Storm and stress
RADHIKA SOUNDAR
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How do you handle disagreements, emotional tensions and minor conflicts with your adolescent?
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Adolescence is a time of storm and stress ... not only for the adolescents, but also for the parents.
It is marked by disagreements, bickering, emotional tensions, and minor conflicts with parents over the everyday details of family life, such as doing the chores, feeding the pets, doing schoolwork, and getting along with siblings. Changes during adolescence affect the parent-child relationship. During adolescence, young people develop advances in reasoning. They are more able to think about things abstractly and logically. They raise issues such as justice, fairness and rights. This change in thinking allows teenagers to question their parents' authority leading to conflict. Adolescents are more likely to feel that many issues should be a matter of personal choice instead of parents' opinion.
They develop their own identity and form their own opinion. Also, teenagers begin to realise that their parents are not always right. These changes are cognitive, occurring within the brain at puberty.
An example
Gita's problem was that she wanted to be a dress-designer, whereas her parents wanted something else . But we need to deal with it contextually.
Gita must first examine her intentions. Does she want to be a dress designer because she loves creating clothes? Have a good eye for colour and a flair for art? Does she have what it takes? Or, is she just enamoured by the glamour and publicity?
Parents must also ask themselves about what they want from their daughter? Do they want her to be an extension of themselves; do they want her to fulfil their unrealised dreams? Or, are they just threatened by her independence?
A good idea would be to meet a dress designer to get more information about the field.
The next step is a healthy discussion based on facts. Interest and aptitude should be taken into consideration. Importance should also be given to feelings and sentiments of both sides.
Communication, the key
Communication is an important part of any good relationship. This is especially true for the relationship between parents and their children. Unfortunately, in adolescence, this task becomes more difficult. One reason this is so difficult is because parents often see themselves as "managers" of their children. They are constantly organising their children's lives. Instead of being "managers" of their child's life, parents need to be "consultants". Being a consultant-parent has the advantage of more successfully avoiding the two most common errors in parenting teenagers: treating them like children (over-parenting or stifling) and treating them like adults (under-parenting or abandonment).
Thus democratic parenting is the answer. Resolving a conflict as important as a career decision needs to be made over not one, but many, discussions. Tempers may flare and the intelligent route is to keep them under check. Both, the parents as well as the teen should actively engage in a dialogue, remembering that it is not a verbal duel and it is not about winning or losing. Finally, it should be remembered that there is a lot of love and caring between the two, the difference is only over the issue concerned and not the personality.
Eventually, it requires a sacrifice or compromise. It is best if it is the latter, on both sides. Both should be convinced that it is the best route to follow.
The author is a counselling psychologist. She can be contacted at radhika_soundar@yahoo.com.
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