How to deal with rebellious teeners?
November 10, 2002 | 12:00am
In my column last week, I discussed strategies in improving communication with your children in their early teens. Here are some more strategies, although this time dealing with your older teenagers.
When I was a teenager, the fad then included mini-skirts, hot pants, leather and metal accessories for the adolescent girl and long hair, maong pants and boots for the adolescent boy. Nowadays, adolescent females not only shorten their skirts, they also shorten their tops to expose their bellies, breasts, shoulders and backs. Some even show off their navels.
Meanwhile, adolescent males still wear maong pants and boots. But now, some even wear skirts and a lot of guys wear earrings. Accessories for both sexes consist of leather and metal accented by beads, semi-precious stones and crystals.
In my time, marijuana and cough syrups were the street drugs. Now, there seems to be a lot more variety of substances experimented with or abused by the teenagers.
From the generation of the hippies emerged the jologs and the berks. Behind the different outfits and the lingo, however, the adolescents then and now are basically the same – confused, insecure, with a lot of anxieties and uncertainties. So dear mothers and fathers, please don’t make such a big issue about your son’s long hair or your daughter’s spiked hairdo because you are just needlessly pushing yourselves away from your children’s lives. Mothers, please don’t make that wrong conclusion that your daughter’s revealing attire is already the prelude to immorality.
Try to understand your adolescent children and try to realize that each day of their lives, they struggle for acceptance and psychological status in their peer group. Remember that their dress code and behavior are requirements for belonging.
The main issue in adolescence remains basically the same–that of achieving a secure sense of identity. Adolescents try to do this by trying to separate from or just be different from their parents. They usually see themselves through their peer group. Deviation from the dress code and behavior of their peer group may cause a lowering of their self-esteem. Parents should always be aware of this while at the same time maintaining their authority.
The task of developing a well-defined sense of morality starts with late adolescence and continues up to adulthood. The role of parents is very crucial in this task since the adolescent will internalize the ethical principles of the people in their immediate environment. Parents who use shabu together with their children or permit them to use prohibited substances at home ought to understand the danger of the kind of permissiveness.
The virtue of fidelity is also developed by the individual during adolescence. So in a home where there is a double standard of morality, the adolescent may imbibe the kind of attitude that believes it’s okay to fool around.
According to Jean Piaget, morality develops gradually with cognitive development. The pre-schoolers will just abide by the rules set by the parents. School-age children will accept these rules but will also show the ability to allow for exemptions. The teenagers will be able to recognize these rules in terms of what is good and acceptable by society.
Parenting is indeed a difficult task during this phase of development. What causes a lot of anxiety to parents is the emerging sexuality of their children. Sometimes, it may happen that a parent may develop an attraction to his/her opposite-sex or same-sex child and deal with his/her anxiety about this situation in maladaptive ways. They may always get angry with their child as part of their reaction formation (transforming an unacceptable impulse into the opposite).
Adolescents do have something to say. So dear parents, please pay attention to them. If you don’t, you will find it very difficult to adjust to the ever- changing process of growing up that your teenage children are going through. Remember that teenagers are never static. They are always moving and on the go. By the time they are 18, they expect to be treated as young adults.
When dealing with your teenager’s problems and you feel you’re so emotionally involved in such a situation (say, when dealing with teenage pregnancy), it is preferable to go outside the family circle for help–to the family doctor, the priest, the homeroom teacher, a trusted friend or a shrink. This way, you and your teenager will be able to get more objective advice and assistance.
Your late adolescent child may not actually be rebelling against you. Your teenager may just want freedom of expression, the freedom to express himself or herself, the freedom to communicate with you and their peers and the freedom to consider other options and alternatives.
It is important for parents and their teenage children to realize and understand that the process of growing up and becoming an adult is actually the process of losing parents and making them friends. That’s why my son, Bernard, my daughter, Bernadette and I are now very good buddies. I’m sure you too can do that, dear parents.
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