Written by Dr. Sanjana V.B Bhms,dbrm,cdn

Founder & medical director of siahmsr wellness.in

All rights reserved with siahmsr digital healthcare[siahmsr wellness]

Reviewed by SIAHMSR medical team

 PARENTING TEENS & ADOLESCENTS

Parents should provide some extra support to their children to go through this phase of physical and emotional changes.

Parents should ensure the following to their children at this phase of development: 

At mental &emotional level

·        Providing a stable, safe and loving home environment

·        Creating an atmosphere of honesty, mutual trust, and respect

·        Ensure  open communication with children at family meal times

·        Give children their age appropriate independence and assertiveness

·        Develop an emotional bond with your child with open communication.

·        Take effort to make children learn understand their responsibility for their belongings and yours.

·        Teach them about accepting limits

·         Teach them to think before acting

                                   SIAHMSR                                          

Simple tips for parenting

·        Talk to your children

      Parental support and involvement may help the children to pass through the phase of adolescence with less stress. Open communication between parents and children is very important at this phase. Developing this relationship or emotional bonding of open communication takes time, persistence, and understanding. It should be achieved over the years starting from infancy.

      To begin talking at least in the teens, spend more quality time with children. The relationship develops gradually with interactions during family meal time. Start sharing stories of parents' adolescence, playing board games, promote outings, vacations etc.

      Celebrations also provide immense opportunities for parents to spend time with their adolescent children discussing & understanding their choices, needs, and their joy on spending quality time together. Because at other times, school and extracurricular activities of children and office work and household matters of parents steal the time to interact with each other.

·        Appreciate the good qualities of your child

      Parents should take initiative to appreciate positive behaviors in their adolescent children. If you appreciate your child for his or her good virtues it will be a great motivation for them to continue their effort to do things in a better way. It also strengthens the emotional bonding and confidence between parents and children.

      The emotional bonding may motivate your child to talk about difficult or upsetting things in their day to day lives which are very common at this phase. However, sharing the problem may help you as a parent to intervene very calmly and provide them effective solutions or guide your child to resolve the conflicts themselves.

     But a parent-child relationship which is very stressful or full of conflicts in the early childhood may worsen the problems of adulthood. In that case seek a professional help such as counselling by a psychologist.

·        Keep an eye on the social media handling of your child

               During adolescence, parents should focus their attention on certain important things of their children such as:

a)     How often the teens use social media and what type of content they watch.

              As a parent or caregiver help your teens be smart users of social media, avoiding the harms, and gaining maximum benefits.

b)    Social media management, including time limits, parental monitoring and supervision is crucial.

c)     Communicating with friends on social media can be helpful for child development, including a chance to learn new social skills and complex relationships. However excessive use of artificial intelligence may be dangerous for developing brains.

·        Reduce the screen time and addictions to social media.

Adolescence is an important phase of growth and changes in brain. In early adolescence, brain regions associated with a desire for attention from peers become increasingly sensitive.  The adolescents want recognition and appreciation of the world.

 Many unrealistic fancies rule their mind now. Social media may exploit that desire. Meanwhile, brain areas important for self-control don’t fully develop until early adulthood.

Therefore it is important to think whether children need social media exposure at this phase of emotional instability and poor decision making and discretionary power.

Check if social media usage interferes with their daily routines and commitments, such as school, work, friendships, and extracurricular activities.

Understand if it prevents them from getting at least 8 hours of quality sleep each night. If it prevents them from engaging in regular physical activity.

If they experience any irresistible addiction to social media or games.

If they tell you lie or show any kind of deceptive behavior to use internet.

·        Parental monitoring of social media postings and content viewed is recommended, especially in early adolescence.

Unsupervised social media use is more likely to expose children to potentially harmful content and features of social media. Scientific studies demonstrate it is also critical for parents to engage in ongoing discussions with adolescents about how to use social media in safe and helpful ways. This is often difficult for many parents and caregivers since some of these platforms and their functions are unfamiliar to many adults today.

·        Enjoy your family time away from gadgets

 In order to promote good digital behavior, avoid using social media when at the dinner table or engaging in family time.

While you as a parent talk about social media make sure your conversations about social media reflect the ways you want them to feel about social media use. Let them know the harmful effects and dangers

associated with social media. 

·        Understand and discuss relationships of adolescence

      In addition to paying attention to all these negative influence of social media, parents may have to understand other problems of adolescence.

     Adolescents fall in relationships and sometimes bad companionships. So parents should be communicative to children making the family bonds strong to understand the issues the children are going through.

     Children from disrupted family relations often fall prey to many atrocities happening in the society such as sexual abuse. The dearth of love within the family makes the children vulnerable .Communicate with your children and express your love and care for them so that they can understand values in life.

     In the recent past we all witness changing ethos and values particularly  the outlook of adolescents about freedom. Most often they are misinterpreting freedom blindly following the contemporary trends. The women centric attacks and atrocities related to marriage etc. might have given a wrong message about family bonding to them. Although children cannot be blamed for this outlook, it is our duty to make an environment around them which ensure them independence [irrespective of gender], self- esteem, respect, financial security and healthy outlook towards life.

     In the changing scenarios it is certainly an arduous task to bring a change in the society. However, inculcate values in your child; boost their confidence to confront this world. The most important thing is to teach them to excel in academic subjects as well as in practical and ethical approach towards life .Education has great role in building up a person. But it is incomplete without the understanding  of ethos and values in life.

      Children should learn and understand the worth of mutual respect from their families. It is an integral element in maintaining relationships between individuals. There should be respect towards opposite gender as well as same gender in interactions. Aggressive and haughty behavior should be discouraged.

·        Awareness about drugs sale  targeting children

       Adolescent children must  be trained to understand and recognize people with ulterior motive and wickedness and how to protect themselves from these people. Children should be taught against the risk associated with drugs and alcohol vendors in the society. They should know about the impact of drugs and substance abuse jeopardizing the future of entire generation and how to keep themselves away from it.

·        Safety of children ,particularly adolescent girls 

      Safety of girl children is an important element in adolescent parenting in the wake of rising toll of atrocities against children. Children should get training about their security from home and schools about safety related to sexual abuse happening around us. Present it to children in such a way that it would not diminish their confidence to confront the society. Give them training in martial arts so that they can protect themselves from social evils.

·        Teach your children to set a goal in life with realistic approach.

 They should be taught to deal with hindrances and failures in life. This is important for reducing suicidal death rate in adolescent population. Train your children that success and failure are part of life. Set only realistic goals and teach them the worth of  industriousness and hard work . However failures can happen. Children should be trained to accept failures also. Seek the help of a psychologist or other professional aid to deal with the stressful situations if parents are unable to pacify them. Inculcate confidence, compassion and good values in your children right from childhood so that it may remain a lifetime.

·        Teach your children  a healthy lifestyle

 Of late adolescents prefer junk foods and drinks  having refined sugars and artificial colors more. The unhealthy food habits may eventually lead to obesity and other lifestyle diseases. Therefore inculcate healthy living practices in your children, right from childhood. It may also help to prevent acne break outs related to hormonal changes of adolescence. Adolescents are often concerned about their looks or appearances. Healthy food habits and regular exercise can boost their health, confidence, self esteem and cognitive mental abilities.

References

1.     https://www.apa.org/topics/social-media-internet/social-media-parent-tips

2.     https://www.aacap.org/AACAP/Families_and_Youth/Facts_for_Families/FFF-Guide/Parenting-Preparing-For-Adolescence-056.aspx