Parent Network

While parenting generally is a tough job, teen parenting poses new and often greater challenges. Remember that when you were a teen, you almost always disagreed with what your parents said. This may likely be the case with your own teenage children now.

Teens will be harder to control and discipline because they are trying to become even more independent and are forming their own views. If you are struggling to handle or relate with your teens, do not hesitate to sell teen parenting advice from qualified family counselors or fellow parents of teenagers. There are also many books, magazines, and websites that offer specific teen parenting advice that may be appropriate to your situation.

One benefit of seeking teen parenting advice is that parents will realize that the difficulty of parenting teens is shared by many. So if you are starting to feel like you are a failure as a parent because your teen will not open up to you or refuse to listen to you, you can stop worrying because such behavior is only normal with teenagers.

When you seek teen parenting advice from fellow parents, you will find they are going through much the same frustrations that you do.

In effect, you will gain encouragement and confidence in handling your teen.

An important teen parenting advice is to speak with your child and not to them. This means you allow them to voice their feelings and thoughts without judging or attacking their opinions. Listen to what they have to say. If they are not ready to talk, do not force them.

Another useful teen parenting advice is to be firm with your rules but make sure they are reasonable and fair. Make your teen understand why such rules or limitations are necessary.  Read more... (493 words, 1 image, estimated 1:58 mins reading time)

Finances and budgeting are almost never taught in today’s educational system. Although our kids learn advanced algebra and the history of economics, they rarely get the practice they need learn how to make a budget, stick to it, and start saving money as soon as they land their first job. Add to this the practice of credit card companies in targeting 18 year-olds and other college-bound youth, and the result is a potentially dangerous combination of irresponsibility and mounting debt.

This means that it is the job of parents – and the finance industry – to make teens responsible about money. And while it might seem difficult to teach fiscal responsibility to a generation known for acting first and thinking later, responsible money management is one of the most important lessons you will ever teach your kids.

What to Teach Your Teens about Money

The most important thing teenagers – and adults – need to learn about money is that it is important to set goals.

Telling your teen that he or she needs to take 10 percent out of every babysitting paycheck and put it in a savings account only teaches them that they need to listen to Mom or Dad. Urging them to save 00 to invest in mutual funds along with your own investments allows them to visualize a goal and calculate what sort of returns they can expect later on down the road.

Seeing those numbers written down on paper can go a long way in solidifying a teen’s understanding of finances. After all, safely invested money looks much like free money after awhile, and when your teen combines this type of goal with the goal of a large purchase he or she wants to make – say, a down payment on a car – he or she will have double the incentive to save.  Read more... (549 words, 1 image, estimated 2:12 mins reading time)

As the parent of an unruly teenager, you are probably experiencing a little deja vu. It appears that everything that you went through with your parents as a teenager, is repeating itself. And the sad thing is, it doesn’t seem like that long ago. Dealing with teenagers hasn’t really changed much throughout history, as all of the same things are going on. The prospect of growing up, and the awkwardness of the body and brain going through many chemical and hormonal changes can cause anyone to act a little crazy and be a bit unpredictable. This is all normal.

Parents have a tendency to try molding their teenager into a carbon copy of their self, minus any of the mistakes they made. This can be very annoying to the teen, and the reaction is total disrespect. These are the years when a teen becomes highly embarrassed to even be seen with parents or family.

It is normal for a parent to worry about their children, but when a mother looks at her teenager and stills sees the toddler she watched so carefully, it’s hard to accept the child changing into an adult.

For the best results in dealing with teenagers, the parents need to realize that their maturing child is an individual. Don’t try pushing ideas on them that applied to you at that age. Times have changed. Giving advice is the proper approach. Let your child know that they can trust you, and keep the lines of communication wide open. Let them know you can talk about anything, without having a negative reaction or getting upset. Don’t be so assertive with rules that they become scared of you. Don’t sneak around behind your teens back or spy on them, this kind of activity can backfire and create mistrust that can never be renewed.  Read more... (419 words, 1 image, estimated 1:41 mins reading time)

Some kids worry much more than their peers about their grades, boyfriends, their looks and their popularity. If you are an over- anxious parent, the chances that you have such a kid are increased.

If you, as a parent, communicate to them your own nervousness and preoccupation about their performance frequently then the odds are increased that, even if they were originally quite normal and sanguine, they will become nervous, short-fused and abnormally worried. Kids and teens raised in a functional, healthy family environment are much more likely to view their world in a much more normal, realistic way and not experience oppressive forms of anxiety.

However, abnormally anxious kids manifest perfectionist traits, including omnipresent self-doubt, that will require you to provide excessive amounts of reassurance to soothe them.
Of course, not all manifestations of anxiety are abnormal; most are in fact, normal and these children usually grow out of their anxiety.

However, it is important that you monitor their anxious symptoms and coping skills to determine whether or not they may need help.

For example, if your child appears excessively worried or painfully preoccupied about the degree of organization or neatness in his room, take note. Pediatric obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and obsessive-compulsive personality (OCP) are two maladies that afflict children and teens.

Hopefully, you just have an organized, fairly fastidious kid.
But it is important to be sufficiently observant to assess the degree to which he feels compelled to worry about organization or neatness.

If he is so compelled that it is irrational and impairs the quality of his life, then it could very well be a sign of an anxiety disorder. Obsessive thoughts are repetitive and are strong enough to cause your child to repetitively engage in irrational, anxiety-saturated, compulsive behaviors that are fueled by a particularly compelling form of anxiety.  Read more... (714 words, 1 image, estimated 2:51 mins reading time)