Parenting teens, and knowing how to choose your battles with them can be a very daunting experience for some parents.
If you bring you child up, to learn respect for their elders, their siblings, themselves, and possessions, it will make life a lot easier for everyone involved,
when they finally do reach their teen years.

Teens can be very defensive, and awkward at times. Don't go shouting at them just because they haven,t say cleaned their bedroom out, for weeks on end, explain to them calmly, that if they want nice things in life, and have a nice room to sleep in at night, or bring their mates round, that they need to keep it clean and tidy.
Teens can get embarrassed very easily, so if they say brought their mates home one
evening after school, and their mates saw the state of their bedroom, they may not want to go round again, no body wants to sit in a untidy smelly bedroom.

If you treat your teens like adults, and with respect their shouldn't be the need,
to start any battles with them, because the more children learn about respect etc,
the more respect they will give back in return.

If your teens go out on an evening after school, set ground rules from the very beginning, explain to them that when you say you have to be back in by say 9 o'clock at the latest, you are only thinking of their own wellbeing, and security.
Yes some teens, will argue left right and centre till they get their own way, if this is the case, then you haven't explained to them properly enough, about why we adults set these rules. If they don't listen after that, find a civil way of punishment, they will soon come round to your way of thinking and realize that you are only protecting them, and helping them grow into healthy mature adults.

So start as you mean to go on, set rules, but always treat them with respect, never treat them like a child even though at times they may act like one, they will soon grow up and start to take more responsibility for themselves and others.

Learn more about this author, Teresa Meakin.
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