Troubled teens

There are enough cases of drug abuse, family violence, juvenile crime, school truancy that get the parents worried. Teenagers are also known for their need to test their independence and rights. Many parents find that dealing with troubled teens is becoming increasingly challenging in today’s world.

TEEN PROBLEMS -
You need to realize that teens today face huge, life threatening decisions just about ever day. What they face has a lot to do with where they grow up.
# Self Identity: In this phase of life they try on many roles. They have to develop an integrated and coherent sense of self. If they fail to accomplish this, they are trapped in role confusion or sometimes “negative identity” like delinquency.
# Drugs: Kids are not just smoking; they could even have easy access to deadly drugs. It may be a result of experimentation, peer pressure, isolation, feeling helpless, etc
# Sex: On one side various developments during childhood and adolescence are powerful sources of natural interest about sex. On the other the family and education fails to provide necessary information. They get the information from movies, TV, magazines, older kids and sometimes from own experience. Not only are they exposed to it on the television, but they are encouraged by others.
# Depression: Depression is not something that just goes away after some time, but can cause them harm and threaten their lives. There could be many reasons like competitions, peer pressure, bully, unattractiveness, isolation, lack of intimate relationship, parent’s-breakup etc.
# Violence: Aggression may arise from poor sense of self, frustration, fear of fusion in closeness, chronic use of anger as defense, etc. hey see friends with guns at school or after school. They witness huge fights. They hear threats. They see anger and deal with it daily.
# Drop outs – learning problems, low self esteem, failures and some of the students break under the pressure if they don’t get support at the right time.
Teenage problems should be addressed and noticed by their parents first. Teen problems that are at a lower level can be just as deadly. They face lying, cheating, emotional trauma, learning disabilities and parent’s-divorce.

TAKE ACTION –
Parents need to spend time and understand the needs of their children, despite the pressures of modern living. When you realize that teenager is showing difficulty, the first important thing to do is take action; ignoring the problem may make it so that it is too late. Admitting that your past parenting is not currently working is the first step to a possible change.
You may need to seek help from other resources to see what is wrong with your parenting, and how they can change to deal with troubled teen’s problem. Find books, search the Internet, and even ask friends if you are comfortable enough. Asking other parents is a useful exercise, and so is joining parent support groups. Churches and other venues often have such groups. Listening to what other parents are dealing with, and understanding their parenting methods can help you understand your own methods better and thusly help you adjust to your child’s unique needs.

COMMUNICATION –
Communication is a connection allowing access between persons. When dealing with troubled teen, realize that it may be something you are doing is causing your teen’s behavior. Children often resist dialogues with parents. They resent being preached to, talked at, and criticized. You will never be able to understand your teens problems if you don’t communicate well. Listen to them, show understanding and respect, and then take steps to help them solve the problem that they are having. Trust is very important when dealing with teens and therefore should be central to your approach. Keep trying even though it may be frustrating to deal with your teen at times. Talking to your teen treating them like an equal can also be helpful in communication and building trust.

PARENTAL INSTINCT –
If you think that your teen is in problem, or may be using drugs, you must try to help out before anything getting damaged. Do not doubt if the child tells that they wouldn’t do it (taking drug, etc) anymore. Do trust them but don’t let problems go assuming adolescence as a period of inevitable turbulence and disruption.

SEEK HELP –
There are family – therapies and counseling available. It may de your family problems like parent’s breakup or fights that is troubling the child or failure to develop a self identity, role confusion, isolation, depression, learning disabilities, etc that could be helped out. Lack of information on certain issues like sex, unwanted pregnancy, sexually transmitted disease, contraceptives, safe sex, harms of drug use and abuse, etc could be properly dealt.

We do have teenage problems but this doesn’t mean that one should misguide and mislead that teenage is period of disruption and adolescent sexuality as rampaging, etc. A right kind of attitude and information is required to help those individuals who are really at risk and need help and support.

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 31st, 2008 at 7:37 am and is filed under Teenage Problems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.