To develop a strong bond with your teenager, you must first enter their mindset. Teenagers think they are the only ones going through it, all alone. They feel the entire world is out to get them, and reality is awaiting gleefully with gaping jaws to gobble them. Enraptured with their own set of struggles and identity development, they often lash out and find it difficult to connect with their family due to growing distance and pent-up frustration.
Instead of being their emotional punching bags or getting into power struggles, you must begin by practicing empathy and keeping a patient outlook. Enforcing authority has rarely changed a teenager for the better. Your teen may be a shy one, a silent one, a rebellious one, or a party one, but at the end of the day, they should feel they are yours to love and accept unconditionally too. Here are some quick and easy parenting tips for building strong family bonds with teenagers
Chores should not be the burden of only the parents or the more responsible siblings. It should be equally divided to not exploit their kindness and obedience. This will also teach your kids to be self-reliant and prepare them for life. Try teaming up with your teen for chores. Fold the laundry together, cook dinner, or go grocery shopping together. Remember, chores are boring when done alone, but bond individuals when done together. Also, time flies when you are having fun.
It is important to keep track of the activities you enjoy doing together with your kids and make time for them daily or weekly (if they are big). Teenagers often forget what life felt like when times were simpler and more fun. It is better to remind them of it. This will make them appreciate these judgment-free, fun sessions with their family, inculcating in them the value of family bonding.
Teenagers do not like being stifled. As they grow up and discover things that feel private, they will wish for and even demand privacy. As a parent, you must identify and choose those instances of privacy. For example, after a fight with their best friend, you may wish to give your teen some space before offering a peace gesture, like their favorite snack, to enter their sphere of trust. But if they refuse to let you in, respect that. Your calm and casual attitude will draw them to you for advice in time.
Maintain respect for your teens and for yourself in their eyes. No matter how angry you are and how much your teenager lashes out in a fight, you will not use mean language or swear at them. Teenagers are so defensive and vulnerable at times they will do anything to stay in denial and release the repressed stress. Let them, but do not stoop to their level. Their own conscience or a calm conversation later, your teen will seek forgiveness and respect you more for the presence of mind you showed at your worst moment. Respect must be earned with teenagers, as it is not always a given for them.
Teenagers often forget how it feels to be loved, especially with the whole world poised to pounce and correct their mistakes. However, nothing hurts more than criticism from one’s own parents, especially as a misunderstood teenager. Therefore, it is important to make them realize that you do not only see their flaws, but love them for all of it, flaws, skills, and all. Unconditional love is a feeling almost foreign for teenagers, let them have it and bloom in life.
Though teenagers are often unruly and impulsive, you need to learn to trust your teens and teach them the importance of action and consequences. Once you have taught your kids the right things, all you can do is trust and monitor them. Teenagers bloom when they are not stifled and feel the trust of their parents on their shoulders, as it keeps them on the right track.
It is important to balance the act of being your teen’s parent and confidante. Most teenagers dislike opening to their parents as they later use trusted information to parent them. Parents forget that their kids have revealed those secrets to them as friends and end up breaking their trust or disrupting the balance. Therefore, parents must be careful and keep the two spheres separate. Trust and bonding are formed when it is reciprocated always.
There is no shortcut to parenting teenagers; every time you think you have cracked the code, a new problem emerges and upends everything. But if you follow these quick and easy parenting tips to build strong family bonds in teenagers, you will be pleasantly surprised by their gratitude and appreciation.