2 am feedings, early morning woes, bruised knees, back to high school blues – you've got to survive them all! Then why is that the word "Teenagers" sounds so daunting? It's the "here and now" effect…. a couple of years later, you'd have achieved another milestone.
Adolescence hits different people differently. While the beginning point may differ, the basics are similar. Until adolescence, they primarily operate through their visceral brain (part of the brain), which relies on spontaneous reactions instead of rational responses generated out of the Prefrontal Cortex. With gradual brain development – they acquire life skills like self-regulation, conscious deciding, judgments, and insight.
Owing to such developmental changes – some common teenage behavior problems are often listed as:
1. Need For Privacy/Withdrawal:
Texts, emails, or phone calls…everything is on high alert! Expecting them to be completely transparent would cause unpleasant and futile arguments. They tend to discount what parents say, ignore their suggestions, avoid confiding in parents and appear easier with their friends.
Regular communication between parents of an equivalent coeval isn't only reassuring and helps keep track of activities without making them feel uncomfortable. A sudden refusal to attend school/social meets with signs of stress needs special attention.
2. Urge to interrupt Rules:
Curfew violations, dyeing hair, funky clothes, and arguing endlessly While you'll allow them to try to dodo something temporary and harmless, you want to save your objections for severe and permanent changes to their appearance or lifestyle.
Encouraging a way of ownership towards self-made decisions would foster a lifelong habit of being responsible. Albeit they're having fun, they need to be home once they said they might.
3. Body Image Issues:
When watching an evolving image within the mirror, gawky, zitty, skinny, hairy is what teenagers see. As their bodies are morphing into new shapes and sizes, teens struggle to urge comfortable in their skins accept their body as is.
4. Cyberspace Addiction
Screen time for kids and teens includes research work for projects, music, art, and sometimes less productive activities like watching TV shows, surfing social media, or visiting unsafe websites.
Although one cannot avoid screen time in today's world, it should ensure that it doesn't interfere with other activities like being physically active, doing homework, and spending time with family.
Obesity, attention, or sleep disorders thanks to excess screen time need expert intervention.
Also, read this related blog - Help your child find great volunteer opportunities
5. Curiosity About The 'S' Word:
Like they assert, "What we resist, persists" – Sex and private parts have always been forbidden topics, thus making teens most interested in it.
A yearly physical exam, information on puberty, and sharing your own experiences with acne or discomfort at developing early or late might be a number of the various ways to open communication channels early so that they continue to be open through the teenage years.
6. Abandoning Commitments:
Kickboxing, piano class, book club, cricket coaching – if you see your teen fleeting from one activity class to another – know that they're simply following their peers.
Coach or encourage them to uphold their commitments and learn to end what they begin.
7. Pressure To Confirm:
Fake laughing at a friend's joke or blindly following the favored trend may result from fear of being judged or being exiled by peers could seem dysfunctional, but it's most ordinarily seen during this teenage phase.
Guide them towards "healthy" conformity (accept diversity and scout negative influences) Ex: Choosing an outfit because it suits their somatotype or because they love it and not because it's hip.
8. Lying:
If you regularly see yourself going nuts over shaded truths or downright lies about homework or unaccounted expenses – rather than policing and building a much more significant barrier, determine the rationale.
To avoid a reflex of "I can't tell my parents anything," prevent a judgemental tone. Instead, be an emotional coach and discuss the results of lying while acknowledging how scary telling the truth can sometimes feel. Addressing lying may be a process, not a fast fix.
9. Everything's A Drama – Emotional Upheaval:
With changing hormones and, therefore, the intense emotions felt like never before – silly gossips, the fallout with friends, or slight tremors on social media – everything is attended with high intensity. Building self-esteem will help them be easier, reduce dramatic presentations and handle situations lightly.
10. Impulsivity:
When given an option of getting Rs. Fifty in an hour, or Rs 500 during a month. Most teens would opt for the previous. With instant gratification and a drive to explore the planet, a teenage brain thrives on impulse.
Coaching them to attend for more significant rewards and appearance in the larger picture could help build self-control.
The above-given list of routine teenage behavior problems and, therefore, how to handle them will help every adolescent parent.
Some teens are insensitive to risk as their excitement overshadows the potential to find out from a bad experience. Such cases would require expert intervention.
Being the best CBSE school in Jodhpur, we take care of all teenage behavioural problems faced by our students so that nothing can stop them to shine in life.
0 Comments