Ensuring that your child/children are happy and healthy is your main priority as a parent, along with of course providing them with a safe and warm home. When they get past their toddler years and start to grow into young adults, you will then face new challenges and hurdles as a parent. This can be quite overwhelming and difficult to cope with if you do not know what to expect in their adolescent years.
Being fully aware of what may happen as they gradually transition from a child, into a teenager and then a young adult will be a new experience for you as a parent. However you want to feel as though you can handle these scenarios when they occur, as they enter this phase of their life. Here are some issues you may tackle along the way.
Wanting to Spend More Time With Their Friends
It is perfectly normal for them to want to spend more time with their school friends or go out at night to a party with the rest of their peers. Feeling as though they don’t want to spend time with you is not necessarily the case, it is just that they have reached an age where they can head out and do activities that they would not have been able to do before. Keeping the lines of communication open with them and knowing that they will message you when out late or where they are heading to and who with, will ease your worries a little. So give them space to do this.
The Allure of Drink, Sex and Drugs
You might want to shield your child from as many things as possible but realistically you will have to realize that they will be intrigued by alcohol, sexual relations and trying recreational drugs. Just because they try these things does not automatically make them an addict. Therefore you need to try and establish a balance between addiction and parenting: how to navigate the two, before you worry that your child has issues they are concealing from you.
The Pressure of Studies
If you notice that their mood has changed and they are either more withdrawn from you than normal and quite snappy when you ask them a question, it might be down to school pressure. It is perfectly normal for your teenager to feel stressed and overwhelmed with the amount of studies they now need to cope with, along with juggling any extracurricular activities and trying to establish what they want to do in life career wise.
Overall the most important thing you can do is open up to your teenager and allow them to feel comfortable coming to you, to talk about any issues they have in their own time, and not forcing them to talk to you. They will open up to you when they feel ready to discuss any issues or worries they may have.
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