Parenting Teens with Love and Logic – Crossing The Emotional Barrier
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Crossing the Emotional Barrier
Time and time again, I experience teens making decisions based entirely on emotions. With this age of instant results from the internet and speed-of-light text messaging, our kids, like never before, are given to making quick decisions. Unfortunately, these decisions are often based on knee-jerk emotional reactions rather than logical reasoning.
If we do not correct this course, we will experience more and more bad decisions made by our youth when they enter high school for the first time or leave home for college.
Parenting teens with love and logic is essential.
We need to introduce logical reasoning in the decision making of our adolescents. This is done with slowing down the process and encouraging the teen to consider options by asking questions. Yes, asking questions. Instead of barking commands or making arbitrary rules, parents need to consider teaching their teens how to make good decisions by asking them to weigh the pros and cons.
Love and logic come together with taking the time to connect with the teen and ask them to seek logical conclusions before they make their decisions. Have them, not you, identify the possible upsides and downsides to their decision.
Explore Risk Versus Reward –
Explore the level of risk vs. reward by asking them if they are willing to take the chance by making a decision that might otherwise be unfavorable. Should they make the right decision, simple acknowledge it with encouragement like, “I think that is a very wise decision”.
If they choose a direction that you feel, short of endangering themselves, is not the best choice, again, in the long run they will discover the power of learning from the school of hard knocks. And there is nothing wrong with that.
We have all made bad decisions over time and no words of advice from our spouse, our boss, or our parents would have changed our minds. And we survived and learned from our mistakes.
After all, would not you rather have them learn how to make their own decisions while they are under your roof than out on their own?
It is a more difficult challenge for the parent to bite their tongue and wish their adolescent well. It is scary.
It is much easier to forbid them to do a certain thing.
However, at this stage in their life, they will most likely do it anyway. The chances are even greater that they will lie to you about it and place them at greater risk by having to conceal it from you.
Would you rather have your child be honest with you and know how and when you can be ready to support them or do you want to receive a phone call at 2 o’clock in the morning with news that demonstrates that they lied to you and broke your trust.
You will learn that, over time, your teen will begin to make very reasonable, rational decisions; you must trust them and believe in them and they will not disappoint you. Parenting your teen with love and logic certainly beats mistrusting your teen with fear and betrayal.
Have faith. Trust. Love them when they fall as much as when they make you proud.
You’ll be very glad you did.
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