Top Three Things to Know When Parenting Gen Y : Guest Blog Post

Parenting Teens and Gen Y

By Vanessa Van Petten is the teen author of the parenting book “You’re Grounded!” She writes a parenting blog along with 12 other teen writers from the kid’s perspective to help parents. Her work as a young family peacemaker have been featured in the Wall Street Journal, Teen Vogue, Fox 5, CBS 4 and much more!

We are a pesky bunch. One of the most frequent complaints I get from parents when I speak at schools and groups is “what on earth are my kids thinking!?” You know what is funny? Teens also ask me the same question about their parents.

This is why one of my favorite things to do to shrink our generation gap is to translate our needs to parents and vice versa (feel free to email me any suggestions!). When Sarah asked me to write a post for her readers, I thought the top three things to know when parenting Gen Y would be perfect!

1) Never disconnect us–and if you do beware of the consequences

For us, taking away our computer is worse than taking away the TV because the computer is our TV. Taking away our cell phone is worse than taking away our computer because our cell phone is our computer in our phone…you get where I am going with this. My generation is desperate to be connected to the web, to our phones and to each other at all times, because we do not know anything different. We grew up being able to text mom to pass the salt faster than we could ask. This is a fundamental thing to keep in mind when parenting us. Our need for connectedness is not necessarily justified, but being disconnected can cause panic, confusion and great anger at you. I do not think this is good either, and have many posts about how to give Gen Y teens and kids an ‘internet break’ while making sure to do it gradually.

2) Don’t tell us there is grey

“This is the WORST HAIRDAY EVER, EVER, EVER and it will never get better, and I will lose all of my friends, and I will not have a date to the prom, and I will become the biggest loser at school and then I won’t get into college because I will be so depressed I do not have any friends that I will not be able to do my applications.” I do remember saying this to my mom. And the truth is, I actually remember it being the worst hair day ever ever ever, and feeling like it was the end of my life. When you feel like we are being drama queens (or kings), there is no doubt that we are, but we also genuinely feel that way. This means, when we are venting/talking to you/ screaming, just listen. Do not try to fix us, do not tell us it will get better (because we will argue with you it won’t), do not try to tell us it is not that big of a deal (we will try to prove to you it is) and do not use the word ‘relatively’ (that will make us just get mad at you).

3) Let us be adventurous

I know you do not want us to go skydiving, but isn’t it better than us trying cocaine? Ok, that might have been an exaggerated example, but teenagers have a lot of adrenaline and hormones floating around (including at least 6 stupid decisions to check off our list before we reach the age of 18), so let us get it out of our system with what I like to call ‘controlled danger.’ Extreme sports, crazy vacations, trying something entrepreneurial or being on stage can get this out of our system. Parents can exercise their gen yers need for adventure and danger in contained circumstances. This also makes you seem really cool and provides some great bonding opportunities.

Overall, the most important thing I tell parents of all generations is to just keep on loving us and do not get disgruntled if you are going through a low time. If you use the word relatively once or twice and they blow up at you because they got a bad grade, hang tight, hold on, it will get better.

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