Discipline of a teen is the most difficult parental task during adolescence. Stress, peer pressure, hormonal changes, mood swings and a host of other changes make teenagers difficult to deal with. Reasonable and constructive discipline through healthy communication will help the teenager through troubled times. Discipline needs to be flexible and moderate. Too much discipline will cause rebellion and too little will result in the teenager going out of control.
Parents should set ground rules to discipline their teen. They should also set consequences for breaking these rules. Parents need to be calm and unemotional in dealing with teenagers. Emotional parents cannot deal effectively with highly strung teenagers. When teenagers transgress these rules they should be made to face the consequences by parents in a calm manner. Parents should also make sure that too many or too few rules are not made. Every minor transgression should not reap a consequence.
Adolescence is the time when teenagers make choices in their lives. Parents should work with teenagers when they make choices. Criticizing every choice made by a teenager will push the teen deeper in trouble. Parents should distinguish between choices made out of curiosity and harmful destructive choices. Parents can ignore choices made by teenagers that they are likely to outgrow and intervene only when the teenager is making dangerous life threatening choices. Extreme measures can result in extreme indiscipline.
Some parents resort to guilt and intimidation as a method of disciplining their teen. Making a teenager guilty with intimidation will decrease the self esteem of the teenager. Teens deal with multiple emotional issues everyday and parents should communicate and be their friend rather than their prison wardens. Parents should show the teen why a certain type of behavior is unacceptable and make an effort to listen to the teen’s reasons for behaving in a certain manner. Communication is a two way street and parents should listen as well as instruct.
Mood shifts are natural in an adolescent. Hormonal changes and external reasons cause these mood shifts. Parents should monitor the activities of their children but they should not become their inquisitors. Parents should show a healthy interest in the activities of the teenager but if the teenager is nagged every day about his or her activities, he or she is likely to become withdrawn or defiant. Parents need to watch out for major problems but continuous questioning will drive the teen away from the parent.
Parents need to set an example to the teen. Parents need to discipline themselves to be a role model to teens as much as they were role models to the teen when they were younger. If parents indulge in negative habits, they are not likely to help the teen with his or her troubles. Parents need to live within boundaries if they want their children to live within those boundaries. Disciplined parents will find it easier to discipline their teens.
Roles of parents change when a child becomes an adolescent. Parents need to help teens to follow rules rather than expect the blind obedience they received when the teen was a child.
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