Dealing with your disrespectful teenage children is quite taxing, isn’t it?
The happiness quotient of your marriage is invariably linked to your children. Friendliness with your teenage children brings in a sense of goodness into your marriage.
Let us suppose you have disrespectful teenage children.
You are mentally fatigued in dealing with their continuous rebellion. You are sapped and drained when they pose unwanted problems in your family.
Yes!
When your teenage children don’t obey you, it generates lot of unwanted ripples in your marriage.
You might have good compatibility with your spouse. But if you have disrespectful teenage children, it creates unwanted unhappiness in your relationship. You have many arguments with your spouse regarding them.
Why are your teenage children disrespectful?
Teenage is a phase in their life which is the biggest headache you face as a parent.
Your kid children suddenly seem to have grown up. Their behavior turns adult like.
You are totally taken aback by the change in the attitude of your teenage children, aren’t you?
What are the changes you see in your teenage children?
- They spend most of their time with their friends.
- They argue with you for minor reasons.
- They become very interested in their looks and dress.
- They become too fashion conscious.
- They feel that you know nothing.
- They think they know everything.
- They hide things from you
- They spend hours in the social media.
- They are always glued to their mobile phones.
- They become non-communicative.
Are you completely confused and mentally upset that your kid child is lost forever?
You have lots of confusing questions in your mind.
- Why does my child no longer depend upon me for emotional support?
- Why does he\she not talk with me as freely as before?’
- Why doesn’t he\she consult me about his\her life?
- Why does my child always back answer me?
I am sure most parents go crazy worrying about their disrespectful teenage children.
You too are no different.
Why does your teenage children undergo such behavioral changes?
- When your children enter their teenage, they undergo transition from childhood to adulthood.
- So, they feel you are too intruding into their private world. They want their own space.
- Your teenage children’s experimenting world is entirely different from your experienced world.
- So, they feel you are too outdated and out of fashion.
- When you advise your teenage children, they think that you are too preachy.
This clash in the outlook towards life makes relationship with your teenage children very taxing and stressful, doesn’t it?
It is quite a normal scenario in many families.
Don’t worry that your teenage children no longer love you.
They do.
But your teenage children want you to understand that they have grown up.
You too underwent the same transition when you were a teenager. So, you should understand that your children cannot remain childish lifelong. They have to grow up.
You feel happy when your children grow up physically taller and stronger, don’t you?
They should also grow up psychologically and mentally. They cannot depend on you for emotional and financial support lifelong. If your children are dependent on you for every decisions of their life, they never develop a strong mind.
Your so far emotionally clinging children are in the threshold of entering a new world of adulthood. So, it is only natural that there is a certain behavioral change in them.
Here are some smart ways to deal with disrespectful teenage children
1. Don’t be preachy
If you are too preachy about the values of life, your teenage children are not going to listen to you. They feel you are a big bore.
Let your children learn through their own experience. When they learn by their mistakes they evolve into a much mature person.
2. Have a friendly chat about sexual attraction
It is very natural for your teenage children to be attracted to the opposite sex. It is part of their growing up. It is true today’s teenage children indulge in sexual activities a little too early.
They jump from one relationship to another with uncaring ease.
If you restrict your children from mingling with the opposite sex, they become stealthy and secretive.
Tell your teenage children in a reasonable manner that their attraction towards the opposite sex is just infatuation in this stage of their life.
Advise your teenage children that true love comes only when they are mature enough to understand it.
3. Keep a watch on their friends
Keep a keen eye on the friend’s circle of your teenage children.
Bad friends can take your teenage children into the path of destruction. It will be tough to bring them back to normal fold.
This is a phase in your children’s life wherein they could easily get addicted to drugs and alcohol.
So, you have to be vigilant.
4. Respect the individuality of your teenage children
If you do not respect the individuality of your teenage children, they do not like you.
You should understand that your teenage children are entitled to fulfill their individualistic inclinations and wishes. They have the right to choose their field of education.
You should allow your children to evolve on their own. It is then they develop discerning skills and the art of knowing the good and the bad.
Let them decide about their life.
5. Don’t raise your voice
When you yell at your teenage children, they further withdraw away from you. They think that you are behaving dictatorially.
Never try to dominate them.
Don’t utter expletives at them.
Don’t order them about.
They don’t like it.
6.Understand that they are different from you
Though your children are from you, they will never be you.
So, never try to change your child according to your liking. He\she will lose his\her identity.
Don’t thrust your ideas on them. They will revolt.
Understand the simple fact that your teenage children can never be your Xerox copy.
7. Understand your teenagers growing phase
Since your teenage children is developing the independence needed for their mental growth, they will not listen to you.
When your teenage children argue with you, you should not think that they do not love you.
You should talk to your teenage children in a friendly manner about the values and morals of life. If you spy on them, they resent it.
8. Be their role model
If you keep fighting with your spouse, you are setting a bad example to your teenage children.
When you utter expletives, your children replicate it.
When you are untrustworthy in life, your children cheat without feeling guilty about it.
So, be their role model.
9. Give them their space
Do not keep intruding into everything your children do.
Don’t expect your children to cling to you as they did when they were kids.
Give them the space they are entitled to.
10. Be strict when there is a need
You cannot always be lenient to your teenage children.
When they misbehave you have to put your foot down.
Follow strict conduct code. Be persistent in it. Follow it to set an example to your children.
Conclusion
Your way of looking at life need not be the way of your teenage children’s also. Since they have more technical knowledge than you, they feel they know better than you.
So, sometimes your teenage children act highhandedly.
If you preach them about the moralities of life, they dislike it. They retaliate if you argue with them in anger and bitterness.
But your teenage children listen to your advice if you are friendly and calm.
Does this mean you do not have the right to tell your teenage children what is right and wrong?
You have all the rights. But you should allow them to explore the world so that they understand its harsh realities their way.
Be their friend and not their adviser. Love your teenage children, but do not control them. Guide them but do not force them.
Do you face trouble with your teenage children?
Share your experience!
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