Dealing with Rebellion and Confrontation

Raising a teenager can require a great deal of patience, for their fluctuating hormones and increasing need for independence may make them prone to bouts of anger and outright rebellion, but smart parents and stepparents understand that the change in personality is only a temporary condition. Knowing that unpredictable behaviour is a normal part of being teenager, though, doesn’t make it any easier when a previously agreeable child suddenly appears moody, sullen, and defiant, leaving parents wishing for simpler days.

Establishing Household Rules of Conduct

Every household with children needs to have set guidelines for behaviour so that the kids understand where the boundaries are. Ideally, children are taught to be kind and respectful long before their teenage years so that when adolescence arrives, kids are fully aware that there are limits to what sorts of behaviour will be tolerated. Having a teen in the house is sure to change the atmosphere, but when kids have been shown how to express themselves with consideration, the teen years can go much more smoothly.

Teaching Kids to Express their Emotions

From the time that they are very young, children express a wide range of feelings. If they’ve been taught to recognise and deal with all of their moods in a healthy manner, they’ll have the tools that they need to cope with anger, frustration, and other difficult emotions long before they become teenagers, but even those that haven’t yet mastered a great deal of self-control before puberty can and should be expected to balance their need for expression with the feelings of others. While everyone has a right to feel whatever they feel, no one has the right to hurt others with the inappropriate expression of their emotions.

Healthy Outlets for Anger and Anxiety

It’s not just teenagers, but people of all ages who sometimes feel overwhelmed by their emotions and allow them to have a negative impact on their behaviour. Fortunately, there are things that parents and stepparents can do to help their teenagers to release their difficult feelings without being hurtful to others. Exercise, especially regular and robust activity, gives teenagers an outlet for much of the stress that can lead to anger, anxiety, and even mild to moderate depression, which can be common amongst teens and is sometimes responsible for their hard-to-understand behaviour.

Establishing Consequences for Uncooperative Teenagers

Teenagers, like the rest of us, tend to repeat behaviours that we find rewarding, while we naturally minimise those that bring us negative consequences. This aspect of human nature can work to the advantage of parents and stepparents, who may find that by acknowledging and praising their kids and teenagers for behaviour that they find acceptable, they will have to spend less time correcting their offspring for being rude or ill-mannered. By making a change in the way that they manage their children, many parents find that their need to utilise punitive responses such as removing privileges can be kept to a minimum. Of course, the success of disciplinary techniques varies from child to child, so parents and stepparents must take into account the tactics that seem to work best with each of their kids.

Coping with Teenage Rebellion

Sometimes, despite their parents’ and stepparents’ best efforts, a teenager is simply determined to disregard house rules and defy parental authority. Unfortunately, there are limits to what parents can do in these situations and by the time that a child is a teen, they are fully aware that their parents can exert only so much control over them. Some kids and teens who exhibit extremes in emotion or seem especially prone to rebellion may be showing signs of an emotional disorder and in such cases, parents and stepparents may want to consult with their GP. While a certain amount of rebellion is normal and is simply a part of a teenager’s natural desire to break away from their parents’ control, full-out refusal to comply with reasonable expectations or an inability to exert a respectful level of self control may signal something more than teenage angst and should not be ignored.