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Nurturing your teenage children By Pansy Hamilton Brown: At every step, the child should be allowed to meet the real experiences of life. Love them with all your heart. Love them enough to discipline them, as you keep your wits intact. We often discover that many parents find it difficult to be kind to their teenage children and at the same time be firm. On the other hand, some parents are authoritarian in their parenting style, are unduly firm to the detriment of exercising stingy evidences of kindness, understanding, love and care. Whenever kindness and firmness hang in the balance for justice, many err on the side of cruelty, disrespect, abuse and open avenues for a dysfunctional relationship in the family. Sometimes comments from parents are made to establish the levels of strictness, forced compliance and military guidelines under which they grew. Much credit is given to such regimental training that produce the persons that they are. It must be established that most parents rear their children out of the reference of the way they were reared. Neither over-use of strict discipline, nor reliance on permissive discipline is healthy for the nurturing process of adolescence. The extravagant use of any of the behaviors mentioned can produce emotional and mental problems. Social graces will be denied. They will not be cordial, self-directed and goal-driven individuals in their teen years. It is worthy to note that, whenever there is a balance of firmness, kindness, order, direction and healthy nurturing, teenagers will become adults that are well-disciplined. They will have strong resilience and will be capable of making good decisions without the involvement of their parents. The kindness of parents should not allow their adolescent children to manipulate their moral authority. Neither should they be allowed to be defiant, disrespectful, rebellious or show any form of dishonor. Kindness and firmness when appropriately administered, undoubtedly, will produce adolescence that are cooperative and secure. They will be purpose driven and can give appropriate considerations through an active conscience, when major issues present themselves In the process of using disciplinary skills, you should avoid the over-use of telling, or asking for unnecessary details through tricky questions. Ask less questions for arriving at why and how. Due to the anxiety that some parents have to produce perfect adolescents, they unconsciously dictate the lives of their children, by telling what to do, how to act, and what response should be given for every challenge. Enough patience should be exercised so that they can live their lives and make their mistakes. These approaches to their experiences can be invaluable learning tools for them during their adult years. Teenagers need to be given the opportunity to use their wisdom and judgment. You can help your adolescence to cope with the challenges of peer pressure, when parents can calm down and listen to their anxious fears. Effective communication skills, when used with your teenagers, will not make you defenseless, give feelings of inadequacy or that you are not in control. Parents need to minimize their lecturing, controlling attitude, threatening statements, and degrading remarks. When you communicate with your teens with graciousness and respect, you will never diminish the effective parenting skills and the children will be grateful You may find the following five tips worthy for consideration in training your teens. * Children should not be faced with set-up questions that are intended to get them locked in a tangled maze which you think will force them to give the response that you need to justify your anxiety. * Give at least two options that you know will not be detrimental. This will allow them to make intelligent choices. Example — Would you like me to accompany you to the prom in order to ensure that you will come home on time, or will you respect the curfew that we agreed on? Accept their decisions. * Allow your adolescents to accept natural consequences for their choice. If you wear that shirt, you will be inappropriately dressed for the school function, your peers will laugh at you. Why not wear another shirt? * Give opportunities to use effective decision making skills for long term logical consequences. Example — Excessive television watching can rob you of excellence in your academic pursuits. What is the right decision to make? What are other long term consequences? Allow him to choose. * Focus your discipline on solutions to issues, instead of always emphasizing consequences. Try to solve the problem and avoid negative consequences. Example — What problems do you think will be caused if your best friends constantly take illegal drugs? What suggestions would you offer to help solve the drinking problem? Discuss how you can avoid getting in the drinking habit. Adolescents must learn that they can have control over their choices and their conduct. This will help them to feel secure. However, they must understand that with autonomy comes responsibility and accountability. The anger that some teens display is evident that they feel powerless. When their powers and their rights are understood, they are often led to seek physical support of persons or weapons to help them in their defense. Opportunities must be created in the family for the adolescent to have self-expression of feelings, intentions and frustrations, as well as their joys. This should be respected, so that coping skills and other interventions can be applied when necessary. Parents must ensure that firmness and kindness under-gird their parenting roles. Teach your children not to follow the whims of an adolescent society, instead, show them how to lead and to be strong and courageous, so that they will not become mere followers and reflectors of other person's minds and actions. Pansy Hamilton Brown can be reached at P.O. Box N-10152 Nassau, Bahamas or pansyhamb@hotmail.com. Wednesday January 20, 2010