How To Solve Common Problems Between Parents and Teenagers

Being a parent is not easy and especially being the parent of an adolescent. This is even truer when it comes to solve common problems between parents and teenagers. Nowadays, the gap between parents and their teens is often misunderstood and miscommunication to each other. Daughters and sons who once were like childhood friends become secretive and uncooperative. The parents are usually clueless on what to do to address this problem.

During teenage, a child has both physical and mental changes. Teenage’s most sensitive phase of growing up and handling teenagers is not a piece of cake.

During teenage, you need to give extra attention to your child, and sometimes due to your busy schedule, it might not be possible. It is more likely for children to copy their peers’ behavior at this phase of life and have changes in their behavior and attitude.

Teenagers can have differences with you in terms of thinking and teenage behavior. Your and your teen option might not match and can result in conflict between you two.

Due to the generation gap or a change in children’s attitudes, there is a chance of conflict. If you have a busy schedule, you may not give your teenager time and know about their feeling, which might create a dispute between you two.

What are Problems Between Parents and Teenagers?

Parents and teenagers often have lots of arguments. This is not unusual, because most teenagers are in tough times for their personal identity. Here is the list of common problems between parents and teens. I hope it will help your understanding in difficult situations.

Setting Curfew Time For Teenagers

Most of the parents want their teens to get back home on time. In contrast, teens, on the other hand, want to stay outside with their peers for a long time.

Parents set a curfew for their children to keep them within the boundaries. They also want their children to follow the proper eating schedule and sleeping on time, which might not happen if they stay out late.

As a parent, when you set a curfew for your children, it enforces them to get home on time. Staying out for a long time at night can be risky because parents put curfew time for their children.

On the other hand, children are not aware of dangers that they might face when they are out for a long time. Some teenagers might also get into bad influences and want to stay out at night time.

The problem between parents and children can occur when children ignore curfew time. When children do not follow the curfew set by their parents, it creates problems between the child and the parents.

Sometimes teens are enjoying their time with their peers, and when their curfew time starts, they do not want to leave their peers and might end up breaking curfew. This can create arguments and problems among children and parents.

Unable to Understand Emotional Problems That Teenagers are Facing

During teenage children go through various physical and emotional changes. Children during their teens become sensitive. Any small events can affect their mental health.

Some teens get overly sensitive while some can get aggressive, some start to be reserved, while some will be rebellious.

Teenagers also have some hormonal changes because of which them to get emotional.

Apart from this, as teens go through physical change, they might get insure about their physical appearance, which can affect them emotionally. Teenagers can feel inferior and lead to emotional problems.

Children get new roles and responsibilities during their teenage years, making them overwhelming.

Also, teenagers can have their problems like they might get bullied in their schools, they might get into a new relationship because they can get emotionally affected.

See also  Parenting with a Disability

Since teenagers go through an emotional roller-coaster rider, you have to handle your teenagers with extra caution.

Frequent Lying To Parents

Teenagers usually lie about their homework, seeking out tattoos, relationships, and many more.

Sometimes teens do not dare to speak the truth, and they come up with many excuses. Sometimes, to cover one lie, they have to tell hundreds of other lies.

Most of the time, teenagers lie to get out of trouble, avoid hurting others’ feelings, keep privacy, hide unwanted activities they are doing, and more. AlsoSomenagers also lie compulsively about their low grade, their school activities.

Similarly, teenagers can get involved in some evil influence. And even when you warned them about the bad company, they try to hide and protect their friends, and they deliberately lie to you about them.

Sometimes, teens lie to you about their whereabouts, and the problem occurs when you see their social media posts, and you find out they are lying.

Even in school, teenagers lie among their teachers and peer to make them look better among their peers.

One of the common reasons teens lie to you is the strict rules you enforce on your teenagers.

Spending Too Much Time on Internet

Cyberspace is a large network that facilitates communication by employing TCP/IP protocol. It is a virtual environment made with the help of networks.

Internet/social media has been part of teenagers’ lives as they spend half of their time on social media.

According to Common Sense Media research, it was found that US teens spend seven-hour in a day on social media on average.

Whether it is sharing every second of their life on Snapchat or Instagram stories, they share their picture obsessed with social media. They also use social media like TikTok and Youtube to share their hidden talent in front of the world.

Cyberspace has both negative and positive aspects in teenagers. If teenagers can positively utilize cyberspace, it can help them a lot in the future; they can also build their careers using cyberspace.

However, cyberspace can also create teenagers’ lives if they cannot utilize it properly.

For example, if your teenagers use social media to bully their peers, they start to build some negative character and land themselves into a huge problem.

One of the common problems that you can see among teenagers who love sharing their life on social media is anxiety and depression. Teenagers are more concerned with their number of likes and comments on social media than their grades. Teenagers want to gain more likes and comments on social media than their peers.

They go to the extreme level to get the best post for their social media, and in the end, they might do some harmful activities that can cause problems.

And when you try to stop your teenager from doing such activities, it creates problems between you and them.

Peer Pressure That Teen Get Influenced By

While growing up, peers are an essential part of teenagers, as they share the same level of emotional and physical changes. Teenagers choose their peers themselves.

The positive influence of peers can help peers too and help them better. With peers’ help, teens can solve most of their problems, be involved in new activities, and learn new things.

Teenagers can also get involved in negative peer influence and face peer pressure. Sometimes, when they know some activities are wrong, they end up doing it due to their peers’ influence, peer pressure.

Teenagers can face many peer pressures like choosing a specific dress-up style, dying hair into different colors, skipping classes, and more.

Furthermore, peer pressure can also get to an extreme level, like using harmful words, doing drugs, dating the wrong person, and more.

Sometimes, teenagers cannot identify good and bad influences, and even when they are getting under peer pressure, they might not know.

As parents, sometimes you can get busy with your work and might not know when your teenagers are getting under peer pressure. Also, even if you know and try to explain to your teens about bad influences, they might not want to listen to you, resulting in problems among parents and teenagers.

See also  A Parent’s Guide To Understanding Common Illnesses And Injuries in Infants

6 Ways to Resolve Problems Between Parents and Teenagers

The main concern for any parent is the well being and safety of their children. But in real it is the other way round, there will be many ways through which you can resolve problems between parents and teenagers.

Give Your Teenager One-to-One Time

With your busy schedule, you may not be able to give time to your teenagers, and because of which they will feel ignored. As a parent, teenagers should provide more time to your teenagers as it is the most sensitive time of their life.

Wherever you are free, you should spend time with your teenagers. You should frequently communicate with them and encourage them to share their problems. You should talk to them about their school, extracurricular activities they are into, the career they want to pursue.

There are many problems that teenagers can face, like in school, with their peers, and even with parents. To understand the issues they are facing, you should have frequent communication with them.

Likewise, when you communicate with your teenagers, you can teach them right and wrong influence. When you share with your teenagers, you will know what kind of influence they are in.

Sometimes, your teenagers might not express what they feel with many people. Therefore, you need to give time to your teenager.

Try To Understand Teenagers Point of View

One of the common reasons for the problem between teenagers and parents is parents not understanding their teens’ perspective.

As you know, there is a generation gap between you and your teenagers because of which your opinion might not match your teenager. In any topic, your teens’ point of view can be different from yours because of which problem can occur.

You should listen to your teenager’s viewpoint and understand what they want. Sometimes, they can be right on some topic, but when you enforce your point of view resulting in a problem between you and your teen.

You should acknowledge your teen’s perspective on any topic or anything. If they have the wrong perspective, you should communicate with them; you should explain to them where disagreement is on the point of view.

Help Teens To Deal with Emotional Problem

During teenage, a child goes through lots of changes; they struggle within themselves because they can have lots of emotional problems.

Also, due to their physical changes, they struggle within themselves; they feel unsure about lots of things like their physical appearance, education, career, which eventually makes them emotionally weak.

Hence, you need to understand your teens’ emotions. You should know what they are struggling with, what makes them upset, the pressures they are facing right now, and more.

You should frequently communicate with your teenagers to help your teens deal with their emotional problems. You should allow them to build their self-confidence, self-esteem, praise their work, and so on. Also, help them deal with the changes they are facing now.

Trust Your Teenager

A common mistake you can make as a parent is not trusting your teen. This is also one of the main reasons for problems between you and your teen.

When you find your teen lied to you once, you start thinking that they lie with you every time. Even when your teenagers tell you the truth, you might call their peers or teacher to know the truth. This can create a lack of trust among you and your teenager.

Hence, to avoid the problem that occurs due to distrust, you need to trust your teenagers. As a parent,you have to provide an environment of trust and honesty. You should not scold your teen whenever they do anything bad; instead, you should teach them about good and bad activities.

For example, if you scold your teenagers whenever they bring low grades, it not only brings their confidence down, later on, they start to lie about their grades with you.

When you create trust, your teenager does not want to lie about anything. Even when they lie to you about something, they will feel like they did wrong and end up telling you.

See also  5 Steps To More Effective Parenting

Involve Teenagers In Decision Making

When you make some decisions for your teenagers, you should not just enforce decisions on your teen. Instead, you should ask for their opinion, what they feel about a particular decision for them.

For example, when you are setting curfew time for your teenagers at night time whenever they are going out, ask them why they are going. How long does it take for them to finish their work for which they are going out? And you can decide curfew time by discussing with them. This helps minimize the chances of conflict that occur while setting curfew time.

When you make any kind of decision about your teenagers by discussing with them about the subject matter, it makes them feel that they are valued.

Monitor Teens Screen Time

As I already mentioned above, cyberspace is becoming a common problem among teenagers and parents. Even though the internet has a massive amount of benefits, it has some negative aspects.

When a teenager cannot utilize benefits and only use them for entertainment purposes, it can harm them.

Nowadays, teenagers are spending most of their time on social media. Likewise, they are also spending a lot on online shopping, which creates problems between you and your teen.

They give less time for their studies and other physical activities, and spending too much time on social media can make them dull.

You need to see for what purpose your teen uses the internet to use it for entertainment or learning purposes. You should also monitor their screen time to know if they are misusing the internet facility or utilizing it to the fullest.

If your teenager uses the internet only for entertainment purposes, you should limit their usage time.

To monitor your teen screen time, you can use apps like fenced.ai that monitor your teenagers’ screen time and keep track of their social media accounts and websites they visited.

The important feature about this app is that even if your teen tries to uninstall the app, you will be notified.

How should I as a parent treat my teenager?

First and foremost, you should give your teen some space. You should trust your teenagers and provide an environment of trust. Teenagers can feel they are not loved and respected in this phase of life. So you should respect them and make them feel they are loved.

How do I improve my relationship with my teenagers?

Teenagers can feel no one understands them and can also feel unloved. They try to distance themselves from everyone. Hence to improve your relationship with your teenagers, you need to listen to them and their perspectives. You should make them number one priority. Teenagers can change their style during their teenage years, like dress style, hairstyle, and more. During this phase, make sure you don’t judge their likes and dislikes.

What are the things That I should not say to My teenager?

They are sensitive during teenage children, so do not mean to them. You should not say things like you are mean; you are such a moody person, you should stop being friends with him/her, I feel ashamed of you, etc. While talking with your teenagers, you should think twice as they can take anything seriously during this phase.

Conclusion

To conclude, it can be said that one of the essential factors is to give time to know the problem and identify its solution to solve any issues.

Likewise, to solve your teenager’s problem, you just need to give them time to understand their feelings and situations.

However, most working parents might be able to give their teenagers time only during the weekend. Therefore, to know what they are doing and be sure that they are on the right path, you must use fenced.ai apps.

In teenagers, children feel that they are not loved, they are insecure about themselves, they may get under peer pressure. Therefore to ensure that they are not in any trouble and there is no problem between you and your teenagers, you need to use parental control tools like fenced.ai.