skills of flying from other people, such as their peer group or from the television.
Good parents, however, realise that the aim of the journey is not for the parent to remain in the cockpit, but to teach their children how to fly their own planes.
A time of opportunity:Perhaps the best way to approach the teenage years is to see them not just as a time of challenge but also as a time of great opportunity. Teenage rebellion is not a personal attack on your authority, but an important stage for children to go through as they forge their separate identity.
Every conflict is an opportunity for deeper understanding, for richer family relationships and closer involvement with each other.
The teenage years afford you a chance to get to know your children in a different light – as young adults rather than children – and to develop a new more equal relationship with each other.
By staying involved in your teenagers’ lives, you can share in their achievements and discoveries as they mature. You can appreciate and enjoy their excitement as they face a world full of opportunity, and you can have the pleasure of being one of their closest supports.
By staying involved and being firm when needed, you can chart a course through the difficult times so that you can be there as your teenagers grow into young adults of whom you can be proud.
- Next week: Effective discipline with teenagers
- John Sharry is an author, psycho-therapist and life coach. He will be giving a series of evening talks on parenting and relationships in Dublin, starting on September 22nd. Details at www.solutiontalk.ie.
- David Coleman is on leave