Jenna Meredith

Kathy McNabb

Kim Blocker

 

 

 

Parenting Programs for Your Adolescent

Objectives

  1. Adolescent needs to express changes in their life. (i.e. social changes, family changes, physical changes, peer changes, academic changes)
  2. Parent needs to express changes in their life. (i.e. social changes, family changes, financial changes, career changes, marital changes)
  3. Understanding reasons for autonomy.
  4. Identify parenting strategies used in the home.
  5. Both parents and adolescences practice open communication and understanding.
  6. Identify the expectations of family roles.
  7. Practice problem-solving skills and conflict resolution skills.

Facts

  1. The most successful type of parenting is authoritative. This encourages adolescents to be independent but still places limits and controls on their actions. Extensive verbal give-and-take is allowed and parents are warm and nurturant toward the adolescent. Authoritative parenting is associated with adolescents’ socially competent behavior.
  2. Understanding family life cycle. Adolescence is a normal stage of a family life cycle. This is time of questioning boundaries.
  3. Adolescence is a time for identity vs. identity confusion. Trying to find their independence from family and childhood. Finding out who they are, what they are all about, and where they are going in life.
  4. Parents need to understand the importance of friendships to adolescents’ reasons being companionship, stimulation, physical support, ego support, social comparison, and intimacy/affection.
  5. Adolescents want to show parents that they are responsible for their own success or failure.
  6. Groups satisfy adolescents’ personal needs, reward them, provide information, raise their self-esteem, and give them an identity. (pg.222)
  7. Youth organizations can have an important influence on the adolescent’s development. Adolescents who join such groups are more likely to participate in community activities in adulthood and have higher self-esteem, are better educated, and come from families with higher incomes than their counterparts who do not participate in youth groups. (pg. 227)
  8. The old model of parent-adolescent relationships suggested that, as adolescents mature, they detach themselves from parents and move into a world of autonomy apart from parents. The old model also suggested that parent-adolescent conflict is intense and stressful throughout adolescence. The new model emphasizes that parents serve as important attachment figures, resources, and support systems as adolescents explore wider, more complex social world. The new model as emphasizes that, in the majority of families, parent-adolescent conflict is moderate rather than severe and that everyday negotiations and minor disputes are normal, serving the positive developmental function of promoting independence and identity. (pg. 188)
  9. Adolescent sibling relations include helping, sharing, teaching, fighting, and playing, and adolescent siblings can act as emotional supports, rivals, and communication partners. Siblings maybe a stronger socializing influence than parents (i.e. birth order, sibling roles, and developmental changes). (pg. 189)

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This research based program entails a variety of educational skill building and informational concepts to promote positive parent/adolescent relationships.