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Video: Why Does A Teenager Need Parents? - Society
Starting to grow up, the child needs less and less parents. At least he thinks so. He can even tell them about it, which is incredibly scary. And moms and dads will ask themselves a serious question: "What if he really doesn't need us?" Needed, how!
When we change, we become vulnerable, and the growing child is doubly vulnerable. And the best thing parents can do is not try to keep teens out of the world. You need to stay close to your growing up children, without violating the boundaries of their autonomy and independence.
Your child is making confident steps towards growing up. You no longer need to spoon feed, dress, walk, read books too. A teenager is able to independently solve many problems. He has his own frames, in which the figures of mom and dad do not always fit. Attempts to break these boundaries alienate adults from children. Inna Kirilyuk, a child analytical psychologist, candidate of psychological sciences, Jungian analyst, spoke about how to learn to accept the independence of a teenager, while remaining his friend.
WANT TO KNOW - ASK
The question "Why are parents needed?" - one of those that a teenager asks himself most often. Perhaps he does not voice his parents directly, but signals with his behavior. Psychologists note the particular importance of protecting and supporting the family for a child during his growing up. Unfortunately, parents are not always able to provide this support. Often they simply lack an understanding of exactly what processes are taking place inside their growing child. And the best way to find out about this is to ask the teenagers themselves.
Psychologists analyzed teenagers' answers to three questions:
- What shouldn't parents do that doesn't work?
- How can parents improve their relationship with their teens?
- When you become a parent, what will you never do?
The survey showed that adolescents speak very fondly of their parents, treat them with great understanding. And what is especially important, children and parents want the same thing, but it is difficult for them to understand each other. Both those and others want communication, respect, respect for boundaries. But the main discovery of this experiment was the reaction of the parents: “Our children are already adults, they have a formed opinion about us. Children draw their own conclusions. They look at us like adults. They need us."
Another, no less important aspect than the awareness of your child's growing up, is the acceptance and respect of his new needs:
- build your boundaries;
- take a place in the team and not lose yourself;
- learn to build your own life on your own;
- find out who he is, determine his needs;
- identify your fears and learn to deal with them;
- understand dreams;
- know your body.
Formation of gender relations is one of the main tasks of adolescence. A teenager needs not only to learn how to cope with his own body, to get to know it, but also to be able to entrust it to another person (partner).
FEAR: FOR CHILDREN OR FOR YOURSELF?
Usually, growing up of a child often coincides with a midlife crisis in parents. When they ask themselves many questions: “What did we do? How do we live? Does everything suit us? " Often comes the realization that family life did not work out as planned. During this period, divorce and illness occur in families. That is, the parents themselves may be in serious crisis conditions, while their adolescent children especially need their help. Fears of adults can be passed on to the child, put pressure on him.
What parents are afraid of and what is difficult for them to accept
- Parents confuse separation with loss. The growing up of a child, his independence is perceived not as a separation of a teenager for the formation of his personality, but as a complete break. Parents feel lonely around their teenage children. A parent will truly feel this separation when he goes through the stage of total loneliness and makes sure that his child is still with him, only already matured.
- Parents project their unprocessed fears onto their children. For example, a father may think, "I was an outcast, and now I see my son hiding behind a computer screen." Dad is afraid that the child is ousted from the team, which is why he is so actively passionate about the computer, although in fact the son may have completely different reasons for his interest in gadgets.
- Parents are afraid of becoming unnecessary, so they try to continue to solve the child's problems, while he is already able to solve them himself. Dads and mothers should pose the question in this way: not “How can I help a teenager?”, But “What can I do so that he can help himself?”. This is a fundamental change that must occur in the behavior of the parent of the teenager. Even if the father and mother will come from the best intentions, the teenager will still resist, winning back his independence. It is important to understand that at this age he must learn to make decisions for himself, even if they are wrong.
RUNNING FEAR
How can parents deal with their fears? First of all, you need to build an internal observer position. Do not do for the child, but think about him. You can write what he can think and dream about, imagine him. This expands the boundaries of understanding, it becomes possible to look at a teenager from a different angle.
- It is necessary to keep your own worries about children within yourself, not to overwhelm your children with them. This position allows you to better understand the motives of the child's behavior, to realize the real reasons for their actions, without passing them through the prism of their own fears.
- Parents should learn to look at their child from the outside, notice his individual traits, see him as a separate person. Communication with a teenager should begin with self-improvement.
- It is necessary to accept adolescent difficulties, to realize their legitimacy. First attempts to smoke, school fights, decreased motivation to study, disobedience and other manifestations are the norm for adolescent behavior. You need to understand that difficulties are acceptable. But too correct behavior, when a teenager agrees on everything and corresponds to all ideas about a good child, should be alarming.
- In dealing with a teenager, a parent often first encounters disobedience and conflicts for the first time. You need to learn not to blame yourself if something went wrong.
FROM GENERAL TO SPECIFIC
Psychosomatics, maladjustment, learning difficulties and aggressive behavior are typical problems faced by teenagers' parents. Here are some examples from psychotherapeutic practice.
Problem: psychosomatics
The appearance of active tics in a teenager. Such reactions are a real disaster for a pretty girl. Long-term treatment by neurologists did not bring any results. Work began with a psychologist, and it turned out that the child's mother had her own difficulties in adolescence related to the sexual plan. There were many inhibitions and fears, which were then projected onto the child. Realizing this, my mother began to relate more easily to her daughter's growing up and her communication with boys. She began to work through her own fears, communicate with her daughter. I realized that it is important for a child to explore intimate space without experiencing an acute sense of shame. And that the role of the mother in the sexual maturation of her daughter is incredibly important. After several months of active work, the child's tics disappeared.
Problem: maladjustment
At one point, the teenager refused to go to school, spent all the time in his room, sitting at the computer. This situation caused panic among the parents and a complete misunderstanding of the child. But in the process of therapy, establishing contact, the mother and the boy managed to exchange their vision of the problem. The mother shared her fears, and the child explained why the computer means so much to him. Now the teenager is successfully developing in the field of computer technology, communicates a lot with other children who have similar interests, and attends school again.
Problem: aggressive behavior
Often parents report that they have to hold back from the urge to punish the child physically. Conflicts with children can be strong, and anger is manifested. In such situations, it is important to capture the moment when the behavior becomes aggressive, and to bring the dialogue in a positive direction. For example, a father and son watch a movie together, but the teenager constantly leaves for another room, then returns, leaves again, which greatly annoys the parent. You need to understand that this is his way to declare himself, win back space, and react to it without unnecessary emotions. To go towards the child in small steps, realizing that spending time together should be enjoyable, reducing aggression, and the impatience of parents can only rekindle conflict with renewed vigor.
Challenge: learning difficulties
During adolescence, children often lose interest and motivation to study, which, of course, worries their parents and becomes a reason for a quarrel. And in such a situation, total control by the parent only aggravates the situation. Therefore, you need to ease the pressure, trust the child, give him the opportunity to share what he really interests in learning, how he would like to realize himself.
ADULTS
Having become adults and independent, people often say that they would gladly return to childhood, where there were no special problems and responsibility. And many do not dare to grow up. A similar trend, according to psychologists, can be observed in people up to forty years old. In fact, adult men and women remain emotionally children, getting stuck in adolescence and not wanting to leave it. Perhaps this is due to the fact that today too high hopes are pinned on the period of childhood. There is no longer any place for carelessness, lightness and freedom. There are many social requirements and expectations assigned to childhood, and every day of the life of a growing child is scheduled by parents practically by the minute.
Work on future competitiveness has been going on since six months. There is little time for the child himself, he is overloaded and, as a result, does not want to grow up.
And the difficulty is not only in physical overload, but also in emotional. Many adolescents, when telling a psychologist about their childhood, note that for a long time they felt like a kind of emotional pillows for their parents. Children had to constantly support their parents, share their experiences with them, while they themselves needed care. As a result, they began to feel a certain responsibility for their parents. And, having become adolescents, many say that they can finally feel free from caring for their parents and have childhood. This, accordingly, delays the growing up process for some more time. This situation is in a sense unique. At the same time, both the centralization on the child and the decentration from him take place: the parents want to give a lot to the child, but at the same time they take a lot from him.
