Tips on adolescent parenting

Parenting teens can be challenging. But it can also be a joy. The key is to know how to care for yourself, first and foremost. Before you have children, you might think that parenting will come naturally. And, to some degree, it does. But there are days (and sometimes months and years) when all parents could use some extra support.

That is where time-tested, evidence-based strategies for parenting teens can be helpful. When parents are raising teenagers, they benefit from having a toolkit for keeping calm, creating a harmonious household, and relating to their children in positive ways.

Here are some simple yet powerful approaches for parenting teens that build strong relationships for the long run.

1: Keep your cool and stay centered

Living with kids can be stressful. That’s true for parenting adolescent girls and boys, too. Tricky situations often arise. But if you’re able to regulate your own emotions, chances are your child will do better, too. Self-care plays a huge part in this.

2. Emphasise the positive in parenting adolescents

Ever heard of the negativity bias? That’s how scientists describe the fact that our brain responds more strongly to negative information than it does to positive stimuli. Most likely, the negativity bias developed as an evolutionary survival mechanism—making us more sensitive to threats and danger. That’s why we remember bad news more easily than good news.

However, the negativity bias no longer serves us. In fact, it decreases our well-being. Therefore, we need to retrain our brains to focus on what’s good in our lives, instead of the bad stuff.

3: Set expectations and house rules

For adolescents, declaring independence is inevitable at some point. Accept that it will happen—your child will go through rebellious periods. This is normal teenage behaviour. Therefore, it’s important for parents to create as much clarity as possible about what they expect of their children. Moreover, parents need to create limits and consequences to compassionately enforce those expectations and boundaries.

4: Keep communication going

Because we are often busy and distracted, we do not always take the time to really focus on our kids when they’re trying to tell us something. Take advantage of the time you have together. Having dinner together as a family, using car time to talk, or chatting before bed are good ways to stay in daily touch with your teen. Prioritise quality time as well as quantity: Consider having breakfast out on the weekend as a special catch-up time to