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When your baby turns into a teen there is something that seems to shift between the two of you and most certainly inside of them. As a mom, you are aware that this shift has happened and you are also aware that the next few years things are going to be happening in your teen’s life that you are really gonna want to know about.
Promoting Open Communication with Your Teen
Dealing with teenagers is way different than dealing with any of the other little ones that you make have running around. They already know most of the rules. They know where you stand on about 90 percent of most things. They have pretty good self-help skills even if their bedrooms don’t always reflect that. So when dealing with them we must remember that even though we are very much so their parents that during this stage of their life we have to release the reigns a bit and allow them to spread their wings while they are still safely living in our home.
Ways to Promote Open Communication:
- Watch closely- A teen isn’t always going to come and tell you that there are things going on with them. A lot of times it is because they feel as though you simply won’t understand or they just think they have things under control. However, we need to be on the lookout for warning signs that there could be trouble.
- Remind them often that no matter what you are available for them to talk to- Make sure that they know not only are you available for them to talk to but that you also possess the ability to just listen. They need to know this and please note that this really needs to start before they become a teenager so that it is already a given.
- Listen but don’t try to fix- We moms want to fix everything when it comes to seeing our babies in trouble. This isn’t what our teens need. They need to know that we can listen and not nag, judge or try to fix their troubles.
- Remember though we think we may know it all our teens are in fact facing different circumstances than we are- They deal with way more than we do. I mean I am old enough to remember people having pagers and being cool. Nowadays they have social media to combat with and who knows what else. Which means we need to educate ourselves so that we can be informed and keep in mind that we are all in unknown territory.
Having a teen in the home can be hard. However, the experience can be made a lot easier if we are willing to strive to have open communication. We can do this.
Until Next Time Just Keep Soaring 4 Him,
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