Tips to Raising a Teenager

Rais­ing teenagers require strat­egy and skill based on under­stand­ing. The par­ents have done a great job in bring­ing up the lit­tle one to enter the teen zone. But it is not time to sit back on the haunches in a mood of self con­grat­u­la­tion because sud­denly life changes for both par­ties – the par­ents as well as teens.

The very name of teenagers makes many par­ents feel fright­ened because the young­ster sud­denly becomes a stranger – nei­ther an adult nor a child. This period of life requires the max­i­mum atten­tion and under­stand­ing from the par­ents because it can make or unmake the future of the child.

The teen years are years of change. The par­ent will now have to teach the teen to become an adult – a life laced with not just unlim­ited fun but with respon­si­bil­i­ties and respon­si­bil­i­ties towards the fam­ily, soci­ety and the state. Unbri­dled indul­gence to the teenagers dam­ages not only their own lives but also that of family.

How can the par­ents do all this while rais­ing a teenager? By under­stand­ing that the very nature of the teen is to revolt. All big rev­o­lu­tions have been brought about by the young. It is a tremen­dous source of strength. The best of teach­ing is not by long bor­ing lec­tures buy by the par­ents being an exam­ple to the teenager.

Teens react to the call of adult­hood basi­cally in two ways – by being an extro­vert or an intro­vert. The out­go­ing type is heady with friends and gath­er­ings whereas the intro­vert stays locked in with books and com­put­ers. It depends on genetic ten­den­cies. What the par­ent can do is to nur­ture these traits and not sup­press them. For this the par­ent has to watch the teen and find out what the inher­ent ten­den­cies are. Both have their plus points – if care­fully cultivated.

The health of the teen com­prises of two sec­tions – the men­tal and the phys­i­cal. As such the grow­ing teen needs to be fed on some­thing more than vit­a­mins and heady meals. The mind has to be fed with nur­tur­ing tales that will touch the human chords and cause them to awaken.

Par­ents often com­plain that they hardly get to see or talk to the teenagers. This obvi­ously has not hap­pened over night; it has been allowed to hap­pen with par­ents being either indif­fer­ent or too cloy­ing. In both cases the teen seeks freedom.

Too pos­ses­sive par­ents should learn to dis­so­ci­ate them­selves partly and become involved in their own inter­ests. Those par­ents who never have had time for the chil­dren for rais­ing a teenager should have no rea­son to com­plain now that the child has no time for them!