Category: Development

Parenting Teenagers

1/7/2013

Parenting teenagers can be very challenging but also really rewarding. Adolescence is an important developmental stage that often has a big impact on our later lives. Both parents and teenagers may approach adolescence with a mix of feelings.

Keeping all of this in mind, I will regularly be writing parenting articles for parents with teenagers for All4Women.co.za. I hope that these articles empower parents to assist themselves as well as their adolescents. Links to my first two articles can be found below:

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Raising Teens Without Ruining Your Marriage

3/6/2013

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Parenting children at any age can be stressful and difficult for parents. Dealing with this stress often impacts on the parents relationship with each other. Adolescence is commonly experienced as one of the more difficult developmental periods to parent. It hence may be more stressful and have a greater impact on the parents relationship. However, it is not just the stress of parenting teenagers that may increase this impact but the very nature of the developmental issues that adolescents are working through.

Psychologist Suzanne Phillips suggests three guiding principals (balance, communication and connection) that specifically assist with your teenager's navigation of their developmental tasks as well help strengthen your relationship with your partner. In Phillips' article (Raising Teens Without Ruining Your Marriage: Three Principles), she provides a useful overview of the difficulties underlying adolescence and how these may guide how teenagers may feel and behave. She relates these developmental challenges to the specific tasks parents of teenagers face and how they can practically address these while strengthening their own relationship. She also emphasise how rewarding and growth-promoting this period may be for you, your relationship and your adolescent:

"Whatever else life offers, raising a teen will probably offer you the greatest moments of joy and the greatest moments of stress. As such it can invite problems that strain your marriage and possibilities that enhance your parenting and partnering."

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The Importance of Your Twenties

2/6/2013

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Twenty-some-things or people in their twenties are often not taken seriously. This period of life is commonly associated as being fun and carefree. In the following Ted Talk psychologist Meg Jay points out how this may be an unhelpful misconception. She thought-provokingly points out how one's twenties can have a major impact on the rest of one's life: in one's career, relationships and beyond. Jay call the twenties the critical developmental period of adulthood. I think this video is not only important for twenty-some-things (and pre-twenty-some-things) but also for older persons contemplating their development, their life-defining-moments and where they are currently.

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Parenting Teenagers

Raising Teens Without Ruining Your Marriage

The Importance of Your Twenties

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