Raising a teenager can sometimes feel like you have boarded the Steel Eel at Six Flags. With crazy ups where your hands are in the air, high on adrenaline... and sometimes fast crashing lows where your clinging tight to everything you have! It’s a roller coaster! Some days they make you the proudest parent in the world and others its difficult to understand where their brain is at. Luckily that’s super normal because the human brain doesn’t stop developing until it is about 25 years old! It can be hard to stay calm within these hectic years but there are tips and tricks to help!
Calm Begins with Order
Rules and boundaries are your FRIENDS! Teenagers like to say they hate rules. However, it is common knowledge in the psychology community that kids subconsciously like them. Rules provide a standard. Have you ever been told to perform a task at work with little to no guidance? Those are so frustrating! It is the same thing with kids. They need guidance on how to live their lives. Rules are comforting to them because they understand that if they perform behavior A, then the result will be B. “If you do your chores, you can go to the mall. If you do NOT do your chores, you may not go to the mall.” This will not only help your teen decide their behaviors, but will also help you in deciding what you will and will not allow your child to do. That will lead to a more calm demeanor as well!
Patience is Essential
Remember that your child is still developing. Their brain will not make good decisions 1000% of the time. It is apart of growing up. They are still learning how to exist in this world and require patience. The best thing you can do for you child when they cannot think through something on their own is to help guide them. When they need to make an important decision, your job as the caretaker is to aid them, so that they make an informed one!
Invest in Your Greatest Accomplishment, Your Kid!
Be invested in your child’s interests! Stress is often set on by not know what is going on. A way to practice calm parenting is to be involved with your child. What are their interests? What are they good at? Finding out these things will help you stay up to date with where your child is developmentally. Having that knowledge will help you with making your decisions from a calm, relatively informed stand point, rather than last minute angry reactions to negative behaviors.
This Month's Action Step:
Often times kids act out as a method to gain their parental unit’s attention. The ultimate tip is to be aware of your child’s desires and needs. Calm parenting is similar to gentle parenting. The key is to stay involved. The best decisions are made when you have all the information!
