Parenting A Teen In India

What is the toughest job? You should ask this to a parent of a teenager, it is easier to rule a country than to raise a teenager. The travails of Sarah Palin on the campaign trail were probably nothing compared to her travails at home as the mother of a teenager!

From experience as a has-been teenager, and now a mother of one, I can certify that this is the most difficult part of growing up, both for the child as well as for the parent. There is a new challenge each day! Every gesture or word of the parent is taken in the literal sense but if anything is said by the parent, then they have to hear that they did not understand the purport of the words expressed by the child.

There are moments when you, the parent, would think you are caged in the vicious circle of arguments and you just don’t know the way to get out of it. Every point has to be noted and clarified and if you are unwilling to clarify it then you are not co operating. ‘Why’ and ‘how’ are the two questions that will be haunting you from time to time but you are supposed to act as the one who can never have any question and if by mistake you ask one then you will be told that they have the discretion of not answering them and you have to accept that.

For the child, this is the period in which they come to love, respect and acknowledge their sex, and they are caught in a vortex of emotions where they want to prove to the world that they are unique in their own way. Physical changes, both among boys and girls, could make them feel depressed at one point, and sometimes give rise to feelings of inadequacy, which the parent needs to appreciate and counter with careful support.

Every issue is sensitive! Be it studies, friends, love life, school anything and everything under the sky comes under the scanner. The parent needs to deal with every issue with a certain point of sensitivity and compassion.

As a parent we have to understand and analyse the crux of the matter and deal with it compassionately. We are not allowed to be rude or illogical at any given point. Teens face a massive change emotionally as well as physically and the only way to deal with the change is to be understanding.

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