Positive Parenting of Teenagers

Building a good relationship with your teenager is the real essence of parenting. With rapid changes along the road of a journey in a teens’ life, parent’s role should positive, caring, disciplined and responsible.

Positive Parenting Teenagers

Parents need to realize the changes in teenager’s life; emotional, intellectual & spiritual. When parents give responsibility to their teens and let them make decision in life, it means you are giving enough space to them to develop productively while standing by them to help.


Parenting teens today is challenging as teenagers also face challenges physically, emotionally, and mentally. Positive parenting makes parents realize that although it is tough, yet effective, rewarding and enjoyable. It’s all about how you raise your teenagers with understanding, love and trust.


In the drudgery of daily routine, parents complain about time constraints so that they can spend with their teens. But remember your presence and time with your teen will help them gain trust and confidence in you and similarly helps to develop a good self esteem. So spare time; weekends are best to spend along with your teens and make that time fun, enjoyable and productive.


What ever parents show in terms of their actions, behaviors, emotions and by advices, it will directly pass onto your teens. In other words you are the first and foremost role models for them and your positive behavior/attitudes are followed.


Show your deep love and affection by valuing your teen; such as help them out in their studies tasks, problems they face. Allow them to learn from their mistakes but don’t scold or discourage them.


Effective parenting also involves disciplining the teens. Promote good behaviors, encourage teens on self-reliance, self-responsibility and self-control. Strengthen these by careful judgments not only from parenting perspective but also considering their abilities and capabilities.


Involve in the fun activities with your teenagers and be part of it and not just literally, by doing some of the stuffs that are of teen’s interests. Let them realize that you also value their interests and likings.

With a positive and healthy approach you can achieve positive results from your teens as you are firm, kind and loving in parenting your teens.

Teen Drugs Use - Social Influence

Teen Drug Use

One of the most fearful thoughts of teen’s parents is “if there teens is using drugs or not”. This concern comes with rising number of drug users. Teen drug use is an alarming problem especially in today’s high schools.

Teenager period is a road of discovering new things, trends, culture and want to be part of it. Most of the teens who try out drugs state that they just want to experience what others have done. Teens get influenced by their social circle, some want to be more popular, while some think that drugs let them think better, relaxed and stress free.

Today drugs are easily accessible and their curiosity makes them use it. Similarly peer pressure contributes highly to this growing problem. Teens get influenced by their friends around and this is the main reason why positive social gathering is essential for a teenager to remain away from drug use.

Social circle of a teen offers various influences upon them. If a teen is in a social group that uses drugs, the possibilities are greater that he/she use the drugs either from direct or indirect pressure of a group. Once a teen is offered to try drug, he/she sees it in a normal way as the social gathering around him/her are also using it and teen’s impaired judgment make him think that there is nothing wrong with it.

Now drugs are considered as a social phenomenon and every one wants to fit into it, try to look cool, special one; teens are more prone to accepting new things, so the possibility of drug use is high.

Teens imitate things from their elders whether they smoke or use alcohol. But teens’ limited thinking let them fall to the prey. Stressful and depressed teens use drugs to escape from the problem, which in fact just fade out or simply hide feelings and problems, but the problems remain intact.

Parents who are concern about their teen should monitor their teens periodically and any illogical or sudden changes in moods or behavior should be intervening before teens get addicted to the drug use. Parents who don’t take early action are either unaware of the consequences of this problem or they are just pretending that a problem will go away with time. But the risks associated with teen drug use are large, so early intervention is not only necessary but inevitable.

Find out if your teen is engaged in self-harm!

Teen Self Harm

Self-harm or abuse in teenagers have reached to an overwhelming situation, and so as the concern of parents, teachers and health professionals are consistently engaged to find out an ultimate solution for this growing problem. Although it is very difficult to understand completely why teens engage in such activities, while majority of teenagers have stated that they want a quick relief from the overburdened stress or any such problems that make them feel disturb, and when they hurt their body, it provides a temporary sense of relief.

Self-abuse or harming is more common in teen girls than teen boys, so parents of teenage girls should take particular attention to it. Snooping periodically into the activities of teenagers, checking out their room and cupboards properly just to find out if there are some stuffs like blades or other things with sharp edges etc.

Parents of teenagers can recognize a teen that is doing harm to his/her body:

• You’ll find out that teen tends to be more secretive than before as he/she don’t want to disclose self-harming, as they know that parents or family members’ reaction will hurt them more. Teen secretive behavior i.e. hiding something, covering up arms or body with clothes; which you as a parent notice unusual behavior.

• Teen is often found isolated in his/her room and don’t take interest in gathering.

• Cuts or bruises or burns found on teen’s arm or other places of body.

• Changes in behavior, moods and social gathering (friends etc)

It is hard for parents to entirely dig into the teen’s self-abuse problem and to find out that they are engaged into it as such teens try hard to hide it from others. But effectively noticing the activities of teen you can find out. If there is evidence of self-harm in a teen, serious actions and early intervention is very necessary as this problem is addictive.

Teens and Dating - How you can help?

Parents of teenagers are experienced enough to teach them most of things through their own experience and few can be learnt and pass them on to your teenagers.

Teens and dating is a normal thing and every teen is one way or the other is interested in dating while some teenagers are more aggressive and their interest in dating is greater than other teenagers. Whether a teen have low or high interest in dating, it’s normal in their adolescent life stage.

As compared to boys, teenage girls are more interested in dating and talking about it. Whether you are a parent of a teen boy or a teen girl you can discuss, share opinion and even advice them on dating.
Being a parent, you need some skills to advise or guide them on this before stepping into it. It’s time to show your parenting skills as it’s the most liked and discussed issue among adolescents.

Privacy is very important in teen’s life and so they keep most of things or issues confidential but parents don’t feel comfortable on this as they want to know what’s going around with their teens. In case of teen dating, being a parent, don’t jump up and bluntly inquire about this, rather approach empathetically. Your role is to teach and advise teen on how to date. If  your teen is going for the first time on date and don’t want to discuss it with you, let it be, but when he or she returns home try to approach them with a manner you think won’t let them feel ashamed. Then open up and ask about how was the experience and share you views. This will open the discussion scene and teens feel comfortable to talk about the date when the next time he or she is going to it.

Warning Signs of troubled teens

There are number of warning signs that a teen exhibit or can be observed. Some of the signs require immediate action or response to the problem and some requires parents, teachers or family member intervention.

Some of the warning signs of  troubled teens: Teen Isolation, Different Peer Group, Concealing something, School problems, Violence, Drug Abuse or alcohol, Change in Body Image, Unusual Mood Swings.

Parents of teenagers can observe the changes:

• Teen sleep patterns changes - most of the time he/she is found exhausted and lethargic.

• Teen impaired thinking except only of the problem.

• Teen eating habits changes, mostly the inability or lack of appetite, it may even followed by vomiting.

• Unexpected behaviors like outbursts of anger or crying etc.

• Teen is seen withdrawn from the activities once he/she enjoys; disinterest in social gathering/friends, sports, academics, TV/films etc.

If some of the signs mentioned above last for a short time, it is considered normal. But if these last for a couple of weeks or months, then there is a need to get proper help for such teens.

Strategies to Prevent Teen Pregnancy

Teen Pregnancy

Parents of teen girls are very cautious and in fact afraid of their teen girls getting pregnant. So parents must know how to prevent teen pregnancy and should keep their teens updated and informed of pregnancy and its related issues.

Building a strong relationship with your teen will help you out discussing the matter with ease and giving them directions. It’s better to talk to your teen on the topic of "sex early and often". Keep tracking the activities of your teen and don’t let them date with one who is 2 years older; discourage them on early dating and consistent dating. Watch carefully if your teen is not into watching porn, sexting etc.

The best strategy that works to prevent teen pregnancy is contraception and abstinence. The stats of teens getting pregnant are very high; 84 per 1000 girls (2001). This means that teens get involved in sexual activities more often and it is unrealistic to expect them to abstain from doing sex.

Mother is always a best guide for teen girl. Being a parent, your utmost duty is to tell them the values of love and what is best for them i.e., sex after marriage. But this does not applies totally in today’s world where teens have social circle of their own, influence of other friends, peer pressure and so on. The only and most effective option left for a mom of a teenage girl is to educate her about contraception.

There are various methods by which you can help your teen in preventing pregnancy.

• Discuss this issue one to one and tell her about the consequences of teens getting pregnant.

• Accompany your teen to your family physician so that the Dr can explain this matter comprehensively and with ease.

• You can also find family planning clinic in your local areas where you can take your teen for the correct information needed to prevent pregnancy.

Take Control of Your Defiant Teen

If you have a troubled or defiant teen at home, then you need to take control of such teen. If you don’t assert your power or show authority as a parent, you’ll get some of the reactions from a defiant teen listed below.

• Your teen friends and social circle will be the only ideals for him or her and the teen will follow the directions of his/her social circle.

• You will face constant arguments and nerve breaking strains while communicating with teen.

• You will observe that the teen himself/herself is taking hold of the power at home by his or her disruptive behaviors on daily basis.

• Conflicts among your spouse may arise on parenting issue. You and your spouse end up blaming each other for the defiant behavior of teen.

• The decisions will no longer be in your hand. Either you would seek advice of a counselor or go for other options like a boot camp, boarding school, wilderness program or treatment center etc

Teens Sleep Problems!

Teenagers normally sleep less than the time recommended by health professional. Daily 8-9 hours of sleep is very essential for them. But due to hectic schedule, more time spending with friends or over Internet/TV, teens don’t get proper sleep most of the days. It is reported that 90 % of teenagers sleep less than 8 hours. Getting sleep less than the recommended time may lead them to problems with health and even academics.

Due to tiredness, teen often feel dizzy during school. The schedule of sleep all through the week days and weekends carry on as their daily routine and this is really a big issue to talk about and appropriate measures should be taken so that teens get proper sleep.

How parents of teens can act towards it:

* Parents should take responsible and strict measures for this.

* Sleep deprivation can lead to behavior and attention problems in school, so parents should encourage a routine of when to get sleep; this is done by letting the teens realize that 10 pm is off time for all the activities, and lights will be turned off at this time.

* Watch if your teen is not spending time on internet etc in his room at that time and discourage them during this sleep-zone timing on doing the activities that let them awake.

* With this routine setup, in few days teens get used to it; teens are tired due to all the of the day activities and they’ll go to sleep within few minutes.

Teens Bad Food Habits:

We don’t find or come across a teenager that hasn’t any bad habits. Similarly bad food habit is seen common in teens but if we look into the previous decades this was not a serious issue as they have more time to eat healthy food, fast food culture was not prevalent like now and parents pay great attention towards their teens so that they get the right and healthy food most of the time.

If parents can recall and roll around their head, see what has perpetuated into their parenthood that teens has now develop such habits; you might find some solution.
The most appropriate and right thing you as a parents of teen find out that the sedentary lifestyle is a major key factor into such habit. Your teen spend most of his time lying on sofa watching TV or sitting in front of his computer, come home after school and go for a nap or instantly socialize with friend or extra-curricular activities or even gets busy with his studies. And as usual this is his or her routine on most of the days. What is the problem you see while observing all of the activities of such a teenager – lack of time. So what teens, they will instantly grab the food what is available to them without knowing if it healthy or not; they just want to fill up their empty belly.

Hectic lives mean teens have less or fewer time to find out what food is healthy for them. And similarly this applies to the parents also. Likewise, to obtain healthy foods in the quantities the teenagers need don’t get met due to high cost with cooking quality meals or obtain it from outlet etc.

What parents can do to get teenagers away from bad eating habits:
1. Don’t let them skip breakfast.
2. Restrict the time; this does not mean to deprive them of the schedule day to day routine but instead saving the time so that they get attention to their intake of food.
3. Cook quality and healthy food at home and let the teenagers know the importance of healthy food. 
4. Limit the unhealthy teens eating habits like chips, burger, soda and processed food.
5. Whenever a teen is at home, a schedule time of taking whole meal or small meals will let them fill their belly with food that is cooked at home. 
6. Let your teens make choices of food but also let them understand the health problems associated with junk food.
7. Being parents of teenagers you can reinforce positive food habits into them by praising them on taking quality meal or dining with family members picking up the healthy food.

Rules To Follow While Parenting Teenagers

It is obvious that parents loose temper and patience when they find themselves miserable dealing with stubborn teen or disrespectful teen, but remember you have to master the skill of Patience. You don’t need to be patient all of the time but don’t throw out your frustration on the teenagers. Parenting teens is a skill and to master the skill you have to learn the tools and some of the tricks of effective parenting. With passage of time you’ll be able to master the relationship with your teens.

So let’s take a look what do you need to learn:

Ineffective-Poor communication may sabotage your relationship with teens. You spend all of your day doing the activities like going to office, or even stay at home, socialize with others during that day, lots of things are there to talk and discuss your day to day happenings with the teens; don’t you expect the same from them, so it’s time to play your part as well. Communication should be in light manner and in a language they can understand easily; I don’t meant of the native language you speak but the tone, style that teenagers are most often used to.

Teenage years are the most active part of learning not only from the school/college but from the family. Have you ever thought how you train your teens? While you are busy with your life, you can spare time to teach them what you have done for them when they were toddlers and don’t even know how to tie shoe laces, if still teens haven’t learned how to do this try to teach them how to do that-look for the next time if they had followed your directions. Similarly you can teach lots of things in similar manner. 

Try to evaluate your teen’s abilities and capabilities and expect the same from them. Over expectation will lead you to frustration, being rude to them. So know your teen, encourage him/her on what they are able to do well. Don’t push boundaries. Teens should know their abilities and if you encourage and train your teen, the possibilities are great that your teen abilities will grow. 

While spending time with teenagers, your focus should be on teaching them the values with love and affection. Whichever topic you are trying to explain, make it interesting and listenable by quoting examples of teen’s favorite characters.