From the age of 8, our children are starting to discover their identities. It is extremely important to allow and encourage this transformation. This transformation is accompanied by growing symptoms that may bother us. Protecting our teenagers’ identity.
Our teenager could lose their charm for a period when they are forging their identity away from the family, forming new identity markers to help them develop and adjust to new groups. The parent hasn’t lost their precious child. When they feel safe in their new friend groups in high school and university, their need to feel away from you will reduce and their better qualities will reappear. The teenage brain can have moments as strong as that of an undomesticated wild beast. Even though could feel hard for you as a parent to show concern for feelings with this, just keep trying. Be optimistic that their prefrontal cortex (front part of the brain) will catch up.
Teenagers – and early twenties adults – may behave out of control because they haven’t found their place in existence. Insecurity can be defined as fear and often when we are scared our biological instinct is to attack. It is possible that there could be scarce changes for teenagers and finding a role and forming an identity is a major provocation.
Just before we solved an obstacle in our life we are at our worst. To find their way, youth require understanding and support and they don’t know how to express themselves so they act out of frustration. For family and society, this acting out is not convenient at all. We should never call someone “horrible”. On the opposite, at this stage they need all the help they can get.
When we help someone we make it easier for them to help themselves.
When we save a teenager by doing stuff he can achieve alone, we take their power away and make it worse. At this point, we could be next to them as a trampoline for them to bounce their ideas off when they are choosing their university, but they have to choose what and where they go to study. They have to find and book their spot but we can tell them that most courses have open days. We may share our knowledge but we are not imposing on them what to do.
If our teenager is antisocial and “inappropriate” we may say: “he’s got in with a bad lot”. Peer pressure is irresistible. Possibly that each parent in that group could say similar words. For the other parents, your teenager is the worst of them all. This is a human and normal way and we all are guilty as charged. Instead of admitting that our child is guilty of the deed we blame others to protect our virtuous “goody touchy” title.
When we lecture we steal our children’s chance to develop their identity.
What you should do next:
