Are you facing this problem as a parent?
Do you feel helpless at times when none of your solutions seem to work?
Do you no more feel that closeness with your teen?
Try my step 1 below
STEP 1: If there’s any sport your teen loves or is passionate about, TRY learning that sport, go to his/her practices, watch games on TV together, make it a point to go to his/her games, discuss about what went well and what didn’t.
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Once step 1 is done, try step 2 below:
Go for a walk with your teen. Just once a week is enough to begin with. You need a time with them away from all electronics, video games, discord. Remember you need to be opening up to them with your office and home stories. Only then, they will open up to you. It’s a two way street.
Your conversation starters can be — “You know when I was your age, it was so funny how we used to get bus to go to school… Being a passholder, getting into a bus was like winning a match…….” Your stories will act as ignition to them making them tell you their side of the story and that’s exactly what you want to hear!
Never be in a rush to get the words out of their mouth. This will take time. You need to build a relationship. I’m not talking about parent child relationship, you already have that. I’m talking about a friendly relationship where your teen doesn’t think 1000 times before uttering words out of his/her mouth, where there is trust, where there is openness to not feel bad if you get any criticism, where he/she enjoys every moment of your company.
How do you know if you’re successful in building that relationship?
You’ll know, you’ll hear every small detail from them on what’s going on in their lives, their problems, you’ll be asked the solution or how to get out of a certain situation. Don’t be in a rush to suggest something. Take your time and give a great deal of thought before suggesting any course of action. Your solutions better work as this will encourage them to keep coming back to you and TRUST you.
Talk to your teen and plan a outside walk with them over the next week and write back to me regarding how it went and I will then tell you Step 3.
Next Steps
Remember: This is just the first 2 steps. Please write back to me in the comment section below on how it went.
You’ll find my STEP 3 & 4 in my next blog.
Allow me to partner with you on this journey. Developing a positive relationship between parent and teen is my mission and I’m just a middle person who understands teens and parents and where they’re coming from; so I can help to bridge that gap.
Be a friend, not a parent 🙂
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Originally published at http://letsrockparenting.com on March 21, 2023.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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