Features of the education of adolescents in the family

When a child grows up, a difficult adolescence begins. He tries to escape from vigilant parental care and very often claims to be a riot, a protest against any interference of adults in his personal life. Parents are completely at a loss: how to be, if neither affection nor strictness can return it to the framework of the former obedience and obedience? About what the specifics of the education of adolescents in the family, and will be discussed below.

Most often a revolutionary situation develops - "the upper classes can not, the lower classes do not want to live the old way." Many may object: in each family - their own, unique problems with the growing up child, you can not all the same - yes under the same brush! Yes it is. But the system exists, the behavior of adolescents always has common roots and it is also possible to act on them systematically. Many clever advice and convincing arguments of experts will certainly help you build a more productive relationship with a recalcitrant teenager, and he is better able to cope with the tasks that inevitably arise in front of a person during this difficult period of life.

The upbringing of children is, first of all, the parents' self-education. Parenting presupposes the ability to listen, which is impossible without genuine equality and protection of universal human rights, including parents. To try to achieve the ability to communicate with your child in this way, it is very important to remain calm in any situation. Stressful situations always cause muscle tension. Therefore, we need to develop a mechanism for their relaxation - only then can we adequately respond to what is happening.

Here you can use three simple exercises.

1. It is necessary to sit down in an armchair and for ten seconds strongly to strain all muscles. Then relax, "limp," feel the "leakage" of tension from the middle of the body to the limbs, to the fingers, to the nails.

2. Now imagine in the very center of your being a very small, calm and happy particle. You can draw a visual imagination, then it will be a tongue of flame, or a moth, or a drop of dew ... Imagine that this nucleolus is your inner self, your essence. On weekdays, often remember this secret, peaceful nodule inside yourself.

3. Gradually expand this feeling of relaxation and appeasement to the world around you - in this context your problems seem to shrink ... And now let them change the scale, because you include in their context the neighbors, the house, your city, all those who live in it, the country, the world, the Galaxy ... And from this immensity of being, return to your own. And compare the significance.

And now we reflect on such obvious truths:

The overwhelming majority of "difficult" teenagers eventually become normal, quite successful people and true friends for their parents.

You and your problems are not alone, such parents are the sea.

The children have huge forces, which determine to a much greater extent than the parents, what they will become.

You have much more power and ability to influence your child than you believe.

And last but not least, you have the same rights and needs for happiness as your child.

Now let's try to transform our aspirations of a particular type ...

"I do not want my child ..." (suppose he was coming home late).

"He should ..." (clean up his things).

"He has no right ..." (without the demand to take my things).

... for more distant goals:

"I want my child ..." (did not get into trouble, was neat, honest).

And further:

"I want my child ..." (grew up honest, healthy, kind). And finally:

"I want my child to become a decent, responsible person, capable of making right decisions about himself."

This process will be carried out more successfully if for a while to forget about private goals and direct energy to achieve more global ones.

Development of independence in adolescents

And now it's time to start work on transferring responsibility to the child for his own life.

STEP ONE

Write down in the notebook all the points that you do not like in your teenager. For example:

- leaves behind a dirty dish;

- loudly turns on the music;

- does not care for flowers in his room;

- Late at night sitting at the computer;

- Eat unheated food, etc. etc.

STEP TWO

Divide all your claims to the adolescent into two groups

1. Only the life of a child.

2. Affect your privacy. The second group will be left alone for the time being, we'll start first.

STEP THREE

Learn three important rules:

1. You should give up all responsibility for those items in the behavior of the child that do not concern your personal life.

2. We need to develop confidence in the fact that the child can make the right decisions himself in all these situations.

3. Let him understand and feel this is your confidence.

Perhaps, here your misunderstanding, indignation, disagreement can take place. Do not jump to conclusions! Read up to the end, and then decide, follow or not further advice on the education of adolescents in the family.

Not only adolescents, but also parents themselves often ignore the remote consequences of their actions and decisions. The third step is aimed at just learning to see and take into account all the consequences of decisions taken.

Learning to trust a child, parents achieve not only a short-term benefit - conflict-free coexistence in the family, but also a long-term result: the child will learn to more clearly see and take into account the remote consequences of his actions and decisions.

How to achieve obedience from a teenager?

First, choose one significant item, the responsibility for which you intend to transfer to the child. Feel your state, imagining how the burden of responsibility is removed from your shoulders. Awaken the interest in how the teenager will successfully solve his problem. Think what words you will utter at the time of transfer of responsibility.

For example, "I was worried and angry about ... and I tried you many times ... You've already grown up to make the right decisions with respect to ... From now on, I will not interfere with this issue and trust you: whatever you decide, it will be right for you, I will continue to be interested and help in every possible way, if, of course, you ask about it, but in general it is only your own business. "

In general, try to formulate your statement in the form of I-statements, briefly and without questions provoking the teenager to involve you in the discussion. Before you voice your statement to a teenager, rehearse it several times to make it sound natural and free. Then within a few days likewise give him and other "powers". At the same time, concentrate not on his reaction, but only on your own intention to solve this problem once and for all.

A few practical tips

Sometimes notice how neighbors and friends look at your (for them someone else's) child - they do not feel their responsibility for their decisions and are sincerely happy about it, sometimes even more subtle and notice something new in your maturing child.

Try to meet the child every time with the thought not about what he should or should not do, but with a free and neutral sense of curiosity and surprise.

Allow yourself to rejoice at the liveliness and unpredictability of the child, even when it causes anxiety and anxiety in you. Try to see that in his actions and decisions he reminds you of your childhood and youth, which allows you now to say: "I understand why he did this way."

For a person who independently makes decisions, they have both positive and negative consequences. Some of them manifest themselves immediately, others - later. Attention to long-term consequences is a sign of maturity. And adolescents tend to concentrate on the immediate results of their decisions. This is the source of many conflicts in the family. If you are afraid of this, first give the child responsibility for what will least disturb your personal peace.

The true causes of "difficult" behavior of adolescents

Most teenagers claim that their main desire is the freedom to control their own lives. But very often their first reaction to the granted freedom is fright. And they, without realizing it, are doing everything to force their parents to return to their former control.

This is not just a child problem. In each of us there lives a "circus lion", which is torn from the cage, but, as soon as it is released, it rushes back. We ourselves have already experienced many moments when we had to make a choice in favor of a bold decision. In principle, the development of man is that he is more and more capable of this.

The child somewhere to 11-12 years has mastered a lot. But he learned it from adults. First walk, eat with a spoon, dress ... Then the child learns that he is a person different from others, and not a copy of someone. To this age it is very important for him to understand that his motives and actions do not come from outside, but from within. Therefore, he must make decisions that differ from yours, just to understand: "I can generate my own ideas!"

This need is formed between 11 and 16 years, and if the child at this age goes "across" the parents at every step, this is the norm. But believe me, the inner motives to "go your own way" for a child are truly painful! And he, like that lion, unconsciously seeks "back into the cage," that is, forcing someone to make decisions for himself.

So he again and again manipulates you, so that you remain next to him in the role of controller. At the same time, he develops a pernicious habit of negative attention. Taking another decision for him, you seem to say: "I warned you! That's what disobedience leads to! You must listen to the elders!".

Teenagers always feel that they can harass parents, and they skillfully use it. The ways of manipulating them are manifold:

- blame parents for not caring for them,

- Ask a question about a possible pregnancy, which is not in sight,

- Tell teachers, friends about cruel, strict, indifferent parents (a real chic among teenagers),

- introduce yourself as a slow-witted, stupid, obstinate, hooliganist, which in the end provokes you to assume the role of dictator.

All this for teenagers is not funny and not pleasant - they just force you to give them negative attention and save yourself from the need for independent, responsible decisions. It can be said that negative attention is a kind of drug for the child, and parents are the main suppliers of it. All according to the same scheme: the further, the more, the more disastrous (away from independence).

In fact, the teenager needs another: to help, promote, encourage the choice of the line of conduct to make independent decisions. So, most likely, on your first attempt to transfer to him the responsibility for your actions the child will respond with a hidden, unconscious protest.

In this situation - a few tips

1. With your first negative reaction - a flash of anger, irritation - stop! Do nothing without thinking properly. Refrain from negative attention to the adolescent.

2. Recognize that by his behavior he does not do anything personally to you for anything bad (speech about deeds, events from the life of the child). Consider the situation in the long term. To do this, you can imagine that the child - not yours, but, suppose, a neighbor or distant relative. Is the feeling of anger passing?

3. Trust the child! There is something in it that requires freedom from control. Help it wake up, win.

You can feel an acute desire to act as before - to feel grief, pity, anxiety, you want to ask him questions, offer your participation ... Stop! Instead, keep a friendly tone with the teenager. This is the main of all the characteristics of the education of adolescents in the family. Constantly hold in your memory: "I am doing right, the problem is not with me, but with this young man." He did nothing wrong to me. "

Concentrate on your own affairs, try not to interfere in the child's affairs - until, perhaps, the school, police, etc., declare them. Then we need to seriously talk with the child, but only in the form of I-statements. It is very important!

4. Recognize your helplessness and, at the same time, the wish that, in your opinion, the child should do ("I no longer control, every step you take, but I want you with the least damage to your future ...").

5. If appropriate, you can remind the child of the willingness to help, if he himself asks for it, and ask him to specify what you can do for him. And this limit, give the initiative to him.

6. Very important! Express your conviction that the child can accept and make the right decision ("I know that you will do everything necessary to ...".)