Parenting

Geared to parents and caregivers of pre-teens and adolescents

• Supporting your teens’ self confidence
• Promoting your teens’ level of responsibility
• Effective communication with your teen
• Learning to support not rescue
• Nurturing independence not dependence
• Developing respect, understanding and appreciation
• Connecting with your teen

‘But what about me?!’

Our program also includes many strategies for your sanity.

How do you remember your teen years?

• Trying to work out who you were
• Needing to belong
• Wanting to be accepted
• Craving to fit in
• Sick of being bullied
• Wanting to feel confident
• Thinking you were different

You may however have felt confident, part of it all and have not experienced any of the above.

“Thinking back to your teens years, how much easier would your struggle for self-identity been if the people who cared for you had worked from the premise of your fundamental self-worth and dignity, rather that one of ‘guilty until proven innocent’? Now apply that to the teenagers you know.” – Diana Sterling

Finding a new approach

Times have changed and as a result we find that the way we were parented does not always provide the best parenting solutions.

Whilst we faced a lot when we were teenagers, when asked, this is some of what they are confronting today:

• Figuring out who they are and what they stand for
• The types of friends they want
• The kind of friend they want to be
• Their sexuality
• Sexual relations
• Alcohol and other drugs how to handle them
• How to say no to alcohol and and other drugs and still be accepted
• The importance of school and grades
• Class issues
• Racism and their identity
• Their relationship to their family
• Matching their inside self to their perceived outside self
• College – Uni – career – getting a job
• AIDS
• Daily input of violence in the media
• Terrorism
• Environmental concerns
• Ambiguity about all of the above
• and the list goes on…

Parents may think that anybody in that condition shouldn’t be making decisions. But then parents are hit by the realisation that:

• they are in this condition
• they’re facing these issues
• they must be making decisions

This does not mean then, convincing them to make decisions by your standards alone or sitting with your fingers crossed and hoping that doing what got you through the past 10-13 years will continue to work – it won’t.

What do parents want for their teen and how do they show it in their behaviour?

• Limited acknowledgment
• Lots of guilt
• Yelling
• Excessive limits and rules
• Over controlling
• Encouragement
• Nagging
• Punishment
• NO TRUST – number one when asking teens
• Harsh criticism
• Over interest in their life
• Little talks – family dinners
• Too much fun equals trouble attitude
• Judging their friends – type of people they are
• Jealousy
• Love
• Loud arguing
• Judging friends´ family
• Too many questions
• Lack of meaningful contact
• Choice
• Unrealistic expectations
• Expectations

Two of the most powerful questions you can ask when interacting with your teen:

• Is what I am about to say going to bring us closer together or push us apart?
• Is what I am about to do going to push us apart or bring us closer together?

In the ´Coaching For Parents of Teens´ you will learn about:

• Choosing a less directive,advisor role or coach role
• The coaching model for parent versus over-parenting and overmanaging
• The coaching model for parenting versus under-parenting
• Supporting your teens to develop and exercise decision making muscles
• Enhancing teens’ responsibility and independence
• Supporting teen, not rescuing
• Fostering optimism and trust in the relationship
• and much more…

Willingly give up the illusion of power in favour of real influence.