by Jan Beukes

Created on: October 22, 2009   Last Updated: October 23, 2009

Where did we go wrong? This is a question many parents ask themselves when faced with the turbulent teenage years. One of the greatest tests of endurance a parent can experience is the struggle to survive this unwelcome stage of parenthood. It is as if one unsuspecting day, parents wake up to find that aliens have visited their home overnight, stolen their wonderfully compliant child and replaced him with a monster from an unknown planet. They grieve for their lost child wondering when, or even if, he will return.

We will be looking at seven key survival tips which can help parents to cope with these chaotic years. After raising my own four children, my hope is that parents who are struggling will find at least some of these tips as useful as I did in setting a strategy for survival.

* Realise that you are not alone

When sitting outside a cafeteria last year, I overheard a middle-aged mother talking, through tears, to her friend about her troubles with her teenage son. 'I just don't know what to do any more. We've lost all normal communication and all we do is shout and argue with each other. He is constantly in trouble at school and hanging around with the wrong crowd. I feel such a failure.' Although I felt very sad and empathised completely with this woman, I have to confess the feeling of a slight 'glow' and sense of relief. This was good news to me - I was not alone - this was normal.

* Understand the development of the teenage brain

It has been well known that a surge in brain mass around ages two to three shows itself with the 'terrible two's'. Have you ever found yourself saying to your teenager 'You are acting like a two year old'? Well, this is partly true as a similar growth spurt in the brain is happening during the early teenage years.

On top of this, the frontal lobe of the brain is not fully developed until around the age of twenty or beyond. The following abilities will therefore be limited: moral judgment, control of emotions, making sound decisions, taking a longer view of things, postponing immediate gratification, planning and organisational skills. They will also display risk taking behaviours due to a lack of fully realising consequences. Understanding all of this will not take away the pain of raising a difficult teenager, but it makes it easier to deal with if we believe that it is not our fault and, in some ways, not all their fault either.

* Don't take it personally

The things that a teenager can say to a parent have the ability to

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