Adolescent Conflicts: How to deal with them?

This piece of information may be helpful for the parents and families where the children are approaching adolescence. Problems in these areas mostly lands the families in trouble.

The home should be a safe base

Adolescent children are exploring life, but need a base to come back to. Home should be the place where they feel safe, protected cared and will be taken seriously. A safe place is usually a peaceful one.

 

Mutual support

Parents need to agree between themselves about their basic values and rules, and be supportive and unambiguous in applying them.

It's difficult for a teenager to respect parents who are always at each other's throats or undermining each other. A common problem is for one parent to ally with their child against the other parent. This usually leads to constant family trouble.

Listening Really

Parents are a source of advice, sympathy and comfort, if they listen to the youngsters. A teenager needs to know that his or her parents will not automatically pass a judgement and criticise. They will be forthcoming with their problems, rather than raise a tantrum. Patient listening is important.

Rules

It is reasonable that parents should decide what the ground rules are. Whilst adolescents may protest, sensible rules can be the basis for security and agreement. They must be:

•  Clear, so everybody knows where they stand.
•  Where possible, they should be agreed with the children.
•  Consistent, so everyone sticks to them.
•  Reasonable.
• Less restrictive as children become more responsible.

You can't (and shouldn't) have rules for everything. While some issues will not be negotiable, there should be room for bargaining on others.
Punishments, such as loss of pocket money, will only work if they are established in advance. Don't threaten these if you are not willing to carry them out.

Rewards for behaving well are just as important - probably more important, in fact.

 

In case of disagreements

Involve your children in making family rules - like all of us, they are more likely to stick to rules if they can see some logic to them and have helped to make them. If a teenager is reluctant to discuss rules for him or herself, they may still do this if they can see that it might be helpful for younger brothers or sisters.

A lot of things adolescents do may be irritating to parents (as parents probably irritate them), but not all are worth an argument. It's usually better to spend time on praising good decisions or behaviour. Many annoying habits will burn themselves out once parents stop reacting to them.

 

Don't compete with them

Adolescents are growing and gaining strengths, and having a lot of opportunities and may be very busy, making the parents feel older for the first time. At times jealousy can be the underlying reason for all sorts of arguments and trouble.

 

Physical punishment

Although it is now viewed as unhelpful, many people still occasionally smack younger children. It create’s the impression that violence is an acceptable way to solve difficulties. This means that they are more likely to grow up to use violence as adults. It can create a cycle of violence

 

Parents are the prime example

Although they are becoming more independent, the children will still learn a lot about how to behave from the parents. If you don't want them to swear, don't swear yourself. If you don't want them to get drunk, don't get drunk yourself. If you don't want them to be violent, don't use violence yourself. If you want them to be kind and generous to other people ….. try to be like this yourself. “Do as I say, not as I do” just won't work.

 

Thankless Teenagers

Don't worry if your children aren't as grateful as you' like. It's great if they are, but they may not be until they have children of their own and realise how demanding it can be.

 

When to seek help

• Sometimes, all of this may not be enough and you (or your child) may be unable to cope. Worries about the physical changes of adolescence can be discussed with the family doctor
• If there is violence in your family - parents hitting one another, children hitting each other, parents hitting children or children hitting parents - ask for help.
• When problems arise at school, school refusal or decline in grades are there.
• Psychological help may be needed if relationships are the issue.
• Adolescents who experience turmoil or distress for more than a few months - persistent depression, anxiety, serious eating disorders or difficult behaviour - generally require professional help.
• Specialist help can help the whole family.

Punishment for children – Is it judicious or ridiculous?

Many parents come for help reporting that…‘Mine is a problem child’, ‘can’t manage the tantrums’, ‘disobedient’, ‘too demanding’, ‘disrespectful’ ‘can’t control him/her’, and a lot of other problems.

So what is the role of punishment in bringing up a child?

Punishment should be used sparingly, and as a last resort on children. It should not become a way of taking revenge, insulting or humiliating the child. It should be administered with the aim of helping the child develop an internal control over self for the bad habits.

Technically it can be defined as presenting an aversive stimulus contingent on the target behaviour for the purpose of decreasing the target behaviour.

The first strategy should always involve “positive strategies” such as

• Rewarding for good behaviour (just praising verbally is usually more than sufficient, more elaborate schemes may include gifts, picnic/party or whatever suits your scene).

• Not meeting the demands of the 'bad behaviour' in the initiation only (so as to avoid setting up of an unhealthy pattern; an unrewarding act is likely to get extinguished on its own).

• Withdrawing some privileges (e.g. I will not play with you today) as you did this bad behaviour.

Explain to the child what wrong he/she has done, and that it is undesirable, and that you are reacting to it, and that you would not do it if the ‘bad behaviour’ was not there. You should be sure of what you are doing, and be consistent with it.

Excessive use of punishment only decreases its efficacy, and in the long run causes strained relations between parent and child, and if you are very unlucky, the child learns to deceive you by lying and hiding mistakes for the fear of punishment. Beating up the child is usually undesirable; it is mostly the result of parent anger rather than purpose of helping the child… and the child can also learn from Your aggressive behaviour. Punishment may be called the lowest form of education.

Spend time with your child, it will help avoid development of problem behaviours, and you will know what causes bad behaviour when it is there.