How to survive in the same house as a teenager

Yesterday you raised a babbling angel, and today you have a pimply demon. Yes, it is tough. It is necessary to go through this difficult period for children and parents, but it can be done with minimal damage to both parties.

Allow yourself to be yourself

Many people want to be the same as clever and witty teenagers on social networks - relevant. It seems that mastering vocabulary and memes will bring you closer to your own child. In fact, on the contrary, it is possible to investigate their manifestations in rating twitter and tiktok, but it is much more important to establish sincere communication. Sometimes it helps that you are not aware of network trends, and your teenager shows them to you. Do not fall into denial immediately, remember yourself at his age (yes, you have to make an effort). You lived in different realities, but the emotions were almost the same. Share them - but first of all, listen to your older child.

Let him be him

What generation are you from? What are your values? Get an education and a prestigious job? To be a free bird and do what you want, regardless of material questions? Never mind. Your teenager is from another world. They have more generations behind them that have grown up relatively free in many areas. They are able to object in such a way that parents are speechless. They make statements about things that adults have no idea about. Some of the nuances that knock down conservative ancestors, today's tins will simply try, survive and outgrow - this is their information field. And someone will find himself in this very space, will subvert all the ideals of the elders, put forward ideas and demands that contradict the beliefs of previous generations. Think about what is best for you: to support your child - or to reject (and why?)?

As for the mess in the room (is it a sudden transition?) - do not break in a couple of times in order to collect dirty and utter a morality, but pass this test: an adequate teen will learn to at least bring linen and T-shirts to the basket or typewriter. Show yourself how the unit turns on.

If you have not started raising children before, it is enough for a teenager to remind about washing personal belongings, cleaning the room and helping with the housework. Yes, I have to remind you. This is a teenager. Not an adult.

Take care of yourself

The modern media space is extremely brutal (although progress is already being made). A very young creature finds herself in a world of demands “to be yourself” (despite the fact that the question - who am I?) And “to be conventional” (answering the requests of thousands of people) is extremely rare. Not every adult can cope with such a challenge, let alone a developing personality convinced of the importance of a physical ideal. An excellent reason to sign up for a gym or a swimming pool, so that together with your child, you can achieve the desired shape and learn the difference in real bodies. And if you yourself are not ready to "plow" for the sake of six abs or perfect buttocks, do not force the offspring to do so.

The same applies to household chores and healthy eating: you do - makes the child. No no.

Deal with it

Calm down! Do not even think about tightening the nuts that were not tightened before. On the contrary, learn to perceive all the signals that the child gives.

Please pay attention to the teenager's skin. Self-inflicted wounds, burns and other injuries indicate that the child cannot cope with the stress around him. Hopefully, you are not the source of this problem. But it is precisely in “ideal families” where it is not customary to talk about experiences that a traumatizing teenager becomes a “mirror” of problems. Unexpected, non-hereditary somatic symptoms (such as allergies, asthma, myopia) are also a hint to parents.

Be careful: a teenager is thinner than crystal and may react in unexpected ways.

Often they are proud: "My daughter / son and I are best friends." And in vain - it's more of a reason to check personal boundaries. The child should not be a friend to the parent. As a teenager, he needs resistance, friction, struggle - that is, it is your ability to set limits and not forget about healthy support.

Take care of you

Remember your partner? The one who gave you this monster? If you gave birth to a child yourself, for example, through IVF, adopted him, do not want to remember the second parent or other options - believe me, this paragraph was not written with the intention of offending you in any way. On the contrary!

Whatever a teenager demands from you (100% attention, explanation, pacification, go-come, love-hate, - and also 100% rejection of "everything"), never forget that you have a personal life - with a partner or without. Part of your life is FREE from the presence of a teenager.

Lower the bar - for him and for yourself

“No, my child did not arrange a teenage rebellion”, “Oh, these problems did not overwhelm me at that age”... It's a pity. Without this process, the so-called separation also takes place with great difficulty - separation from parents and learning to live independently, an important stage of growing up. Therefore, if a teenager went on a spree (in your opinion) or does not want to reach those peaks that you planned for him at birth, - stop in your angry or moralizing impulse, inspired by Ilona's mother Mask. By the way, she supported the unexpected, creative decisions of her children. By the way, she has three of them, but who, besides Elon, do you know? And they are not the last people either.

But most importantly, listen to your own teenager, not what others tell you.

Author: Mila Svoboda / Telenedelya magazine