1. Adolescence is a time of immense growth and development but not just for the teenager. As parents this is a time when our parenting must also grow and develop in line with our teenagers growth and development
Fifteen Minute Parenting: The Teenage Years
2. Conflict will emerge in this stage of development; indeed conflict is a developmental stage. The key is for parents to learn how to engage in the conflict calmly, creatively and to find ways to be playful with it. This is why we do more challenge play with teenagers than younger children.
3. This is the time to repeat your parental self-audit I first flagged in the earlier books in this 15-Minute Parenting series. Be aware of your own triggers and issues and allow this information to inform not impeded your connection and communication with your teenager. We reflect inwards so that we can respond outwards.
4. Difficult behaviour is never your or your child's first choice. Nor is your teenager being difficult. They are having difficulty expressing, processing and making sense of what they are thinking and feeling about something.
5. When we do not see that our young person has a problem but rather that they are the problem, we are not attuning to what is being "said" in their behaviour. This will leave us vulnerable to reacting rather than reflecting and responding.
6. Something I have often heard about teenagers is that they are too emotional and you cannot reason with them but this jars with me and so a key message in the 15-Minute Parenting The Teenage Years book is that emotion is not the opposite of reason; it’s essential to reason. For this reason I have included a whole section on building and playing with emotional fluency.
7. If we want to encourage emotional fluency in our teenagers, we must nurture a landscape in our homes for emotions to grow, develop and be expressed. This is why creative communication and playful connection are vital in parenting teenagers
Joanna Fortune is a Psychotherapist specialising in the parent-child/adolescent relationship. She is also a Trauma and Attachment repair specialist with over 20 years clinical experience. She is a media contributor on all aspects of parenting and child/adolescent development and host of the 15 Minute Parenting podcast.
Joanna's life started as one of 5 children in Wicklow in Ireland and her career adventures have taken her far and wide, from the forests of Russia to the Hollywood Hills of LA.
The 3-book series 15 Minute Parenting is based on Joanna's parenting model of small changes that make big differences resulting in less tears and more laughter. Joanna believes in practical everyday solutions to everyday parenting challenges and that good enough truly is good enough.
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