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Improve your Parent/Teen relationship

March 11, 2010 by Carol McNaughton  
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First mind shift change to improve your relationship with your teenager.

I was asked to write some tips for parents surrounding my manifesto and, since there is so much in my manifesto I though I would take one point at a time and give parents some tips. My manifesto is designed to change not only the way we act towards young people, but the way we think about them and our relationships with them. To read the rest of the manifesto, go here. In the meantime, here is the first point.

First mind shift change to improve your relationship with your teenager.

Quick fixes will not fix the problem.

So many of the problems with our young people are systemic, yet we think that a quick intervention will “fix them”. We see a problem and we rush to fix the young person with a quick solution. People are so much more complicated than “quick fixes”.

For busy parents this is more so….we want the behaviour to change and we want it to change now. We don’t often think why it has got the way it has, how we may have contributed to it or how we can work together to fix it. We automatically blame the child and think of an intervention that will fix them.

The first question we need to ask is, actually does that young person need fixing? For that matter, what gives us the right to say anyone needs fixing? If we want to improve the situation then we must realise that it may take as long to improve as it did to break down in the first place.

People only change when they are ready to and most of the time, this is not quick!

Our children are not appliances, something cannot just break and you cannot call in someone to repair them. It is like any exercise programme, it is painful and it takes time to achieve results.

A lot of these quick-fix methods assume that we can control another and force them into change and most importantly, they only look at one aspect it takes to be human.

I can work with a young person and do everything and really change their view on life, their attitude and behaviour, but if that young person sits on the couch all day eating chocolate, the improvement in their behaviour will be minute.

We need to be brave and really take these problems by the horns, implementing long-term solutions that take an integrated approach to supporting our young people. We need to look at diet, nutrition andenvironment as well as the traditional talking therapies and interventions if we want to produce long terms success.

Long term solutions that integrate all the different aspects to produce long term success should be our only option.

So next time you feel like you want to step in and fix your children ask yourself,

1. Is the solution I am trying to implement going to move me closer to or further away from my child? In other words, will it harm and improve the relationship? If it will harm, then don’t do it.

2. Ask yourself if putting a quick fix in will teach your teen anything. Will it make them learn something about responsibility, for example, or is it just a quick fix punishment?

3. Look at the situation in a holistic way., Could what they are eating affect their behaviour, do they need to get out more, what is their environment like, could that be having an impact?

Remember, quick fixes may seem like a good idea, but they rarely fix the long term problem.

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  1. bookmarkarticles.com says:
    March 26, 2010 at 4:47 am

    Parenting Teens…

    Improve your Parent/Teen relationship. Learn about how to parent teenagers….

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  2. pligg.com says:
    March 26, 2010 at 4:42 am

    Parenting Teens…

    Improve your Parent/Teen relationship. Learn about how to parent teenagers….

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  3. uberVU - social comments says:
    March 11, 2010 at 6:19 pm

    Social comments and analytics for this post…

    This post was mentioned on Twitter by sarahnewton: BLOGGING: Improve your Parent/Teen relationship – * Improve your Parent/Teen relationship Powered by Gen Y Guide … http://ow.ly/16M32P…

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