Parents: Can you learn from you tweens and teens?
Young people are experts in understanding youth culture. For parents who seek to secure a quality relationship while maintaining their role as ‘parent’ it is sometimes difficult to accept that there are many things that their teen knows that they do not. While parents have the earned the wisdom of lived experience, changing social rules […]
Self-Acceptance
Adolescents accept and love themselves unconditionally when they receive consistent and balanced feedback from the significant people in their lives. They need reassurance that they are worthy of love and deserve respect from themselves and others in all circumstances. This does not mean that they should hear only positive things, at all times. Excessive adulation […]
Self-Care for Parents
Due to the many things they are required to do on a daily basis, parents often put their teen’s needs ahead of their own. Although this may seem to be the expected and even obvious thing to do, when parents continuously do so, they run the risk of ultimately doing their young people a disservice. […]
Helping Teens Manage Stress
During adolescence, it is important for young people to develop the skills required to manage the challenges of life and a rapidly changing world. Stress may be defined as state in which our systems are at threat of being overwhelmed. Although the concept can seem vague, stress causes very real and tangible effects to mood […]
Simple Mindfulness Practices for Teens
The human mind is constantly active. From receiving inputs about stimuli in our environment, to ruminating over the past or worry about the future. Although we spend time engaged in specific tasks, we are often unaware of the multiple things that concurrently occupy our brain-space. Over time, if not controlled, this continuous clutter leads to […]
Teaching Empathy to Tweens and Teens
During adolescence, young people experience distinct phases of being self-obsessed and self-conscious. The adolescent years are naturally a time of intense emotional development and maturation. Teens experience emotional highs and lows as their bodies change, as they develop a sense of self, and as they increasingly focus on their personal relationships. Despite this, emerging research […]
Losing a Parent: How Teens Grieve
The death of a parent has a profound effect on the life of a teenager. Healthy adolescent development largely depends on parental guidance and support. When a teenager loses a parent, it is typically difficult for them to cope with their grief. Complicating matters is that fact that young people will demonstrate their grief in […]
How Parents Unintentionally Push Teens Away
No parent is perfect and the craft of parenthood evolves in real time. In the best of situations, parents of teens constantly learn alongside their teens. Together they must navigate a rapidly changing world with new roles and expectations held for young people. Despite good intention, parents unfortunately often engage in behaviours that lead to […]
Supporting Teens as they discover their interests
With so many options available, discovering a true passion is no easy task. This is even more so for a tween or teen with little life experience. Parents therefore have an important role in guiding them as they discover their purpose in the world. While this may seem like a daunting task, this can be […]
Teaching Teenagers to be Patient
Patience is a virtue. It is our ability to remain calm and in control despite ongoing adversity, frustration or negative stimulation. During adolescence, reactivity, impulsivity and emotional upheaval occur frequently, and to parents it often feels as if their teen children exist in distress more than at peace. The teen brain is literally wired to […]