Parental Strategies When Confronted With Serious Teen Confessions
Things a young child can confess and bring a parent in to a state of shock are I am pregnant, I am gay, I have been doing drugs, I am in love and sleeping with your best friend, and many others.
My parenting philosophy is very basic. I think parents should take an active interest in giving their children the necessary mental resources they will need to function in the current world environment.
To me this means handling inter-personal relationships, morality, emotional balance, relationship with God, education/careers, love and marriage, and parenthood.
This does not happen by accident. Parents have to be in constant dialogue with their children for these values to be ingrained in to a person’s head.
In addition, I do believe we live in world were many people are not getting the necessary nutrients to develop properly.
Moreover, I have written before that I believe that many people do not invest the necessary time needed to understand their mate and how this mate fits in their life plan.
Therefore, just like there are many personalities in pre-teens and teens, there are also many different parental personalities also.
The psych books say that the permissive parent who puts no boundaries and facilitates their children’s childish behavior is the worst parent. There are also neglectful and abusive parents. Some parents believe when they yell their children should fall in line.
The reality is that all these different parenting techniques result in distance and a lack of awareness of whom the parent is to the child.
I would add that many parental personalities contribute to children living their own lives with out the influence of the parent and learning by trial and error.
Then when the child comes to them to confess something most people would consider significant the parent rants and raves and/or puts on a face of acceptance.
I think we all know that ranting and raving does not help in anyway. Accepting the problem may make you feel good but it avoids the real issue.
The issue is that a person who has not lived long enough to truly understand life is making drastic mistakes.
I would say listen to the child in order to understand the behavior and the motives for the behavior.
Then you have to point out were the young person made mistakes and what could have been better decisions.
Of course, you are also going to have to decisive what resources will be required to deal with the outcomes of action.
I know that many things children do that we prefer they would not do can cause many emotional reactions from us adults. Most of these have to deal with control issues.
“I am not in control. What am I going to do? My world is coming apart.”
I have learned that thinking through things, understanding the real issues, and having some constructive plans of action can help in over coming most challenges.
In addition, I know no problem has an overnight solution. I believe every day we should analyze what we are doing and our motives for our behaviors.
We should also set goals and measure our progress in meeting our goals. Of course, I say we balance our evaluation with what I call positive and healthy philosophies.
I am a firm believer in standards. We should value our selves and want good things in our lives. I do not mean plasma TVs our pimped out SUVs.
Therefore, when confronted by a confession from a young person you think may radically change your life think and listen first, correct the child when necessary with positive and healthy comments, and deal with the new challenge with goal setting and progress evaluation.
Oh, I forgot the most important part. Just cause the child confesses to you does not mean that all of sudden you have to be their problem solver. You can offer helpful guidance but they should do the hard work of solving the problem.
Then you have to remember that the parent-children relationship has now changed from an authority-subject relationship to a facilitator-consumer relationship.
When the child was not taking serious action with out the parents influence then the parent spoke and the child complied.
Now that the child is making hard decisions, the child needs guidance and boundaries.
No one wants a child pregnant, on drugs, dating people way older then they are in life, and/or engaged in any other troublesome behavior.
However, over reacting will not solve anything.