The art of knowing how to demand a teenager
We all know that adolescence is characterized by rebellion, by "Tell me what plan I have to oppose." But this attitude should not make us give up to continue with our educational work, maybe we just have to change the way we do it. It will be as important to continue demanding them, as learning the art of knowing how to demand a teenager.
The real problem of adolescence is not what our son / daughter should do to be less adolescent, but what we should do to help him / her live better that stage. Logically we have to continue educating in these difficult years and for this a serene, positive atmosphere of openness and dialogue will be required at home; Talk about everything, not just about school and bad grades, or about the permanently clutter of your room. Is adolescence a problem? Rather, we are facing a new stage in which we must waste large amounts of patience, affection, sympathy, example and help.
On what and why should we change parents?
Parents must change regarding our relationship with our adolescent children because it is the starting point on which to build everything else. We will have to make an effort to know the children with the intelligence of the heart: day by day, within each stage of development and in particular during adolescence, adopt the attitude of those who want to reach the discovery of their own children without being satisfied with a superficial look and without giving anything for granted. It is not an intellectual knowledge, but the heart that manifests this way, in the relationship with the children, a demanding understanding. But in what things?
Fundamentally in four aspects:
1. In the demand mode and to make us obey.
2. In the things that we should demand of them, when to do it and how.
3. In the way you listen and know your reasons.
4. In the way of explaining our yeses and above all, our noes.
How can we know them better?
During the tormented period of adolescence, to know them well - and especially inside - it is necessary: "Observe them systematically, father and mother separately, to then pool together what each one has discovered and how to demand more appropriate .
- Know the characteristics of the evolutionary stage in which our children are.
- Know well the manifestations of his character.
- Know your interests and wishes well.
- Know your weaknesses well.
Listen twice what we talked about
As the popular saying "The man has two ears and a mouth to hear twice as much as he speaks", he explains well. And it is precisely in the relationships with our adolescents that it becomes fundamental to achieve the art of listening: only listening is how we can know what they have inside. We will know the thoughts and ideas that are forming on current issues and the criteria they use in each new circumstance that is presented before them.
Listening and listening with the heart means that we should care more about it than the answer it will give us, or the content of what it will say. We must "want to know" not for us, not for control, but for him, to understand him, to help him and also to demand and correct him.
The gift of opportunity
There are some characteristics of our speech, our way of saying things, which can promote good relationships with children, paving the way for them to accept our demands, understanding that they are heading for their own good. So, our talk:
- He must be kind, without hurting, without ironies, optimistic and encouraging.
- Persuasive, Knowing how to enter with each child.
- No aseptic and unfriendly sermons, far from endless.
- Timely: taking into account the circumstances of place and time, not correct when he is angry or he is angry, to avoid saying things that later have to repent (threats, insults, etc.).
- Wise so as not to correct the elderly in front of the little ones.
- Coherent, that is, not correct today and tomorrow not: our son will not understand anything then, he will lack all educational certainty on the part of the parents, which he still needs.
- Respectful so as not to contradict the other spouse in front of the children and less when the latter is not present.
- Spiced up by a positive vision of things and people.
Ana Aznar
