How to Approach Parenting When Your Teenager is Depressed

If your teen’s wellness is affected by depression, parenting and disciplining them can be a minefield. You don’t want to let your child get away with murder when they do something wrong, or strike the wrong balance between talking and giving them space. However, there are some effective parenting and communication techniques that can help you negotiate those treacherous waters of teen mental health and wellbeing:

 

1. Don’t Discipline in a Destructive Way: From the simple fact that your son or daughter is a teenager, you can rest assured that you will have to discipline them at some point. However, while your go-to parenting style may be to shame and punish them into thinking twice before making the same mistake ever again, this can often feed into feelings of depression. Despairing of your teenager and going straight for the punish-first-communicate-later approach can make your son or daughter feel worthless and inadequate, which can only add to their depressive state. Instead, discipline your teen using positive reinforcement for good behaviour, and openness and non-judgement when communicating about things they’ve done wrong.

 

2. Accept the Fact Your Teen will Make Mistakes: As we’ve already established, every teenager – and, for that matter, every person – will make a mistake at some point in their lives. As parents, your job isn’t to chart their career or future for them so that they get things right (as you’d only really be correcting your own past failures). Rather, you need to let them decide how to live their own lives – even if you know better. If you become overprotective or take their decisions into your own hands, your teenager will feel that you have no faith in them or their abilities, which can make them feel less confident.

 

3. Don’t Spend Every Second Breathing Down Their Neck: This goes hand-in-hand with what we’ve previously been saying about letting your teen make their own mistakes, but it also speaks to a general need to give teens breathing room. At some point in every teenager’s life, they stop thinking you’re the bees knees and start realising that they can (and want to) spend more time alone and think things through for themselves. While it’s important that your teen respects your authority and spends time with the family on occasion, that is not to say that they should be tied to your apron strings and hang on every word you say. Give your teenager space to breathe and don’t expect them to do exactly as you say all of the time – they are teenagers, after all.

 

4. Give Your Teen’s Depression the Time it Deserves: If you have any suspicion that your teenager might be depressed, don’t dismiss the thought or hope the depression goes away on its own. You need to take the time to talk to your teenager and listen to any concerns that she or he might have. Even if you think your teen’s problems are insignificant or petty compared to yours in the “real world,” typical teenage issues can feel very real when you’re growing up and living through them, so address them with the respect your child’s feelings deserve. Make sure your child knows that he or she can talk to you at any time and that the lines of communication are always open. Even if your teen seems to want to withdraw, make sure you regularly ask what’s going on in and listen, rather than telling your teen what to do. If you feel overwhelmed or unable to reach your teen, or if you continue to be concerned, seek help from a qualified health care professional.

Categories: depression, discipline, feel, parenting, teen, teenager, Teenagers, time

How These Common Phrases Could Be Damaging Your Child

Parent-child relationships can be difficult things, and often enough some stern words need to be said. However, we can often say things we don’t really mean and may have to apologise for later, but are there some common phrases which are more damaging than we think?

 

‘Why can’t you be more like..?’ is a phrase that immediately ignites competition and rivalry, and if said often enough can eventually cause tension and hatred between the compared people. If you compare them to a brother or sister, be prepared for some sibling rivalry. Similarly, saying ‘you’re just like your mother/father’ can often be a sneaky insult at two people at once. Involving children in adult disputes is always a bad idea, and can leave them with feelings of resentment and confusion when they are dragged into marital arguments. On the other hand, pushing your child away harshly with words that suggest you want to be away from them can damage their self-esteem. It is true that sometime you’ll want a moment to be alone, but quietly saying you need to be by yourself will be favourable to an angry outburst of ‘leave me alone!’ Children are dependent on their parents for their sense of self-esteem, and cutting them out suddenly can make them feel neglected.

 

A well known phrase which we probably have all heard is ‘I was more responsible at your age’. This sets up expectations and comparisons for your child to be more ‘perfect’, and using yourself as an example of this ideal childhood is often misguided and unrealistic. If you use such a phrase, be realistic, and be sure to acknowledge your shortcomings in front of your child as well. Telling a child ‘you should be ashamed of yourself’ when they have done something very wrong may seem a morally right way of hurting their pride, but sometimes this harsh approach can make a child more bitter than anything, and a more gentle approach could be preferable.

Categories: Child Wellness, parenting, Relationships

Need Advice on Parenting: Take a Tip from the Past

Some things remain timeless truths, unchanged and undimmed by the passing of years, particularly when it comes to raising children. The advice passed on from generation to generation about how to do the very best by your offspring remains constant, no matter how much fashion or society changes.

So here are 7 timeless truisms about family life.

1. Wisdom comes with age so pay heed to the advice from grandparents and other relatives and friends from older generations. They’ve been there and done that, and their experience of life can be an essential guide.


2. Follow your instincts where your child is concerned, whether that’s about health or behaviour. Often your gut feeling about your own child will be proven correct so stand your ground when you need to.


3. The most important gift you can give your child is the one of love. Knowing they are loved and treasured will give them the emotional security so crucial to growing up with a genuine sense of self.


4. Tough love is equally as important as the unconditional stuff, too. If you’re too soft on your kids when they are at their most impressionable, simply because you love them too much to say no, then you are storing up a heap of trouble for later life.


5. Establish boundaries from an early age – children need structure and discipline that will teach them how to operate in the world beyond your front door. By all means, encourage them to be an individual but impress upon them that they must learn to get on with others to get on in life.


6. Always be there to talk to your child. You will be the best possible shoulder to cry on when they start to experience life’s tough lessons, such as the first broken heart, being betrayed by a friend or failing an exam.


7. Let your children go. The hardest lesson of all, this is also the most important. When your job is done, you have to let your youngster go off to become an adult without trying to tie him or her to your apron strings.

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Need Advice on Parenting: Take a Tip from the Past

Categories: Children, lessons, parenting