Posts filed under ‘parenting teens’
Staying Sane While Parenting Teens
Radio Show with Lon Woodbury (September 30, 2013)
With the lack of communication between parents and their teens in homes today, today’s guest on Parent Choices for Struggling Teens, C. Lynn Williams shared some “time tested tips” and strategies for parents to “stay sane” while raising their tweens and teens with host Lon Woodbury. In order for parents to stay sane, to keep their cool and not lose their temper, the first thing parents need to do is take care of themselves! With the life changes parents are also going through, it is important to take care of yourself, get out and get some exercise and get more sleep (rather than getting by on less.) In addition, having healthy meals together as a family is a must. There are great discussions and conversations that can come up, plus you get a visual on how your teen is doing- both physically and emotionally.
Some general tips that C Lynn recommends include: consistency. Especially on this brink of adulthood, parents need to have a wall of structure and consistent follow through. “No idle threats…if you say it, then you mean it” shared Lon. Another tip: you have to remain and remember that you are the parent. You are not their friend and as a parent there are standards you have to uphold. Lastly, you need to build individual relationships with each child. Spend time exclusively with each child and get to know them because each one is different. When they need to talk, they can then come to you to talk, from building the relationship and trust together. “Find out what their ‘love language’ is, ways your child receives and accepts love, whether it is attention, gifts or words of affirmation. Yet be appropriate in praising your teen, don’t praise them unless they have truly earned it…be honest with your teen.
For those with tweens, remember they are at the age where their hormones are in full force. “They still want to please you and then the next second, they don’t like you.” During this puberty stage there are lots of influences in your child’s life. The girls want to belong and the boys are centered on sports. This is a good time to get your child involved in extracurricular activities. They need to be kept busy and they need to be in a structured setting. And the good thing that comes out of this is the friendships they make, they want to please their coach, they are not sitting on the couch becoming a couch potato and they get a chance to explore their different interests.
When it comes to a parent needing to seek help for their out of control teen, “you should do so when you notice a drastic change in their behavior, their temperament, if they are quite and morose, depressed or you notice weight gain or weight loss” says C Lynn. And the first step to take is to contact the school and make an appointment with the school psychologist. “Just talk to your kid and if they won’t talk, seek help.”
“Parents need support, like in the old days; everyone on the block would look out for each other’s kids. We need to get back to that again. Involve the teachers, involve the neighbors, give them your phone number and have them call you if they see something not right with your child.
To listen to the full interview, go to Staying Sane While Parenting Teens on LATalkRadio
Contact:
Lon Woodbury, MA, CEP, IECA
208-267-5550
lonwoodbury@gmail.com
http://www.strugglingteens.com
Featuring:
C. Lynn Williams
Parenting Coach, Author, Speaker
224-357-6315
cgwwbooks@yahoo.com
www.clynnwilliams.com
How You Can Protect Your Daughter Against Teen Dating Violence?
Teen dating violence touches families from all walks of life, cultures, educational and socioeconomic backgrounds. It is a method of one partner controlling the behavior of another partner. Alright, now let’s talk about our daughters. It is important to meet the young man that our daughters are going out with because if we haven’t met him, how do we know whether or not he is good for our daughter or not?
Teen girls are hormonal & impressionable. They fall in and out of like/love with many people. And often times are easily impressed by what we consider bad boys. Bad boys can be young men who break rules, who are defiant, who are slightly dangerous or whatever other characteristics that come to mind. Many times our daughters may be attracted to that silent brooding type who later turns out to be very controlling.
And what often happens is that the young man appeals to the parents. Maybe he’s quiet but he’s polite and he says all the right things around the parent, but behind the scenes he is telling your daughter what to do, where to go, and who she should hang out with. Maybe he’s the type that calls her cell phone constantly and when she doesn’t answer, he harasses her.
Unbeknownst to you maybe he’s snatched her arm a few times or pushed her; small things that she doesn’t want to share with you because you would tell her to stop dating him. Maybe it’s progressed to the fact that he’s hit her once, but not anything that’s noticeable. What should she do and how do you find out what’s happening?
Start the dialogue now! If your daughter isn’t dating anyone start talking about scenarios where something like this could happen and what she should do, because I promise you talking sooner than later is always a good thing. she’ll probably tell you “don’t worry mom that’s not going to happen to me”.
November is domestic violence month not only for women but girls too. If you think that your daughter is being abused by her boyfriend or husband, help her seek help. There are a number of places that you can call. Here is one agency:
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C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentguru
Author & Parent Coach
http://www.clynnwilliams.com
Preorder my upcoming book: Raising Your Daughter Through the Joys, Tears & HORMONES! – https://raisingyourdaughterpresale.eventbrite.com/
Mom Love
“Can you just love me as the daughter that I am?” That’s a question that many girls and women ask these days. “What did I do to make my mother treat me the way she does?” A friend of mine talks of how her mother belittles her and treats her like she’s a three year old. One of my adult students says that her mother can’t seem to find a kind word to say to her and she just avoids her. Why is that? As they say, there is nothing like a mother’s love. When you don’t have it, don’t you feel unbalanced?
In one of the chapters of my soon-to-be released book, “How to Raise Your Princess into a Queen”, I discuss what it means to be proud of your daughter. As a mother of two daughters, I remember how much I expected out of them.
My stepdaughter joined our family at the age of 16, so I didn’t get to participate in her training as a young girl. Yes I expected a lot from them, but I also explained why. I remember one of the conflicts that my daughter and I had, was when she became a teen. She told me that my expectations were too high for her. So we talked about it. Part of her problem with me was that I just told her what to do and didn’t seem to care how I said what I said. So it really wasn’t my expectations, but how I said what I expected. What did I expect?
• Be responsible
• Be respectable
• Finish school
• Believe in God
• Work & manage your money
• Respect your parents and other adults
• Think before you act
I think in all of the raising that we do with our daughters, we forget to be human with them, to love and enjoy them. Have a good relationship with your daughter. Talk to her, the way you would want her to talk to you if she were your mother. Cursing and harsh talking will not endear her to you. If she is a strong-willed person, like I was, not only will she not respect you, you may just tell you to jump in the lake. (I’m being funny here, but you don’t want an unnecessary fight on your hands.) Parenting is about gently leading and guiding our children, and teaching them right from wrong. As my grandmother used to say, “You get more bees with honey than you do with vinegar”.
To raise the consciousness of our people (and I’m talking humans everywhere), we have to lead by example and do it with love. The way you treat her, will be the way she treats her children.
I am putting together a mother-daughter workshop that will be offered in late summer, 2013. Let me know if you have a story that you’d like to share with me.
My email is: cgwwbooks@yahoo.com
C. Lynn Williams, #MsParentGuru
Author & Parenting Coach
http://www.clynnwilliams.com
Trying to Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen (St. Paul Press, 2010)
The Pampered Prince: Moms Create a GREAT Relationship with Your Son (St. Paul Press, 2012)
How to Turn Your Princess into a Queen – The Art of Raising an Awesome Daughter available in late spring, 2013
Monitoring What Your Kids Watch; Listen To…
Is it Old Fashioned to Monitor What Your Kids watch on TV, listen to on the radio or watch at the movies?
I know the beats are cool and everybody is listening to the latest song or watching the latest video by Mr. or Ms. Sexy Rapper, but is that alright with you? We talk daily about how quickly our kids are growing up, what they are wearing and how many t(w)eens are sexually active. How do you think they got this way? It’s up to us to LIMIT what they are exposed to. One song comes to my mind by Li’l Wayne. I loved the beat, but the words were quite vulgar and even listening to the clean version meant you missed most of the words. Not a song that I wanted my kids to listen to, or to hear me listening to. When I had to hear it, I listened to it when no one was around.
According to an article I read the following statistics are true:
– Quick Facts Listening to degrading sexual lyrics has been shown to speed sexual activity (Pediatrics, 2006).
– Girls with a heavy sexual media diet engage in sexual activity younger than their peers (Harris Interactive, 2007).
– 68 percent of TV shows have explicit sexual content, but only 15% of that 68% discuss risk and responsibility (Harris Interactive, 2007).
– More than 40 percent of teens and preteens said they’d recently come across nudity and pornography on the internet (ForbesLife, 2007).
http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20130205/csm.media.sex/?cid=hero_media
Listen to the songs, watch TV and the music videos with your kids. Discuss them. Are they too explicit? Are they too violent? Is there too much profanity in the lyrics? If so, you have my permission to turn it off and make it a teachable moment. Your kids will surprise you later when they tell their friends that they shouldn’t listen to “that” song and explain why. Happy Parenting!
#Msparentguru
Mothers – What’s Happening to Our Sons?
It’s been little more than a month since the Newtown shootings, and as a mother, I am still at a complete loss for how a son could kill his mother. I have two sons, my own and one I lovingly inherited when I married his father. I love them both and while I have had difficult conversations and tense moments with both sons, never in my wildest nightmares, would I imagine dying by their hand.
While we will never hear Nancy Lanza’s story about her relationship with her son Adam (the shooter), I came across an article where she cautioned one of her son’s babysitters to never turn his back on her son. Can you imagine living with a person and not being able to turn your back on him? http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-57559502/ex-babysitter-says-newtown-conn-school-shooter-adam-lanzas-mother-warned-dont-turn-your-back/
When we raise our sons, we pour so much love, attention, (hopefully) discipline, values and the kitchen sink into our boys, and yet many of them end up being killed, killing others, or going to prison. Mothers, where are we failing and why?
I also came across another article, where another mother lost her only son to gun violence and he was a good kid! We always think our sons are good kids! But this teen did what he was told; went to school every day (one of my requirements); obeyed his mother; and yet was randomly shot in the back after leaving a basketball game. http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/544/article/p2p-74054502/
I’d like my sons to grow into wonderful men with families and great careers, like my dad and granddad. Is that too much to ask these days?
C. Lynn Williams
Author and Parenting Coach
#msparentguru
Trying to Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen (St. Paul Press, 2010)
The Pampered Prince: Moms Create a GREAT Relationship with Your Son (St. Paul Press, 2012)
Book Review: Trying to Stay Sane While Raising Your Teen by C. Lynn Williams http://askdavid.com/reviews/book/parenting/1864
Parenting teens includes many challenges as well as joys. A focus should be on the positive side of parenting teens. This focus will help the parent to feel more competent and actually be able to enjoy their teen and the ups and downs they face. Sometimes parents tend to over emphasize the negatives and annoyances of parenting their teens. This book will help you get along with your children as you guide them in the godly path for living.
Recognizing Adolescent Depression
Parents: Are you able to recognize the signs of depression in your teen?
Here are some signs:
1. Physical manifestations of clinical depression are: headaches, muscle aches, low energy, sudden change in appetite or weight, insomnia or hypersomnia
2. Your teen may also seem restless, irritable, anxious, or belligerent
3. Your teen may have feelings of sadness, hopelessness, despair, worthlessness, or lack of interest in usual activities
4. Your teen is skipping classes or not paying attention in class
To find out more, check out this site: https://www.about-teen-depression.com/depression-statistics.html
If you think something is wrong, it usually is.
MsParentguru
Staying Sane While Raising Your Teens 
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