eenagehood can be a problematic phase for your kids as they are trying to figure out themselves and discover their true identities. They are no longer kids who needed your time and attention all the time. Those days are over when you use to feed them, bathe them, and change their clothes.
Now, they are grown-ups who think they can do everything on their own because they crave for independence in their lives. However, that doesn’t mean they don’t need you at all. No matter how old they may be, they still need your help and involvement in their lives. Parenting teens is a hard task but you can still accomplish it if you understand your teens’ needs and stay connected with them.
Many parents fail to understand how they can connect with their teens. If they lack understanding with their kids, they wouldn’t know what’s happening in their lives. For this purpose, they opt for the best parental control solutions to find out what’s going on in their teens’ lives.
We wouldn’t say that monitoring teens’ activity is a bad thing. As a parent, it is your responsibility to make sure your teens are safe in both offline and online worlds. But imagine how wonderful would it be if your kids come up to you and discuss everything that has been going on in their lives. That way you wouldn’t have to spy on them because you would trust them to tell you everything on their own.
In that case, it’s important to stay connected to your teens. In this post, we will primarily focus on telling you about different effective ways to stay connected with your teens. By following these ways, you can build trust among your teens, understand them, and appreciate them. Let’s take a look at them.
Listen to Your Teens
First and foremost, you need to learn to pay close attention to what your teen says. Listen to their problems closely and help solve them. It is normal for teens to repress their feelings and communicate less about their problems. They might say things that wouldn’t make much sense in the beginning but there’s some deep meaning behind their words. You need to read between their lines and pay close attention to their tone and body language.
Make Little Rituals to Connect
You can create little rituals to connect with your teens. You can make plans with them and do things that make them happy. For instance, you can go out for a movie and then a pizza together on a Sunday night. Or you can spend time with your daughter at a spa on a Saturday. You should always look for things that work well with your teens and makes them happy. Try to do these little things together on a regular basis. This is how you can connect well with them.
Be a Good Listener
Positive parenting starts with becoming a good listener to your teen. If you become a good listener, there is a high chance that your teen will come to you and share their problems. Keep in mind that teens would never want you to step in and solve their problems because then they would feel less incompetent and less independent. Instead of stepping in and trying to solve their problems, you should just stick to listening to their problems. You can ask them questions and wait for them to come up with the best solutions. This way they will feel more connected to you. You can offer solutions only if they want.
Get Chatty with Them
Most kids avoid having conversations with their parents after coming back from school. In that case, you need to look for ways to get chatty with them. You can start by asking them how their day was at school or how did their sports meeting go. This will make your teen realize that you are interested to know about their routine and their day to day experience and not just their school grades and achievements.
You can even help them out with their homework by offering them to review their essays or their science assignment. It would be a great idea to catch up with them after school while having a cup of tea together.
Attend Their Events
There are some events that can play a huge role in your teen’s life. For instance, after-school events or extracurricular activities can be a large part of your teen’s life. So, if you take an interest in their interests, you can connect with them instantly. You need to take out time to visit your teen’s game or show interest in their talents. Just show up at their events to make them know that they are special to you and appreciate them whenever you can. If you tell them that you have just come there to watch them play, they will feel happy and elevated.
Do Chores with Your Teen As a Way to Bond
You can also connect with your teens if you do chores together. Most teens are unaware of the time and energy that goes into maintaining and running a household. If you can explain this to your teen that they can help you out with the house chores. You can ask them to do the dishes while you can do the mopping. Divide the house chores and wrap up the work so you both can sit together at the end of the day and enjoy some quality time together.
Watch Movies or TV Shows Together
One of the best and instant ways to connect with your teen is to watch movies or TV shows together. You can ask your kids about their current favorite TV show and then suggest to watch it together. You can also ask them to pick something nice, especially a movie or TV show that interests them. You can pop up some popcorn in the microwave, sit down on the couch, and enjoy the movie with your teen. Try this ritual every alternate weekend so your teen can also engage in other activities during weekends.
Spend Time with Them Online
It would be a great idea to spend time with your teen on the internet and tell them about tips and tricks to stay safe online and on different social media platforms. You can explore different social media apps with them and see which one is most safe for them. Enable privacy settings on their account. To ensure more safety, you can also consider installing parental control apps on their devices so you can regularly monitor and control their internet usage.
