Being the parent of a teenager is not for the faint of heart. If you thought toddlers or the terrible twos were difficult, you better hold onto your hat because you have not seen anything yet! The teenage years can be rough because your teen is going through a lot. It is not always easy to know how to raise a successful teenager while also trying to survive the teenage years yourself! While the teenage years can be frustrating as a parent, raising a teenager and surviving the teen years can be a little easier with these 5 tips.
The Teenage Years Are The Worst
The teenage years are the worst. As a parent, you have to stop and take the time to remember what they were like. Teens are dealing with hormones and puberty which not only cause changes in their bodies that are out of their control, but they also uncontrollably affect their moods, emotions, and impulses. They are struggling with who they are and trying to carve out their own identity and independence. They are navigating peer pressure. Plus, they are trying to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives. That is a lot.
Teens can struggle with their place in the world. They are expected to be responsible for a lot of things – school, helping around the house, maybe a job or helping with younger siblings – while also still being a child in that they still very much have to answer to you as their parent. They have some independence but only in specific ways and in specific contexts.
It can be a hard, confusing, and frustrating phase of life. That makes it hard on you as a parent to always know how to raise a successful teenager. When your teen is going through all that and doesn’t want anything to do with you half the time, how do you ensure they are happy, healthy, and feel safe?
READ MORE: ARE YOU AN OVERPROTECTIVE PARENT – 5 WARNING SIGNS SAYS YOU MIGHT BE
How to Raise a Successful Teenager (and Survive!)
While parenting during the teenage years of your child’s life can be challenging, there are a few tips that can help make things easier and help guide you in how to raise a successful teenager.
1. Talk to Your Kids
The number one component in how to raise a successful teenager is communication. Keep the lines of communication open during the teen years so that you can have important conversations about things like the changes they are going through, sexual health, pressures they feel from friends or school, and being responsible when it comes to making decisions. It is easy to get frustrated or angry at your teen and jump right to telling them how they are in the wrong or how they need to be more responsible or do better in school, but if you are not careful, you will push your teen away this way without even realizing it.
It is so important to have good communication with your teen so when they have questions about things, they feel comfortable coming to you rather than getting their information from somewhere else or forming misconceptions about things.
However, it is important to start talking to your kids and laying the foundations for communication well before the teenage years start. Talk to your kids early about how they are feeling, being a good friend, how to make good choices, and everything else you can as they grow up. Start talking about puberty and the changes they can expect in their body before it starts happening so that they know what to expect and have the chance to ask you questions beforehand.
Obviously, keep these conversations age-appropriate, but there is no reason you cannot talk to a nine or ten-year-old about puberty or about their feelings. This way they will not feel ashamed or embarrassed if and when they eventually do have questions or when they eventually get their period for the first time or have an erection and realize they have questions about it.
Try not to overwhelm your teen with constant talk and loads of information. Keep things simple and give them the basics. Let them ask questions if they have them and, if not, tell them they can come to you anytime a question comes up no matter what it is. Open communication during the teenage years can help make this time easier on both you and your teen. It will honestly help and trickle down into pretty much all of these other tips too.
2. Set Appropriate Rules and Clear Expectations
Another tip that can help inform knowing how to raise a successful teenager (and make sure you survive parenting these years) is to set appropriate rules and clear expectations for your teen. Clear expectations are things like expecting them to get good grades, using appropriate behavior, and following the rules you have set for them. The clear part of this is that they know exactly what those expectations are and what the consequences are for not meeting them.
Appropriate rules are also important during the teenage years. Although, if you asked teens how to raise a successful teenager, this may be the last thing they would say! Teens should not be expected to go to bed at the same time as younger siblings or not be allowed to play video games or get on social media. Set an age appropriate bedtime. Expect them to eat dinner with the family on nights they are home, but let them go out with friends on the weekend or skip the family trip to the park if they want.
It is also important to reward your teenager for sticking to those rules and being trustworthy. If they are good about going to bed when they are supposed to during the week, consider relaxing bedtime on the weekends. If they have been good about being home before their curfew, consider extending it by half an hour on the weekends to show you trust them and see they are being responsible.
Be a little flexible and willing to relax certain rules, with the clear expectations that if they are not met the privilege of having these more relaxed rules will be lost. This shows your teen that you are not just setting rules to be some rigid mean parent, but are doing it with the intention of keeping them safe and teaching them responsibility.
READ MORE: RAISING RESILIENT CHILDREN: WHY IT’S IMPORTANT AND 3 KEY TIPS
3. Pick Your Battles
The teenage years are certainly a test of a parent’s patience and willingness to let go a little. When you are parenting a teen, you have to let go a little. Let them play video games with friends. Let them listen to the music they like (even when it is music you hate). Allow them to pick out the style of clothes they want and style their hair whichever way they like.
These things are not the end of the world. You might not like that your teen wears baggy pants or wants to cut their hair short and dye it blue, but you have to remember that they are exploring their identity. Maybe they are also trying to push things a little. If you can ask yourself, “What is the harm?” and not come up with a good answer, let them go for it.
You will not survive the teenage years if you fight your teen on every little thing. More importantly, you are going to have a hard time raising a successful teenager when you try to squash every ounce of their self-expression. An important part of becoming an adult is successfully understanding who you are and what you believe in. Let your teen explore that for themselves. Honestly though, there is no reason to fight teens on things like clothes, music, hairstyles, and a lot of other things. That is unless you enjoy arguing and making yourself and your teen miserable over things that are inconsequential.
4. Love Them
It may seem obvious but if you want to know how to raise a successful teenager, you have to remember to love your teen and love them unconditionally. They are going to be moody at times. They might test you over and over again. They might even drive you absolutely crazy when they talk back or ask “why” every time you ask them to do something.
There is all of that on top of the fact that you probably look at this blossoming teenager and wonder where the adorable little kid who liked to climb in your lap and read a book is. Just because they are not that little kid does not mean you have to stop giving them a hug good night or telling them you love them when you drop them off at school. They might protest a little (or a lot) but continue to love them openly and show them affection. They need it as much now as they did when they were little.
Part of loving them during their teenage years is more than giving them a hug every day and telling them you love them. Support the choices they make about who they are. Support their interests. You might not always understand them, but you can show them you love them for who they are, which is especially important during these turbulent years when they are trying to figure out not only themselves but how they fit into the world around them. That is the ultimate key to raising a successful teenager.
READ MORE: WHY IT’S IMPORTANT FOR MOMS TO STOP JUDGING OTHERS PARENTING
5. Have Empathy
You do not have to excuse or let their behavior go without addressing it, but have empathy for your teen. Remember what it was like to be in high school? Remember how mean kids can be? Remember how it felt to be crabby or mad about the rules your parents set or at not being allowed to do something you wanted to do? Keeping in mind how your teen feels will do wonders for surviving these often turbulent years.
Trying to have a little empathy helps to put things into perspective and not get so personally offended when they do not want to hang out with you (did you want to hang out with YOUR parents all the time?) or when they catch an attitude after you have asked them to do something for you.
Although it might feel like the teenage years will last forever, they will not. Knowing these tips on how to raise a successful teenager can help. But so does thinking about all the great parts of having a teenager. They are old enough to have really deep conversations with you about books, politics, the world, and anything else they are interested in. They can pretty much fend for themselves which gives you more freedom to do what you need and want (hello to taking long baths with a good book!) to do. Through it all, remember that this is just a season in your parenting life and you are raising a great kid.
WANT TO READ MORE?
Check out Boost Your Daughter’s Confidence Through Her Incredible Positive Traits for more advice, tips, and tricks.
CONNECT WITH DAILY MOM
💖 NEWSLETTER: DAILY READS IN YOUR INBOX 💖
Sign up to receive our picks for the best things to do, see and buy so you can relax and focus on more important tasks! Let us help you be the best version of yourself you can be!
BE SOCIAL WITH US
📌 LOVE IT? PIN IT!📌
Photo Credit: unsplash.com
