The teenage years can be rough for parents and children alike, and this is especially true if you find yourself struggling to deal with your troubled teen. While most parents mean well, they often don’t have the tools to deal with difficult situations like these, which can lead to mistakes that only make things worse. If you’re worried about how to properly deal with your troubled teen, here are five common things you should avoid doing.
- Treating Them Like Children
It may seem counterintuitive to give your teenager more freedom when what you’re trying to do is rein him or her in and get control, but stifling your teen with constant supervision is a surefire way to push in the wrong direction. When you treat your teen like a child, you’re not only priming him or her for rebellion but also taking away any opportunity your teen might have to develop healthy independence and maturity. Whenever possible, treat teens like adults and allow them to make decisions for themselves and take responsibility for the decisions they make.
- Yelling Them Into Submission
This trick might have worked when your teen was younger, but primal, physical displays of dominance are never a good idea. If your child has a history of behavior or aggression problems, then chances are a stunt like this is simply going to make him or her yell back—and an angry teenager is going to win the yelling game every time. This approach is ineffective at getting your teen to do what you want, and it also teaches him or her that this is an acceptable means of communication in the real world. Anything that can’t be said in a calm, cool manner is probably not worth saying in the first place.
- Neglecting Outside Help
Sometimes a situation with a troubled teen escalates to a point where you either no longer know what to do. In cases like this, professional help may be necessary, but many parents are reluctant to take this route. Some think that therapy is a sign of weakness, while others are skeptical that a counselor will be unable to help. Thoughts like these could be preventing you from making real progress with your teen.
- Refusing to See Things from Their Perspectives
Granted, teenagers are not always the best at having a healthy perspective, but the point of attempting to see things their way is not to affirm that their concept of the world lines up with reality; rather, it’s about showing empathy. Being willing to approach a situation from a different perspective makes your teen much more likely to do the same for you, and it can often provide you with valuable insights that you may not have been expecting.
- Ignoring the Warning Signs
Unfortunately, many parents don’t even realize they have a troubled teen because they’ve failed to notice the warning signs. Be on the lookout for things like a change in behavior, drop in academic performance, or loss of interest in activities your teen normally would like. These can all be indicators of a deeper, underlying problem.
