How to find a common language with a child and cope with conflicts without screaming and swearing. Psychologist Julia Kuznetsova gives advice to parents.
1. If the child has only computer games on his mind and academic performance has decreased.
To prevent this behavior from developing into a deep gambling addiction, try to understand why it arose. It is important to reveal what and who provokes this addiction. Do not expect it to go away on its own, but see a psychologist.
2. If the child does not want to make his bed, clean the room, keep his things in order.
To avoid such problems, even at a young preschool age, it is necessary to establish certain rules that relate to the child’s household responsibilities. To form a standard of cleanliness, you need a personal example of parents. If you are tired of forcing your son to make the bed every day, stop doing it. Just invite someone whose opinion your child values very much. Once in an unsightly position, a teenager will surely understand what order in the room is for.
3. If a teenager is in love with an unworthy person, in your opinion.
Your condemnation will not be able to cool falling in love, but will only strengthen the feeling. Most likely, a teenager will simply stop telling you about himself and what is happening in his life. It rarely happens that teenage love is long and final. This probably sounds shocking to strict parents, but in this case, the teenager needs to be given freedom of choice.
4. If the child threatens to leave home.
It is necessary to find out the reason that makes the teenager talk like that. Most likely, this is a simple manipulation, the child is used to influencing the parents in a certain way (“If you don’t buy me this, then I’ll leave!”). But it may also be so: by threatening to leave home, the child wants to distract adults from intra-family conflicts and switch attention from one problem to another.
5. If the child does not fulfill the instructions of the parents.
If the conversation about how important it is to help parents does not work, then it is necessary to impose sanctions, for example, restrictions on entertainment. Keep in mind that family rules must be revised and changed over the years. If at an early age only simple household chores were available to the child, then with age it is necessary to expand the scope of activity. But, of course, so that the teenager can do this work.
6. If the child’s mood often changes during the day.
Any person has the right to be sad, happy, angry, afraid. But in order to constructively experience an emotion, you need to learn to be aware of it, to understand why it has arisen. If the child is ready to discuss his sorrows or joys with you, help him, without criticism, sort out the flurry of moods.
7. If the child does not get along with the stepfather.
For a child, the stepfather may seem to be the very figure that caused mom and dad to split up. Talk to the teenager in an accessible language, explain why you broke up, tell us how life will be built in a new family. Be prepared for the fact that mutual understanding will not come immediately. It takes time for a child to adapt and accept an unfamiliar structure of relationships.
8. If the child does not find contact with peers.
First of all, it is necessary to find out how important it is for a teenager and whether there is a general need for communication with peers. If it’s all about excessive shyness, then you need to see a psychologist. If a teenager has no need for communication and no regrets about his isolation, then there is no reason to worry. Perhaps this is dictated by the personality traits of the child.
9. If the teenager is involved in bad company.
Have a heart-to-heart talk with your child. Find out what gives him emotionally belonging to a particular company: a sense of need, value, freedom of expression, or something else. Explain to the teenager that all of this can be achieved in other socially acceptable ways, for example, by enrolling in an acting class, in a sports section, a volunteer corps, etc.
10. If the child does not want to follow parental advice.
Resistance is characteristic of adolescence: everything is done in opposition to what is formed by the family. The unconscious goal is to convey to the parents their desire for freedom. It is very important to review the rules. Those that were suitable for a young child no longer apply to a teenager. If parents feel that they cannot cope with the current situation, then it is necessary to contact a qualified specialist – a psychologist.