New family roles in the relationship with a teenage son
Accustomed to imposing our decisions, parents have to understand that in adolescence, the relationship with our children has to change.
When our children are young, the relationship that parents have with them is much more dependent and asymmetric, since as parents we use our authority and power to impose our habits and educational models. At the same time, our children (as young children) recognize and assume this authority and adjust their conduct and behavior to what we, as parents, consider correct, punishing behaviors that we think are inappropriate or negative.
Upon reaching adolescence, the parent-child relationship must be transformed , moving from the unilateral authority of childhood to certain negotiation processes that are more democratic and participatory.
This transformation will take place gradually as the child grows up and becomes an adolescent, building a more participatory and democratic parent-child relationship, in which the power of yesteryear will gradually disappear.
Index
A GRADUAL TRANSFORMATION
Adolescents also at this stage continually question the authority and power of their parents, seeking their own decision and a certain level of autonomy. It is normal at this age and it would be a mistake to inhibit them in this type of attitude, since this is how they develop their personality for the future: with negotiation . The authoritarian educational style, typical of the mid-20th century, has been gradually being relegated. It has been shown that it is the democratic educational style that best leads to having good parental relations in a cohesive family.
THE CONFLICT IS NOT BAD AT ALL. IT’S PART OF LIFE
IN SEARCH OF PERSONAL AUTONOMY
The adolescent at this stage of his life seeks his own autonomy, he wants to discover his place in the world, both cognitively and emotionally. What his elders told him as a child no longer serves him and he believed squarely. It was time to see for yourself that all this was true (or not!). He is also beginning to internally shape an image of himself and his relationship with others, now that he is aware of his own life. But the role of parents in this process is still just as important as when I was a child. The maturity process has just begun, and even if the adolescent does not say it or does not know how to express it, he will constantly need approval and agreement of what he does and says, as well as limits.
The parent-child dialogue has to change in this phase of adolescence, based on positive and supportive terms, adapting to the new needs of the adolescent child.
Parents will have to delegate some decisions to our adolescent son, to try to achieve a good development of his personality without harming his well-being and his maturation process.
FAMILY PROBLEMS
Conflicts are also in the day-to-day relationship with a teenager. It may arise because the child “sees his recently acquired freedom threatened, and because some parents” see the family’s union and cohesion in danger. In other words, these are conflicts derived from a difference in perception of reality , from different interpretations of the same event. For example, the son considers that his way of dressing no longer depends on what his mother chooses when she gets up in the morning, and his mother sees her position as “mother chick”, protector of the family, in danger. When parents try to control the most private facets of the adolescent’s life, conflict can easily arise.
Although the conflict is not bad at all. It’s part of life. What is wrong is not solving them properly. Conflict must be seen as an opportunity to help improve relationships between parents and children, since it calls into question family rules that have already expired and that must give way to new ones, since change has already arrived. The childhood stage ended and adolescence began.
Dr. Tabriella Perivolaris, Sara's mother and fan of fashion, beauty, motherhood, among others, about the female universe. Since 2018 she has been working as a copywriter, always bringing to her articles a little of her experience and experience as a mother and woman.