In separating from parents, tweens/teens often find it necessary to ignore, challenge, reject, and criticize their parents. This will undoubtedly be painful for parents, but it is a step that must be taken by tweens/teens in order for them to become autonomous individuals. If the parent can understand this and accept the rejection with good humor, she models that not being perfect is okay. This is a very good lesson to learn for tweens/teens who, at various times, feel very much less than perfect.
In parenting middle schoolers, the Prudent Parent is a proactive parent, and she knows that providing experiences for the tween/teen to act autonomously benefits both the child and the parent-child relationship. If the tween/teen has healthy ways to act independently, he will have less reason to rebel against his parents. In this way, “letting go” enables the family to remain close during the sometimes difficult tween/teen years.
But “letting go” does not mean abdicating responsibility or exiting from your child’s life. It does mean operating more in the background, however. For example, your tween/teen may choose to spend his free time with his friends rather than with you more often these days. While this may represent a sad milestone for you, you must adapt. In order to remain a relevant part of your child’s life and to stay up-to-date regarding who his friends are and what he is doing and thinking, volunteer to be your child’s taxi service. You’ll be surprised at how much information will be revealed by your child and his friends in the car. Stay quiet and listen; it is almost as if you are invisible.
Car time is also valuable conversation time. Your child may be more willing to discuss sensitive topics if you bring them up when you are driving him from place to place. This may be because you cannot maintain eye contact with him while you are driving or it may be because he is “trapped” in the car with you, but whatever the reason, you can use this fact to your advantage. Talk about relationships with friends and with the opposite sex; talk about intimacy, sex, birth control, and sexually-transmitted diseases; talk about drugs and alcohol; and talk about how today’s choices affect tomorrow’s opportunities and what your child’s hopes and dreams for the future look like. Make sure that your child has the facts about important topics, and make sure that he knows where you stand on the issues that affect him.
In addition to spending car time with your tween/teen, try to set aside time to do something with your child every week. Maybe you walk the dog together before bed or team up to cook brunch on Sunday mornings. Perhaps you play tennis on Saturdays or there is a weekly television program that you both enjoy watching that you can both anticipate, watch together, and then talk about afterward. It doesn’t matter what you do. It just matters that you spend time together regularly.
With regard to discipline, it is important to adjust the rules to the individual tween/teen. The most important part of setting rules is determining what rules are actually needed. Don’t make rules just for the sake of making them. Develop a system for creating the rules that works for you and your tween/teen.
For example, let us consider coming up with a bedtime for a child of this age. In order to establish a reasonable bedtime, you should consider two main things: what time your child needs to get up in the morning so that he can be ready to leave for school on time and how much sleep a child of his age needs. Let him time himself doing his morning routine for a week or so to get an “average morning routine time,” and have him do the research into sleep requirements for tweens/teens. By doing this, he will become invested in the process, and when the bedtime is established, he will be more likely to accept it as fair and reasonable.
Another example of working with your tween/teen to make a rule is setting a curfew. If your child needs a weekend curfew, then sit down with him and set a fair time for him to be home. The more you can negotiate with him rather than dictate to him, the more likely he will be to follow the rule. What does he have to do on weekend mornings? What time does he need to get up? How
much sleep does he need? How long does it take for him to wind down after arriving home? How late are you willing to come out and pick him up? All of these things should be taken into consideration when determining a curfew. Once a time has been agreed upon, you and your tween/teen must also agree on the consequence for breaking curfew. Once again, if your tween/teen is involved in coming up with the consequence, the more likely he will be to accept it when it must be imposed.
While this may seem like much more work than simply posting a list of rules and consequences for your tween/teen, being proactive and including your child in the process of rule/consequence creation reduces greatly the amount of friction, defiance, aggravation that you will experience later.
The concept of proactive parenting also suggests that parents invest time assuring their tween/teen that he is loved unconditionally before, during, and after conflict. It is necessary and healthy for children to assert their independence, and part of doing so may be to reject their parents. Full of raging hormones, they may become angry at the slightest provocation, or they may change from a sunny fifth grader into a sullen sixth grader seemingly overnight. If this happens, it is important that the parent continue to act with love toward them (“I know that in this moment you hate me, but I still love you and always will no matter what.”).
In addition to continuing to express your love, you must let your tween/teen know that you will always be there for them even when he makes mistakes. It may be a good idea to tell stories about your life and the times when you and your friends made bad decisions. This can help your child to see you as a vulnerable human being to whom he can relate (“Everyone makes mistakes, and everyone needs someone to be there for them when they do. I’ll be here to catch you when you fall. You can count on me.”). This is something that I did when my children were tweens/teens, and it helped me to guide them away from making questionable decisions and to reassure them that if they did make a mistake, that I would be understanding and would help them to get through it.
All of these parenting strategies can be traced back to the idea of being proactive—to thinking ahead. What can you do to act now to prevent problems in the future? As I noted, it is almost always more work in the present, but being proactive pays big dividends in the future.
No comments:
Post a Comment