Advice For Parenting Teenagers: How To Raise Your Teenage Boys

Parenting styles

 

Styles of Parenting

According to the research, there are 4 basic styles of parenting.  These styles are based on demandingness (how much you require of your children in terms of setting rules, boundaries, and creating structure) and responsiveness or nurturance (the amount of care, love, and positive regard you show your child).  The chart below briefly describes the results of each style of parenting:

Authoritative (high demands, high responsiveness)

• Most effective style of parenting.  
• Parents create a consistent structure, have realistic rules and expectations for their children, follow through on boundaries, and set appropriate consequences.
• Parents are responsive to their child's needs, genuinely care about what is going on in their child's life, and show unconditional positive regard (I like and love you no matter what you do, I will not withdraw my love from you if you do something bad or something I disapprove of).  
• Parents are willing to listen to their child and take their opinion/point-of-view into account when making decisions that affect the child.

Authoritarian (high demands, low responsiveness)

• Parents are often referred to as drill sergeants for their "Because I said so" approach to setting rules and boundaries.  
• Don't spend a lot of time building a positive relationship with their children and often withdraw love and attention when the child does something they don't want them to do.  
• Often have very rigid rules and are unwilling to look at things from their child's perspective.  
• Parents are shouters/yellers and cold-shoulder-ers.  
• Swift with punishment, but very slow to pay attention to what their child is doing right.  
• Take the attitude that you can always do better, so whatever their child does is never good enough.

Permissive (low demands, high responsiveness)

• Parents show lots of love, attention, and devotion to their children, but have very few (if any) rules and boundaries.  
• Their home life is often not very structured and most of the time, the child has a lot more power in the home than the parent.  
• Kids are allowed to do pretty much whatever they please with no consequences or inconsistent consequences.  
• Parents will often swoop in to "save the day" when another adult tries to set or enforce boundaries with the child (e.g., if the child gets in trouble for misbehaving at school, the parent goes out of their way to excuse the bad behavior and get the child out of being punished).  
• Parents are more focused on being their child's friend than on being a parent; they don't ever want to be perceived as the bad guy, so they avoid stepping up to discipline.

Uninvolved or neglectful (low demands, low responsiveness).

• Parents don't require much of their children, but they don't show love and regard to them either.  
• Most of the time, they don't pay attention to the child at all.  
• Parents are often the ones that leave their child unattended at home while they go out and do what they want.  
• The child's needs almost always go unmet, so they are forced to seek to get their needs met from other sources, often in very unhealthy ways.  
• Parents provide no structure or boundaries, therefore consequences are usually non-existent as well.  

http://byuwsr.blogspot.nl/2012_11_01_archive.html

Parental Involvement

http://www.teendriversource.org/stats/for_parents/detail/86

The Four Types of Parenting Styles

            

Parents are a huge part of a child's life. However they act, whatever they say, anything that they do largely impacts a child's development from the moment they are born. According to psychologist Diana Baumrind's research, she found that there are four types of parenting styles (Parenting Styles in Psychology, Brittany Olivarez). Through naturalistic observation, parenting interviews, and other research methods, Baumrind identified the following four parenting styles:

• Authoritative: democratic style of parenting, parents are attentive, forgiving, teach their offspring proper behavior, have a set of rules, and if child fails to follow their is punishment, if followed their is reward/reinforcement

• Authoritarian: strict parenting style, involves high expectations from parents but have little communication between child and parents. Parents don't provide logical reasoning for rules and limits, and are prone to harsh punishments

• Permissive: parents take on the role of "friends" rather than parents, do not have any expectations of child, they allow the child to make their own decisions

• Uninvolved: parents neglect their child by putting their own life before the child's. They do provide for the child's basic needs but they show little interaction with the child

Each of these different parenting styles impacts and influences the development of child. Through Baumrind's observations she found that the most ideal and balanced style that leads to the child being mature, independent, and socially responsible is the Authoritative style (Parenting Styles in Psychology,Olivarez) Baumrind also found that the style commonly leads to children becoming delinquents is the Uninvolved style because of the lack of parenting, affection, and care from the parent leads the child to act out badly for attention (Parenting Styles in Psychology, Olivarez).
Parenting is a large impact in a child's life and development. Most families have a blend of two or more of these parenting types because the mother and father tend to differ when it comes to parenting a child. What we know is that a healthy development leads a child to succeed not only in developing as a person but building a stronger bond to their parents.

 

 http://blog.lib.umn.edu/meyer769/myblog/2011/11/the-four-types-of-parenting-styles.html

Parenting Tips from 10 Parenting Experts

When you're looking for parenting advice, it can be hard to know where to start. There are so many websites, books and products offering different ideas about discipline that it can get overwhelming. To help you get answers about which discipline strategies work best, I asked 10 top parenting experts from a variety of experiences and backgrounds for their single most important parenting tip. I received wonderful words of wisdom that are sure to help any parent who is looking for advice on effective child discipline.

 

1. “Be a parent, not a friend. This means you cannot be afraid to be the bad guy. Your child might be angry with you sometimes. Deal with it. The alternative is having an obnoxious kid. Let him fail sometimes. If you don’t, how do you expect him to ever learn how to cope with life’s ups and downs? Nobody is successful at everything. Sometimes, you have to fail in order to succeed.”

-Lori Freson, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

 

2. “Do not name call or hit: Kids learn from you, being abusive or hitting just teaches them to handle conflict with aggression and meanness. If you feel super angry in the moment, take a time out and walk away, come back later and have a plan for discipline. If you lose your cool, explain that you did and make clear you wish you had not. A firm and even angry but measured tone is much more effective than sounding out of control and vindictive.”

-Dr. Gail Saltz, Psychiatrist, Psychoanalyst, Bestselling Author and Television Commentator

 

3. “Once your child hits the teen years, don't get lost in the details by focusing too much on the day to day behaviors and moods of your child. At this point, frequently remind yourself that your teenager will soon be able to leave the house and will have the power to decide how emotionally connected he or she wants to remain with you for the rest of your lives. The more you focus on building a democratic relationship during the teen years, the more your soon-to-be grown child will like and appreciate you for years to come.”

-Seth Meyers, Psychologist

 

4. “If you have to tell your child the same thing repeatedly before they respond, then you are training them to ignore you.”

-David Johnson, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist

 

5. "Use natural consequences if possible. Parents may feel they have to punish kids for mistakes or misbehavior rather than letting real life take its course. If your child refuses to put on his coat, let him get cold. If he fails to clean his room, let his toys get lost. It’s tempting to engineer other consequences, like taking away video games or TV time, because we don’t always trust that natural consequences will work. But over time they do have a way of shaping behavior."

-Heidi Smith Luedtke, Personality Psychologist and Author of "Detachment Parenting: 33 Ways to Keep Your Cool When Kids Melt Down"

 

6. "Problem solving is what must replace punishment in order to develop responsible, respectful behavior in children and adults. Punishment is a coercive manipulative tactic used to get children to do what we want. It does nothing to develop character and empathy. In fact it is what is part of creating bullies. Children do not learn through fear and force. Their unacceptable behavior is meant to tell us that they are having a problem, not being a problem."

-Bonnie Harris, Parenting Educator and Director of Connective Parenting

 

7. "Understand the meaning of the word discipline. It's all about teaching and education - not punishment, threats, and training! Think of yourself as a teacher and show your child you respect them by explaining WHY the limit needs to be set. Help them understand it's for their own good and the benefits to them. Respect is a gateway to your child's cooperation!"

-Tom Limbert, Parenting Coach and Author of "Dad’s Playbook: Wisdom for Fathers from the Greatest Coaches of All Time"

 

8. "It may seem hard to believe when you're struggling with your kids, but children really do want to please their parents. Nothing makes a child happier than the pride they feel when receiving praise from their mother or father. This desire to please our parents is so strong that it lasts right into adulthood."

-Dana Obleman, Author of "Kids: the Manual"

 

9. "Be consistent--inconsistent discipline can actually reinforce negative behaviors because your child will keep trying in the hopes that this time he won't get in trouble."

-Susan Bartell, Psychologist and Author of "Top 50 Questions Kids Ask"

 

10. "The child's problem is there is something that he needs and wants and doesn't know how else to get other than misbehaving. A parent often has a problem with the child's behavior. Unfortunately the parent usually starts by trying to solve her problem and never gets around to solving the child's problem."

-Nancy Buck, Developmental Psychologist and Creator of Peaceful Parenting Inc.http://discipline.about.com/od/typesofdiscipline/a/Parenting-Tips-From-10-Parenting-Experts.htm

Family management: in a nutshell

Families come in all shapes and sizes. It doesn’t matter what your family looks like, so long as it provides a solid and loving base for your children. But a happy, well-functioning family doesn’t just happen – it takes a bit of effort.

did you know

Studies show that healthy families make time for talking and listening, show affection and encouragement, accept differences, share chores and decisions, keep in touch and make family time.

 

• Families that work well
• Routines and rituals
• Sharing jobs
• Managing family finances

Families that work well

Thinking about how you’d like your family to work is called family management. Some parents fear that family management will kill off spontaneity – quite the opposite. In fact, you will probably have more time and energy for impulsive outings or activities.

The benefits of family management also include:

• bringing family members closer together
• making it easier for grown-ups and children to talk
• making everyone more organised and less stressed
• making the most of precious time and finances
• helping grown-ups deal with the way children behave
• providing a way of passing on your family values
• helping children develop important social skills for life
• helping your family find more time to have fun together.

Here are some ideas for basic family management:

• Communication: it’s important to talk through family issues with all family members, including children.
• Affection, positive attention and family time: everyone in the family needs to feel loved and valued. Make sure your children – and your partner – receive lots of encouragement, positive feedback and signs of affection. It’s also important to make time every week to do things as a family – even a short walk or a visit to the park can help bring you together.
• Routines: consider your daily routines and figure out what system works best for all members of the family. Routines make children feel safe and secure, and can make the busy times of day less stressful for everyone.
• Sharing tasks: think about how you can divide up jobs so everyone is happy.
• Preferred reactions: talk about how you would like everyone to respond to difficult or challenging situations like tiredness, an upset child or financial pressures.
• Social life: think about ways everyone in the family can meet their needs for a social life.

Routines and rituals

Routines and rituals can give family members a sense of consistency and security and can help to make family members feel like they belong.

Routines
Routines are those planned and recurring activities that help keep the home running smoothly. They include things that need to be done at the same time most days, like getting dressed for school or having a bath.

Routines can help your family spend more time together. For example, setting the table and washing the dishes with your children gives you the chance to have a chat at the same time.

Read more about household routines and why they work.

Research tells us that children are healthier and manage their behaviour better when they have predictable routines.

Rituals
Rituals are moments and activities that are special and unique to your family. They can be simple things, like reading bedtime stories, playing games or going camping during school holidays. Rituals give everyone a sense of history and belonging.

Research shows that rituals can strengthen your family’s values and help pass these values on to your children.

Read some tips for fun family rituals.

Sharing jobs

If household jobs are shared, the burden is lighter on everyone. Sharing household chores with your children can help them feel important and valued members of the family

You could write up a chart that outlines who does what and when. Then, down the track, hold an informal family meeting to see how everyone is finding the plan. This will also give you a chance to praise your children for their achievements, or suggest better ways of doing jobs.

Read more about age-appropriate jobs for kids.

Managing family finances

If your finances are causing you stress, there are some simple things you can do to manage your money better. A simple way to budget is to ask your employer to deposit your money into two accounts, one that you use for household and child expenses, and another for everyday cash spending.

Setting a realistic budget may help you gain more control over your finances and show where you need to make changes to your lifestyle. If you can create a plan for managing your money, you may be able to save for family holidays and reduce your debts.
http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/grownups_family_management_nutshell.html

Being a role model for your child

        

You have an important part to play in your child’s life – even if it doesn’t always feel that way. What you do and say guide your child’s behaviour, attitudes and beliefs over the long term.

did you know

Teenagers often end up with values, beliefs and behaviour similar to their parents’. Research has shown that young adults are more similar to their parents than they appeared to be as teenagers.

 

Being a role model for your child

When your child was younger, your role was to lay the blueprints for his behaviour – for example, cooperating with others and showing how to take turns. Now your child is a teenager, he can start taking responsibility for his own behaviour.

But you’re still an important role model.

What you do shows your child how you want her to behave. For example, how you cope with feelings such as frustration and distress influences how your child regulates her emotions. What you eat, how much you exercise, and how you look after yourself will all influence your child.

What you say is also important. You can help your child to manage and control his own behaviour by talking about how behaviour affects other people. You can also use more complex reasoning and examples to talk about the differences between right and wrong. Now’s a good time for this because your child is developing his ability to understand other people’s experiences and feelings.

Tips for role-modelling

• Include your child in family discussions, and give her input into family decisions, rules and expectations. These are good ways of helping her understand how people can get along with others and work together.
• Try to practise what you preach. Teenagers can and do notice when you don’t!
• Work towards a healthy lifestyle by eating well and exercising regularly. Try to avoid making negative comments about your body – and other people’s too. Not only will you be healthier, but you’ll send an important message about body image and acceptance.
• Show that you enjoy education and learning. If you make it seem interesting and enjoyable rather than a chore, your child is more likely to have a positive attitude to school.
• Keep a positive attitude – think, act and talk in an optimistic way.
• Take responsibility for yourself by admitting your own mistakes and talking about how you can correct them. Try not to blame everything that goes wrong on other people or circumstances.
• Use problem-solving skills to deal with challenges or conflicts in a calm and productive way. Getting upset and angry when a problem comes up encourages your child to respond in the same way.
• Show kindness and respect to others.

Influencing your teenager

You’re still an important influence on your child. Recent research shows that teenagers generally stay close to their parents, and that they value and respond to their parents’ good opinion, advice and support. Your child’s peers and friends will also be important in the teenage years. But parents and peers influence different things.

As a parent, you influence your child’s basic values, such as religious values, and issues related to her future, such as educational choices. The stronger your relationship with your child, the more influence you’ll have.

Your child’s friends are more likely to influence everyday behaviour, such as the music your child listens to, the clothes he wears and whether he picks on or bullies someone.

Teenagers need you to stay in touch with them and what they’re up to. You can take an interest in what they’re doing with their friends and also encourage group activities. You might like to read more in our article on privacy, monitoring and trust.

Parenting style
Research shows that parents who have an authoritative approach – firm about limits, but also warm and accepting of their child’s need to be an individual – tend to have teenagers who are less likely to be influenced by peer pressure to misbehave. These teenagers are also more likely to be influenced in positive ways, such as to do well in school.

Parents who are either permissive (few or no limits but warm and accepting) or authoritarian (controlling, with high expectations that children will obey rules and directions) are more likely to have teenagers who are influenced into inappropriate behaviour.

Your influence over your child’s friendships

When your child was younger, you probably influenced the friends she made by managing her social activities as well as actively guiding her towards certain friends and away from others.

In the teenage years, you do still have an indirect influence over your child’s friends. You shape your child’s attitudes and values, which in turn shape his choice of friends.

We often think that because teenagers and their friends are similar, they’re influencing each other. But the main reason that friends are similar is that teenagers choose to be friends with people who are like them.

Even when you approve of your child’s friends, you might find that their influence isn’t always what you want. Peers can and do influence each other in positive ways. But peer pressure might also lead your child to experiment with smoking, alcohol and other drugs.

Your influence over your child’s alcohol and other drug use

You might worry about how your child will manage issues such as alcohol and other drugs, and peer pressure to experiment. But it’s not just friends who influence teenagers in this area – you also have an influence.

You’re unlikely to stop your child from trying alcohol, but you can be a role model for safe habits. The way you use alcohol and other drugs will influence your child’s attitudes and behaviour. Think about the different messages you might send if you:

• drink occasionally and in moderation
• drink daily and heavily
• have a cigarette after every meal or with every cup of coffee
• say things like, ‘I need a drink/joint/cigarette – I had a shocking day at work’, or ‘I’m getting a headache – I’d better have some Panadol’.

You can also talk with your child about alcohol and other drugs, the effects they have and the risks involved. Our articles on preventing and minimising alcohol use and alcohol and other drugs in adolescence have more information.

There’s no safe level of alcohol for young people under 15. It’s best for young people to avoid alcohol until the age of 18. The longer teenagers’ alcohol use can be delayed, the better. Young people’s brains are still developing, and when they drink alcohol there’s a risk their brains won’t develop properly.

http://raisingchildren.net.au/articles/role-modelling.html/context/1142