How Parent Can Help Alleviate Adolescent Problems
There is no way anybody can deny the existence of adolescent problem, we all grow up with it, learnt some lessons which are what are helping adult in moulding their life either positively or negatively. Often times, parental roles in helping adolescent to shape their life have the most impact in the life of the growing up young adult, though it wasn’t an easy one because it comes with lots of responsibilities.
Now consider how parents decide they have a problem with their adolescent, or that their adolescent has a problem. Parents have a problem with their adolescent when they decide she is not doing what they expect her to do, especially in term of how she should behave. At the proud age of 14, for instance, she is constantly challenging their opinions and disagreeing with their resolution. They never talked this way to their parents!
Before I go much further, it will be better understood if I take a critical look into who are the adolescent and why are they prone to problem at that time of their growing up?
According to Wikipedia, adolescence is a transitional stage of physical and psychological human development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to legal adulthood (age of majority). The period of adolescence is most closely associated with the teenage years, though its physical, psychological and cultural expressions may begin earlier and end later.
A thorough understanding of adolescence in society depends on information from various perspectives, most importantly from the areas of psychology, biology, history, sociology, education, and anthropology. Within all of these perspectives, adolescence is viewed as a transitional period between childhood and adulthood, whose cultural purpose is the preparation of children for adult roles. It is a period of multiple transitions involving education, training, employment and unemployment, as well as transitions from one living circumstance to another
So, welcome into why you’re here reading this post, how parent can help alleviate adolescent problem. Now I continue from where I left it off.
When parents are convinced they have a problem to deal with the teenager getting in trouble, having trouble, causing trouble, or acting troubled, for example, there are some common pitfalls for them to avoid.
The few points below will show you how parent can help alleviate adolescent problems
1. Parents should try not to identify the problem with the adolescent
When your child has been challenging your authority, you may want to use that reason of being defiant to see her as stubborn girl and all you could say to her most time is stubborn girl, she is nothing but failure and all sort of negative thing parent perceived about her. She feels the same way that she’s a failure as she’s growing up. A problem is only small part of a person, no matter how difficult the problem may look; the adolescent is much more bigger than the problem. With the help of the parent in letting her try to focus on what is right and less on what is wrong, she will soon overcome the problem and be the child the parent wants her to be. [Also Read; Uncommon parenting ideas that work for all parents]
2. Parent should learn not to overstress the adolescent problem
It is agreed that the problem is there but don’t exaggerate it and makes it seem larger than what it actually is. Telling your child that because she fail a class mean she will not make it in life and ended jobless to join those under the bring begging for money.
Once parent begin to lose the perception about the problem, the more their fearful viewpoint and reactions tend to lead them. And for vulnerable adolescent, when parent begin to panic like that, it send them wrong signal and they see it as if they’ve actually ruined their life now. The sense of negativity shouldn’t take over because if you do, all your responses to your children will be affected, you’ll be preoccupied with these negative responses which will badly affect how you will be able to bring up your children.
When your responses get preoccupied with negative responses, it will only make the adolescent get deeper into discouragement. So, it is very important to help correct what is missing in the adolescent life through enough of encouragement and affirmation of hope.
3. Don’t offer to help solve their entire problem as parent
This is very important in dealing with adolescent problem, sometimes parent will want to help them solve their problem and in the process take over the entire problem and solve it for them with no challenges on the part of the adolescent to solve some for themselves. This is wrong because, it will deny the adolescent the problem solving ability which they will be in need of it later in life when they grow up. If they are not allowed to learn it now, it will be difficult for them to learn it when they’ve grown up.
Let take for instance, if at every time, your children at their adolescent age, do not know how not to overcharge their credit, every now and then they overcharge it and you as parent offer to pay off the entire debt all the time, they will never learn because they believe their parent is there to take charge of that problem when it comes.
Letting other people find solution to your short comings will deny you the greater benefit that self-help do bring into the life of individual. You will not be able to struggle for anything on your own power. The truth remain that, problem solving is a life survival skill that everyone must possess.
Parents need not to be so involved that they get in the way of this instruction. By taking over the solution, they can contribute to a larger problem.
I’m sure with these 3 pointers; parent will be able to help alleviate adolescent problems. What have you been doing as parent to help your adolescent child grow especially dealing with problem associate with that stage development of children into the young adult stage.
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