How Should You Behave During Your Child’s Adolescence?

The period of rebellious adolescence is inevitable.

It’s a natural process of development!

In fact, it’s often referred to as the second birth or the difficult years, and presents not only various challenges and problems for children, but also for parents.

In the transition phase from childhood to adulthood, not only physical changes take place in the body, but above all psychological and cognitive ones.

When a child reaches puberty, parents don’t always notice.

No wonder, since this delicate moment marks the beginning of the emotional detachment of adolescents who have grown into puberty from their own parents.

Adolescents in puberty – and therefore also their parents – clearly feel the extent to which hormones can influence their general state and psychological stability.

This is because hormones control not only physical sexual maturity, but also other important factors such as self-perception, self-confidence, social bonding and one’s position in relation to others.

Hormonal imbalance during puberty is normal, but in some cases it can also have negative consequences and, in the worst case, lead to problems such as eating disorders or depression.

Adolescence is a constant state of emergency

Many things also change in the brain itself, as it matures during puberty.

In other words, it undergoes restructuring.

Childish thought processes and forms of behavior are rejected, and neuronal connections formed in childhood are largely dissolved again in this phase, and new ones are formed in their place.

The speed of thought processes increases several times over, so that adolescents end up thinking as fast as adults.

But until these processes are completed, chaos often reigns.

Why is this so?

Because each region of the brain develops at its own pace.

According to medical experts, the prefrontal cortex, for example, is one of the last to mature.

This area of the cerebral cortex controls, among other things, the emotional evaluation of impressions and experiences, and contributes to our awareness of the consequences of actions and the corresponding impulse control.

If we consider that these skills are not yet fully accessible to adolescents during puberty, we can understand why their reactions to certain stimuli often do not match those of adults.

Excessive reactions, aggression, anger, fear, but also an increased willingness to take risks can be the consequences.

To preserve the relationship, parents must learn to distance themselves.

How parents behave towards their pubescent children during this difficult period is crucial to their development.

For many young people, the serious upheavals in their own bodies and thinking cause far greater problems than they are prepared to admit to their parents.

However, parents often interpret their emancipation process as a direct attack or rejection, putting additional strain on the relationship.

Conventional education usually ends at the onset of puberty, as young people often escape these measures.

From now on, it’s more important for parents to observe, accompany, stand by, support and encourage positively.

The right mix of trust and distance usually helps parents not to escalate the situation at home, and gives young people the feeling that, despite the problems, they can do things properly and can count on their parents’ support.

Constant monitoring and control for fear of offspring missteps triggers rejection and mistrust in most cases.

How to recognize your teenager’s problems?

It’s often not easy to distinguish between normal pubertal behavior and problematic behavior such as emotional or social adjustment disorders.

Especially if you want to give your children the freedom they need to develop their own personalities during puberty.

This is where parents need to be sensitive.

In such cases, a better understanding of one’s own child’s behavior is often provided by consultation and cooperation with institutions such as the school, in order to better grasp the extent of the problem.

Recognizing school problems

Not infrequently, school is also part of the problem.

Puberty can be accompanied by a more or less sudden drop in school performance, which often seems inexplicable to parents.

Parents should try to avoid projecting their expectations onto their children, and first make it clear to themselves and their offspring that this does not mean the end of the world.

Lack of concentration and fatigue at school, for example, can frequently be simply attributed to hormonal changes and the resulting alteration of the sleep-wake cycle.

Responding to a drop in performance during puberty with even more pressure is fundamentally the wrong approach.

In the best cases, students overcome their depression on their own or with the advice and support of classmates and friends.

If this isn’t the case, parents can actively offer their children help and create incentives for learning without immediately giving them an ultimatum.

Recognizing lies

With the painful realization that their own child has lied to them, parents often feel that they have failed in their upbringing or lost touch with their child.

It’s often not even possible to understand exactly why children lie.

During adolescence, lies, both minor and major, are usually part of rebellion against authority figures.

Fear of punishment is also a possible reason for lying to parents, as is the fear of losing their respect or trust.

Simply being overwhelmed can also be a reason to lie, try to get around a ban or gain the respect of peers.

Under no circumstances should suspicious parents spy on their children, or even on their private lives.

How can we survive puberty together?

The most difficult thing for parents of pubescent children is usually not to take their offspring’s quarrels and supposed attacks personally, and not to resent them.

Even if this sometimes seems almost impossible, serenity remains the best remedy for everyone, as puberty generally spans several years.

Parents need to bear in mind that this phase, however intense, is important and necessary if not only the body, but also the personality and identity of the young person are to mature and develop further.

During puberty, young people often love and rebel against the conventions and opinions that their parents have passed on to them through their upbringing.

Research shows, however, that even if you try, you can’t get rid of them that easily.

Despite a hectic puberty, most people have internalized their parents’ values and ideas and perpetuate them in later life.

But parents and children don’t have to be best friends!

1. Young people want to be praised, even when things aren’t going well.
2. Even if they’d never admit it: teenagers need their parents’ affection and tenderness.
3. Their circle of friends and their own private sphere are sacred to young people, so parents should leave them as intact as possible.
4. Rules “yes”, paternalism “no”: young people need structure, but with an authoritarian upbringing, parents are giving themselves a beating.
5. Dialogue instead of monologue: those who patiently try to communicate constructively with their children have a better chance of success than parents who constantly point out do’s and don’ts.
6. Arguing is just as important as listening: young people at puberty want to be with adults.
7. Serenity instead of stress!