And Avoid the Frenzy and Nightmare

If you find that when your son or daughter enters teenage years your relationship with them starts to change do not be concerned. This is a new phase of their life. As a child, they may have been willing to follow your ways, your standards and your beliefs.

However now they are entering a stage of life where they will decide on and define their own beliefs, standards and ways. Some of their decisions may conflict with your perspectives, but do not be concerned.

Today in a celebration of Father’s Day weekend, President Barack Obama called upon fathers to be teachers and mentors. This does not mean you have to be a perfect father he stated, just one who cares and tries.

Your children will probably rate you as their perfect father if you simply do these three things:

Be involved with your children as they grow up.
Don’t leave everything to your wife. There will be times when you may need to make some sacrifices in your own agenda, but these adjustments will pay off greatly for the rest of your lives.

There are many memories that you can create in your children that they will carry into adulthood. They will become better adults just because Mum AND Dad were both involved with:

This is the seventh article of the series Teenage Years – Parents Adventure or Nightmare How you can embrace the adventure and stay away from the nightmare.

These tips were either suggested or approved by my teenage friends, and the seventh tip that was named is:

Don’t Give Up!
I recently asked some young friends what a successful relationship between teens and parents looks like from their perspective. We came up with a list of 8 tips for parents to do (see this list here), and then went on to think about things not to do. As we were going over a list of “donts” with a grin they added “And don’t give up on us”.

The other day I was working through a book about accelerated learning and came to an interesting statistic. Jack Canfield (famous for his co-authoring of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series) organized a survey where the words spoken daily by school aged children were noted.

The mindset of children today.
A team of surveyors followed 100 children for a complete day making a note of the number of negative and positive statements that each child spoke during that day.

The results were staggering:

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This morning I received an email announcing that Jimmy Brown is about to celebrate his 15th wedding anniversary. Congratulations Jimmy!!

Jimmy is one of the icons on the internet marketing scene. He is one who’s work I have been following for quite a while. I like his style.

Along with comments about his plans for their celebration, Jimmy wrote an excellent post on his blog revealing the secrets to his successful marriage. Because Jimmy is an online marketer, he naturally took the opportunity to compare these three keys with our relationship to our business contacts.

However these secrets can actually help you with any relationship that is important to you whether it be with family, friends or business associates.

Written by guest writer, Dr Taffy (moneyinmarriage on twitter)

The economy has had an effect on marriages and relationships that many probably did not expect. For example, couples that were headed to divorce court ended up staying together because they could not afford the cost of a divorce.

One thing is for sure, if they were not discussing money before they are now. Couples that had not talked about finances are now in the position of having to talk about money because of the effect the economy on their personal finances.

If you are in one of these positions, it is a good thing that you are now talking about money. Whether you really thought about it or not, money has many roles in our lives.

Two major keys to any successful relationship is love and communication. One expression of love is to show a genuine desire to communicate with the person.

When both love and communication are present in a relationship any problem can be worked out.

When some parents face difficulties with their teenagers that seem impossible to solve, they tend to take the “easy way out” and simply ignore their teen. I am sure you have heard of the theory “if I ignore it, it will go away”. This is so often the human way of coping with many situations that are difficult to handle.

However, in actual fact ignoring a problem does not solve anything, but rather it allows time for any unresolved emotional reactions to go deeper and fester.

There will be added difficulties if communication difficulties existed with your teenager when he or she was a small child. But be encouraged, it is not impossible to restore your relationship with your teen to become a successful one. It will take some time, patience and a determination to win. But always expect the best, and you WILL win!

The other day on Twitter, Wendy Dewar happened to mention that she and her husband had just celebrated their 34th wedding anniversary.

This is great achievement these days, and I knew that Wendy would have some great wisdom to share with you. When I asked Wendy if she would consider writing down some tips and tricks that she has applied over the years to bring her this success, she graciously accepted.

Following is her article, I know that it will be a great blessing to you.

Wendy writes:
I got married in 1975 just after I turned twenty. I am still married to the same man today. Over the years we’ve discovered and developed ways to keep our marriage a happy place. Has it been easy? Yes, and no. But there are definitely some techniques and tactics we have learned along the way that have enabled us to live happily together all these years. Here are a few tips gleaned from over three decades of marriage.

1. Be smart before you start.

This is the fifth article of the series Teenage Years – Parent’s Adventure or Nightmare. How you can embrace the adventure and stay away from the nightmare.

These tips were either suggested or approved by my teenage friends, and the fifth tip that was named is:

Don’t Antagonize Your Teenager.
Remember your teenager is going through a lot of changes already and because of this there may be some strange emotions pop up from time to time. There may even be some “out of character” moments as they are trying to find their own feet in this world.

There are three main definitions of the word antagonize found in the dictionary.

This is the fourth article of the series Teenage Years – Parent’s Adventure or Nightmare. How you can embrace the adventure and stay away from the nightmare.

These tips were either suggested or approved by my teenage friends, and the fourth tip that was named is:

Don’t Smother Your Teenager.
Smothering is one of the traps that parents can easily fall in to with their teenagers.

Your teenagers are undergoing a lot of changes in life as they prepare for adulthood.

Yes I know they may be still your “baby boy” or “baby girl”, to you. However, as hard as it may be for you to face, they are probably not going to want to hear that as much any more, if at all. They certainly don’t want you calling them any such thing in front of their friends …