Practical Parenting Tips to Consider in Raising Teens

With consumerism, massive media intrusion in normal everyday life, and the disintegration of family and community, creating unique and challenging pressures on today’s adolescents, many teens of today are experiencing more change more rapidly than any previous generation.
As lower social and emotional competencies impacting today’s millennial adolescents, with an increase in illicit drug and alcohol abuse, road rage, intentional delinquent behavior which is often repeated mental illness, eating disorders, obesity, homelessness, and premature deaths as a result of poor decision-making by young people, teenagers of today are potentially living in a more risky, stressful world than ever seen before.
As parents experience the wide variances that one faces as they walk alongside their children and leave childhood behind and head in the direction of adulthood, parents have never been in much need of parenting tips and parenting advices than before.
According to research, adolescence is a time of confusion, massive change, and serious risk, as well as a time of enormous potential in the development of new skills, knowledge, and abilities. With these in mind, parents should be armed with practical parenting knowledge and facts along with parenting tips and parenting advices in order to be prepared to help and guide their teenage kids.
Here are some things you should know about raising teens:
Teenage Brains Still Do Not Work Properly. Study shows that adolescents are still at risk of their immature brain structure until the early 20’s. Studies reveal that in an adolescent brain, there is an overproduction of dendrites and synaptic connections which means that signals or messages to the brain are still not properly absorbed and sometimes will get scrambled leading to confusion and teens unable to make proper decision-making. Adolescents are also relying on their amygdala rather than the pre-frontal lobe which can more likely result to flight, freeze, or fight responses.
Adolescents need more sleep than pre-pubescent or adults. Because adolescents' brains are still undergoing myelination or the process of insulating the neurons and synaptic connections in the brain, as well as pruning, the process of using or eliminating what has been learned so far, poor sleep can create a great impact on memory solidification, impede learning capacity for next day, increase moods and emotional vulnerability and negative thinking, and obesity. So if you want to avoid these, have your teens take enough rest and sleep.
The search for identity is one of the strongest driving forces of adolescence. The adolescent period is the time where teens use lots of different ways to explore their identity. It is the only age that they can do this and it honors their search for acceptance and individuality. Remember it takes a lot of courage to step out of the tribe and be different, so parents at this time should show their love by giving their kids the proper guidance and advices.
Adolescence is the best time to explore into and develop a person’s potential. Because adolescence is the time of development--mentally, emotionally and spiritually as their brain is still immature, parents should show support to their teenage kids by using caring, empowering, and communication. Parents should use words of suggestion, avoiding shame-based language, and encourage thinking and making choices. Remember that teens are temporarily brain impaired. So choose time and use door openers, avoid using don’t - try “next time”, ensure they are listening, and never argue with an adolescent.
These don’t work with adolescent communication:
1.Lecturing
2.Nagging
3.Timing
4.Arguing (say your piece, turn, leave and ignore any last words thrown at you)
5.Unkindness
6.Criticism
7.Guilt games and/or abuse
8.Ignoring them or freezing them out
9.Using “always”, “never”, “it’s easy!”, or “it’s going to be hard,” as a predictor