A Healthy Relationship with Your Teen

Do you want to become your child’s best friend? Of course you do! But does friendship with your child ever get in the way of your parenting? Do you cover your eyes and ears, or overlook problems with your teenager’s behavior because you fear that confrontation will hurt your relationship?

Some parents place so much value on having a great relationship with their child that they fail to take the appropriate position of parental authority in their life. It becomes more of an issue when there is a split in a family and each parent tries to impress a child in order to gain that child’s love. Or, it can happen if a parent is insecure and their child’s life has become their life too. It can even happen if a teen becomes rebellious and the parent caves in to their anger or bad behavior. >> Article continued…

All Due Respect from Your Teenager

The late Rodney Dangerfield’s “I get no respect” jokes were pretty funny. But it isn’t a laughing matter when a teenager becomes disrespectful to a parent.

While disrespect from a teenager can be demeaning and confusing to parents, it actually brings more harm to the child by tearing at the very fabric of their future. It may be rooted in an authority figure showing disrespect to the child. Or, the child could be imitating the disrespect they see exhibited by their peers or other family members – including their parents. >> Article continued…

Managing Conflict With Your Teen

Most of us want to avoid conflict with our kids, but did you know that conflict in a family can offer you an opportunity to pull together like never before?  If reckoned with properly, conflict is a force for change that has the power to brings relationships together rather than tear them apart.

Another positive aspect of conflict is that it helps a child learn how to stand up for himself.  How else will he learn how to say “No” when he needs to, or “That’s just not right,” or, “I don’t agree with that.”

So, how can you effectively manage conflict with your teen in a way that maintains a solid relationship, while at the same time honors the household rules? >> Article continued…

Facing the Summer with a Troubled Teen

Are you facing a summer full of storms from a teenager whose behavior has become rebellious and out of control? Does it seem like he has suddenly become someone you don’t even recognize?

Teenagers go through normal turmoil in their emotions as they mature. Most handle adolescence without behavioral problems, but for others this time of life can be very stressful and confusing to them.  And their desire to be accepted by their peers can get them into all sorts of trouble. >> Article continued…

Don’t Ever Quit, Not Even If Your Teen Hates You

I have seen many parents wonder what in the world happened to their family. They seemingly woke up one morning to a teen who completely changed overnight. Their loving, kind and thoughtful kid is now a person they no longer recognize.  It is easy for them to feel they are not prepared for all of this — but who is?

No matter how good a parent you are, there are forces at work in our culture that can  send your kid spinning off in a direction that you could never imagine. It’s a culture bent on undermining the values you have tried so hard to instill into your teen’s life. >> Article continued…

Possibly the Greatest Teen Parenting Mistake

Well-intentioned parents, doing as they have always done to protect their children when they were young, often circle the wagons and marshal control when their teenager makes a mistake in judgment. Others keep their wagons circled all the time, never giving up any control to the teenager in the first place. Such parents then wonder why their teenager rebels against them or lacks maturity. 

It’s natural for parents to believe that trouble can be avoided by keeping their teenager always in sight, by fixing their every problem, and by generally keeping them under their control.  But I’ve learned that teens mature quicker when parents take steps in the early teen years to give up some of the control they have over their teen’s life. >> Article continued…

Keeping Hope Alive

When you’re struggling with a wayward teenager, it can seem as though your world is being turned upside down. Everything you’ve planned and hoped for in the child’s life appears to be fading away. In essence, you feel like a failure.

It is common for such parents to have sleepless nights…finger-pointing arguments…tears…and stress far beyond what they’ve ever experienced before. The energetic little boy who was so fun…or the sweet little girl who used to be full of hugs…has become someone totally different, and is teetering on the edge of disaster. It’s enough to make you lose all hope. >> Article continued…

Teen Trouble?

Teenagers go through normal turmoil in their emotions as they mature. But some have other factors that lead to unnatural problems that can be severe and may require outside help. As a first step for concerned parents, our Troubled Teen Assessment Tool can be a helpful exercise. It is a simple evaluation of where the child is in the spin of things, based on our experience with thousands of struggling teenagers over the years. >> Article continued…

Dealing With Teen Anger

Anger in your teenager can take on many faces.  It can be a seething anger kept quietly below the surface, or a tidal wave unleashed on everyone around them. Anger can manifest itself in a covert refusal to comply with your household rules or wishes, or it can lead your teenager to outwardly undermine their own future or even strike out in violence.

Anger in teenagers usually comes from some unmet need or heart-longing. Such “wants” can be immature and selfish; like wanting more material things. Or the more complicated want for control and independence.  But these can also be a smokescreen for deeper wants, like the want for love, acceptance, or even clearly defined rules to live by.  Or, it can be a want for life to be the way it was before a major event took place, like the breakup of your family, the loss of innocence, or a betrayal. Anger can also come from the want to not be ridiculed or bullied or the want to be “normal” as defined by today’s teen culture.  >> Article continued…

Managing Conflict With Your Teen

When having conflict and struggle with your teen, it’s easy to feel as if the entire family is falling apart.  I’ve found that a better view of handling conflict is to see it as an opportunity to pull your family together, like never before!

Conflict Can Be the Precursor to Positive Change

I believe that relationships that stick together through conflict and hardship become closer relationships. In fact, the teens in our Heartlight program that I remember the most fondly are the ones that caused me to want to pull my hair out when dealing with their constant arguing and bad behavior. >> Article continued…