Twenty Things to do to Raise Healthier Teens

(Or How to Avoid those Teen Driven Crazies)

1.Get to know your Child Before they are a teen

I was a victim of the concept of quality time, but could have described the qualities of my work colleagues better than my child. I don’t mean what she looked like, but what motivated her, what interested her and what were her personal traits really like.

Make time just for your child and you. Take a walk. Go to McDonald’s. Go fishing. Spend fun time together and then you will know each other and like each other before those tough teen times start. Playing together makes it easier to get to the teen trusting your judgment, rather than misleading peers. He or she will not be as likely to think that you are “out of touch” if you just went out together. Important reminder: Keep these
times light, no lectures or agendas or your part. Just enjoy each other. Movies are okay but not really interactive. So sit somewhere away from home and the movie theater after the movie and discuss it. Listen to them during this time. It’s amazing how much will come out if you are fishing together. Don’t expect too much from this. It takes a while for them to get used to spending this time with them, but keep at it. At least weekly. Do this “date” with each of your children. Remember it’s just with them - not another child or
friend of theirs during this time. It’s a life saver later.

2. Model good behavior

Don’t say one thing and do another. Hypocrisy stinks. If you tell them to eat their vegetables and you only eat one bite, what will happen? Same thing applies to morals and values. Don’t have them answer the phone and say you are not home if you are trying to avoid speaking to some one. Don’t be a habitual drinker and lecture on the sins of drinking. If you tell them to respect other’s property, do you throw litter from the car. The list goes on and on.

Bottom line, are you the type of person you want your child to become. If not, work on yourself. (We are always becoming so let’s always work on self-improvement).

3. Make a habit of caring for others

Teen years are very self-absorbed ones. Constant concern over looks, music, acceptance and peer pressure rule....

Make a habit or family tradition of helping others. This can be through organized volunteer work through church, synagogue, united way, or other charities. Or it may be as informal as mowing a neighbor’s yard who is sick. It is hard to look at oneself selfishly when the family is absorbed in being a servant to others.

This gives a heritage to them of being givers rather than takers. How beautiful that this could happen. It helps eliminate so many of the give me’s and wants for one trendy piece of clothes, makeup, etc. and more importantly gives them the concept of being a loving, caring, contributor to this world through the joy of giving of their own talents.

4. Teach them to talk about their feelings

This is not a very popular thing to do. But necessary. How many times are those fights
picked on the school yard because the child feels hurt, lonely or angry?

There are excellent child books that talk about feelings and that it’s okay to have them and
that there are no bad feelings. It is plain scary to a child when they get angry at you. Let them know that this is normal, but teach them how to acknowledge their anger and appropriate release patterns - not biting you as a child, not cursing you as a teen, etc., etc.

When they are insecure as teens and they will be, this will open the door to let them say to you or another mature adult that they don’t feel good and it will open the door later in life for good stress management.

5. Have a life of your own

This should be number one. How much time in your life is really for time by yourself, for
meditation, prayer, study, pleasure, self-development? If you are a Mom, very little. Also
if you are a Dad. We have those eternal list of to-do’s for the house, work, and life. Yellow post-its need to be outlawed.

Seriously schedule time for yourself regularly. A minimum of once a month - fun time for yourself and a friend. If you are like the rest of the world, you are parenting on a tired wire and frazzled and physically exhausted. Renew yourself so you can face those parenting challenges. It ain’t all easy. Diapers are a dream compared to a teen in a sulk....

If you cannot afford a baby-sitter, join a baby-sitting coop. These can be found at local churches or perhaps trade off with a trusted neighbor.

6. Date your husband/wife

That means regularly. Keep the romance in your relationship. Children and life stress can kill the romance and that spells trouble. Where possible, children need a functional, intact mom and dad family. Also, remember there will not always be children and what will you have in common when the kid(s) leave home.

For you single folks, and I was a single mom for a time - Do date good folks but don’t introduce every date to you child(ren). It messes them up and they have an ongoing bonding and loss process with every new one.

7.Practice saying no

Most youth could make the most persuasive of politicians. They coax, plead, nag and negotiate their ways from no’s to yes’s. This starts about the stage of 2 and continues. They know how to get an extended bed time and eventually how to date at 14 rather than the intended 16. This teaches them that there are no absolutes, no rule, no leader in the house.... All this leads to chaos and too much freedom.

Teach them how to ask, present information supporting their case, and then to accept your
decision. Sometimes you may allow and sometime not.

This takes practice, but really they need structure, especially in this chaotic, no morals - anything goes - Generation X world. Remember you are scared of their approval and probably a little guilty (ergo, you’re not spending enough time with them) and you want them happy, when you give in.

Getting everything they want may not be good for them. Remember the story of Pinocchio. I used to absolutely hate when my parents would say, “I’m saying no, because it’s for your own good”.... Now, I understand.

8. Teach them that most decisions don’t have to be immediate

Most response to peer pressure comes from a teen’s insecurity and wish to fit in immediately. Let them practice as a pre-teen/early teen different ways of saying “I’ll let you know tomorrow”..... This way if they are offered drugs/alcohol etc. at a party, they can have a prerehearsed answer and avoid a “giving in” to “fit in”.

9. Get out of debt

Are you working for a living or living for working. Has your spending gotten out of hand? Is money pressure killing you literally?

Teach children the value of money, by your habits. Get out of debt - check with Consumer Counseling Centers. Teach your child good ways to earn, budget etc. Your bank can help, but again they look to you to be their biggest examples.

10. Evaluate the possibility of alternate work patterns

Do you both have to work if you are a two parent family? Can you downsize your style of living so one can be a stay at home/part-time work at home? Are day cares raising your children?

There are excellent tools for re-evaluating your priorities. Raising healthy children that can one day function independently and morally on their own is your most important job on this earth. Maybe you don’t need all those material things. Your children need you more than the latest Nintendo or Nikes or whatever. This is the only time you will have with them. Think, plan, act and do accordingly. Telecommute/flex hours/ etc.

11. After school and alone

A dangerous time for children. More teen pregnancies are conceived between 3 and 6
p.m. than any other time. It’s true.

Again, see number 10 and look at being with them. If this is not possible, enroll in a school after school program or have them in a house where there is a stay at home mom until you get home.

12. When to get professional help

When you cannot manage and have used all the tools in your parenting toolkit and your child is out of control and unmanageable and a terror to you and others.

There may be a serious medical and/or emotional problem that needs outside intervention. Don’t hesitate to get help. It’s a sign of strength not weakness.

13. Church or Synagogue

Go, belong, participate and learn. Insist your children participate. No sleeping in on Saturdays and Sundays. You all need this. Their belief is of course their own, but bring them to the restaurant of faith. They will not pick this up on their own, at school or with their peers as teens.

14. Say please and thank you

Polite children are unfortunately a thing that is rare. Teach them and model for them. This will carry a long way into their future.

On thank you’s, teach them to write acknowledgments for all gifts. Insist on it. Make it a habit.

Say please and thank you to them as well. Don’t bark orders. Very few of us like or appreciate this.

15. Tell them you’re sorry

When you are and when you’ve wronged them. Believe me, you have and you will. Did you insult them in anger over one of their wrongdoings? Acknowledge it and mean it.

Forgiveness needs to be modeled, so they know that they can get forgiveness from you. This will also help prevent the “sneakiness” and hiding that will occur as they age. It also teaches them accountability and responsibility.

16. Give them a sense of humor

Yes, life is serious, but healthy humor is a resource at all times. It helps them take
themselves less seriously and life’s stresses can bounce off them.

Teach good humor. Don’t let your jokes and stories be racists or sexist or ugly. Keep it
light. Learn as a family to share those funny times. One of my favorites funny stories on
myself is when I went camping and to lighten the load in the canoe, I put back a heavy bundle. Unfortunately it was the tent, I thought it was extra cookware and we got very wet that night.

17. Teach perseverance

Let them see you work on a new hobby and take time to learn it. Patience is such a trait that you want them to have. The best learning is by example.

Life isn’t easy and jobs won’t just land at their feet. Teach them that effort precedes reward.

18. Turn off the tv and computer

and other mindkillers on a regular basis. Monitor that internet and tv time to assure that they are involved with healthy programs. Better yet, set time limits on both usage as both are very time consuming, habit forming, built in mind numbers.

19. No triangles

When co-parenting, don’t allow them to seek out the answer that they want by shopping from one parent to the next until they get what they want.

They can also become experts in pitting one parent against the other. Parenting is a team
process. Make sure that you and your mate are on the same team and united and don’t allow the division.

20. Never give up

Keep up the hard work of parenting. It’s much harder than we ever new. But the reward is so rich. Remember that it is a work in progress and you’re never really done. Learn all you can. Go to parenting courses, read, spend time with seasoned parents, pray and
persevere. Your children and our society thank you for your effort.


Written by Nancy White July 4, 1997