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Positive Parenting of Teens

Prepared by Tracy Habisch-Ahlin, University of Minnesota Extension Educator-Family Development, Washington County, MN

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Background: Parenting Teens Today

Being a parent of a teen is often viewed as challenging, stressful, and something that should be avoided at all costs. This view gets in the way of enjoying the teen years for what they truly are--a time for teens to discover who they are, what they value, and what path they want to set out on toward adulthood.

Parents of teens need to remember the wonder, joy, and excitement they felt when their teen was first born. Parents need to remember the strength, persistence, and encouragement they gave their teen as a toddler learning to walk. Parents need to remember the suspense, charm, and heartache as they sent their teen off to the first day of school. All of these events, and many more, require parents to be their child's teacher, coach, and cheerleader.

Teens today say over and over that their parents are their number one choice for support and information. Teens want their parents to be close by, to set clear rules, to help them if they stumble or fall, and to be there when they succeed.

Common Obstacles During the Teen Years

Teens mature physically earlier than ever before. In part this can be attributed to better nutrition and preventive health care. Unfortunately, early physical maturity is not matched by faster development of thinking and emotional abilities. Early teens find themselves dealing with a whole range of physical, hormonal, and emotional changes that they cannot adequately comprehend. Teens need parents to help them understand the intricacies of personal relationships and what limits are advised in relationships and with risky behaviors. Teens will be able to take in this advice better if parents back up their opinions with facts and personal experience--something beyond, "because I am your parent."

Parents need to know that teens are exposed to an ever?increasing availability of high?risk obstacles at younger and younger ages. Such high-risk obstacles include drugs, alcohol, sex, operating a motor vehicle, weapons, and other potentially life-threatening or destructive experiences.

It is a relatively common experience for teens to have tried alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. However, few use alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes habitually. At the same time, teens start consuming alcohol and smoking cigarettes at younger and younger ages. Alcohol use often starts between the ages of ten and fifteen years. It has been shown that teens have easier access to some illicit drugs and that the potency of these drugs has become more lethal, especially in combination with alcohol.

Though it seems to be leveling off, at the time of publication (1999), teen males and females are participating in sexual activity at younger and younger ages. Often they do not understand the most basic elements of the human body and its functions. Teens have been fed endless images and messages of misinformation from the media. As a result, Nathalie Bartle, Ed.D., states, our children "are wired for desire." This is a desire that may not be understood by young teens, but is a reality and challenge parents must face. With little awareness or understanding of the consequences of sexual activity, it isn't surprising that many teens do not use contraceptives or practice safe sex. An estimated 25 percent of sexually active teens are infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) by the time they graduate from high school. Unplanned pregnancies for teens have devastating effects on the child, teen mother, and often the teen father.

At an earlier time in history, the period from childhood to adulthood was relatively short due to the need for teens to take on greater responsibility in order to assist the family in its survival. Teens of this period also became parents at this young age. But unlike today, teen parents of an earlier age received a great deal of support from their immediate and extended families. The problems associated with teen pregnancy today are the lack of social support for the teen mother, isolation, poverty, and the necessity of dropping out of school.

Our popular media are filled with daily news accounts of teen violence. Crime and violence were once seen as conditions of urban areas, the poor, and the oppressed, but accounts over the past several years have proven otherwise. Again, we see crimes committed at younger and younger ages. Among children between the ages of five and fourteen, murder now is the third leading cause of death in the United States and other industrialized countries. In the United States, a child dies of a gunshot wound every two hours; the majority are shot by someone of similar age. The rate of violence among females is fast approaching that of their male peers.

Increasingly children live in divorced, single-parent, or stepparent households. A large body of research has clearly demonstrated the disadvantages of such circumstances. In these households parents face the challenges of maintaining firm guidance and monitoring their teens' activities, of dealing with fewer financial resources, and often of coping with an absent father.

As the world became industrialized, teens lost some of the important job training skills that were required of them on the farm or in small trades. Young people often worked side-by-side with parents or other adults, gradually learning the skills and gaining the right to earn money on their own. Today's teens often do not have a realistic idea of what the work world is like or what it expects. Our highly technological workplaces require advanced training and skill. We are less likely to hear stories of mailroom clerks working their way up to become corporate CEOs. Teens need a clear view of what it means to be an adult in the work world, what it takes to get there, and what it takes to be respected by colleagues.

Far too often the teen years are viewed exclusively through a negative lens. The teen years do not need to be a time of constant stress and strife. The list of circumstances listed above is sobering. Parents need to be reminded of how important they are, especially during the teen years. Parents will always be their child's first and foremost teacher. Parents need to provide support and structure to the lives of their teens. Parents need to be involved!

Next Section: Perception and Misperception in Teen-Parent Relationships

Resources

Sources: Hamburg, David A. Today's Children: Creating a Future for a Generation in Crisis, New York: Time Books, 1994; Bartle, Nathalie. Venus in Blue Jeans, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1998.