Raising Your Teenager and Making the Tough Decisions:Useful Tips

We as parents have to make countless decisions that help guide our teenagers through adolescence. But achieving that tender balance between under-parenting and over-parenting can and will be a challenge. Loving your children doesn't mean never saying no; it means loving them enough to say no.

Try this when you and your spouse have to make a decision on a major issue involving your teenager. Whenever your child request something that requires consulting with one another, simply say in a friendly manner, "Let me get back to you on that." This comment will usually put your children at ease, because you really didn't say no. This works well if it appears that your child is playing one parent against the other. Ask your teen making the request to help you with making the decision. Say something like, "I don't feel like I have enough information to make a decision about this, so I'm going to rely on your good sense and best judgment to make the final decision." Although your teen will usually hate to make the final decision, it will force them to take some responsibility for their decision.

Trust your hunches when you feel strongly about something. Base your decision on one of these feelings by asking something like, "I am doing my best to make decisions that will protect you. I don't always have all the information that I need, but a lot of times my feelings and hunches are right. I will base my decisions on what is good for you." Even though they may not like your decision, they will realize that you made it in their best interest and out of love and concern for them.

What could be the worst scenario? Before deciding if your teen can do a specific activity or go somewhere new, ask them to think of some of the potential dangers and things that could go wrong. If your teen thinks they can handle the situation, let them go. Also, have both of you think of solutions to the many potential problems before they leave. The idea here is that teenagers will react better and quicker to real-life situations if they have an opportunity to plan a strategy in advance.

Much of your conflict between you and your teens comes from disagreeing with each other over the answer to a teen's request, or the solution to some issue or problem. A way to avoid much of this conflict is to allow the parent who will be the most affected by the outcome of a request to be the one to make the final decision. It helps to agree in advance about these issues as to which parent will take the lead on a particular issue.