When my kids hit the teen years, I realized that my parenting strategies and attitudes could use an upgrade. I needed to keep up with the symptoms of adolescence: physical gawkiness; mood swings; more time spent in front of mirrors or behind closed doors; the sudden demand for immediate trips to Target to buy bras, deodorant, or acne treatments; that kind of thing.
I think I’ve made the transition pretty well, though heaven knows we are not finished – heck, none of them drives yet – but I have accepted the fact that my children are turning into adults before my eyes. Mostly, I really like the people emerging from those baby skins, but this new stage has its challenges. If you’re just at the cusp of these years, perhaps you’ll appreciate some advice from Dr. Michael Resnick, a professor of pediatrics and the director of the Healthy Youth Development Prevention Research Center at the University of Minnesota.
Resnick, also the father of a high school student, understands parental feelings of frustration about this often-challenging phase. “I recently saw a bumper sticker,” Resnick chuckles,
Grandchildren are the reason we don’t kill our adolescents.
His six tips, below, might just help you avoid committing a felony:
1. Adolescence is the fastest period of growth outside of infancy in the human experience. “If kids seem out of synch with their bodies, it’s probably because they are. Physical awkwardness is real and tangible, but kids’ brains and bodies line up eventually. They learn how to handle a body that is bigger, faster, stronger. Mood swings, secrecy, brooding silence – it all comes with the territory,” he explains.
2. Don’t ridicule their feelings, but simply acknowledge them. That searing self-consciousness? Absolutely normal. “They have the sense the world is a stage and all eyes are on them. It is important for adults to get that and not ridicule it,” advises Resnick. “Kids resonate so warmly and well when adults acknowledge how they must be feeling about something. Try saying to them: ‘I can understand how you would feel that way,’ ‘That must have felt good,’ or ‘That must have felt rough.’”
3. What you do matters. “This is the most important and positive message I would have for parents. While kids are sometimes very convincing that they don’t need us any more, parents shouldn’t buy that. Under that thin veneer of indifference, they are watching and listening. What we do as parents and as adults in the lives of others people’s children has enormous impact. I give this message to parents of all social groups.
“Some parents make the mistake of believing that, once our children make it to adolescence, we are irrelevant,” he adds. “Others are wise and know that adolescence is a time to re-engage with their kids, but the rules of engagement have to change.”
4. The more kids demonstrate they can be in the driver’s seat, the more they should drive. Resnick means that more figuratively than literally – when they get chores done, how they manage their homework, with whom they spend their time. The more responsibility they show in those areas, the less direction they need. Help them to understand this consequential relationship between freedom and responsibility. His wife has a metaphor: As kids rise to the occasion and demonstrate their competence, we parents basically “resign from the executive directorship and take a seat at the board of advisors.”
5. Teens are still building their repertoire of skills and experiences to draw on when they need to judge a situation. “Maybe they are in a situation for the first time; welcome to the human race,” Resnick says. “Every parent should give this message to their kids: ‘If you ever find yourself in an unsafe situation, no matter when or where, if your ride is drunk or high, if you are drunk or high, if any of your friends are drunk or high … I will come and get you.’ You deal with the consequences in the morning.”
6. Being there to listen is terribly important. They may plop down on your bed for a heart-to-heart just as you’ve decided not to read that paragraph for the fifth time and you’re reaching over to turn off the light. “Parenting adolescents is an art form that has to do with timing and patience and humor,” Resnick summarizes.
And remember, in the words of another bumper sticker I saw recently: Youth aren’t the problem. They’re the solution.
Kris Berggren thanks God for bumper stickers that help her put things in perspective.
