EVERYTHING
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During last July’s 5.8 earthquake, 3-year-old Bronwyn told her 1-year-old sister, “We’re going for a wiggle.” READ MORE
Teen Years
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Like me, like me not When friends mean everything FRIEND-FRIENDLY HOME • Make your home an inviting place for your child’s friends. Offer them plenty of snacks and space where they can listen to music and make noise. Respect their privacy but supervise in a non-intrusive way. • Get to know your child’s friends as well as their parents. If a friend’s parents are too permissive regarding R-rated movies, violent video games, inappropriate Internet access and unsupervised boy-girl parties, restrict your child from being a guest at their home. • Remain flexibly firm. If they’re going out with friends, make sure they respect your expectations. Teens should inform their parents of significant changes in their destinations and should obey pre-set curfews. • Set boundaries and keep them. Parents are often not strong enough about forbidding relationships that they do not feel are appropriate. • If you think something inappropriate is happening with your teen and their friends, trust your instincts. Friends mean everything to teenagers. Anne Ronnig learned this the hard way after she purchased two high-priced tickets for “Wicked” as a surprise for her 16-year-old daughter. She was excited about seeing the play and knew her daughter would be equally thrilled to see a play she had been talking about for months. But the thing about the performance’s date…it just happened to fall on the same day as a friend’s birthday party. Her daughter suggested that her mother take a friend to the play. Any child development expert will tell you that friends are every bit as important to teenagers as their families. This dependence typically begins by the time a child reaches 13. “It’s during these years that children have their first real opportunity for expressing intimacy,” says Dr. Gail Gross, a Houston-based child development expert and radio talk show host. “Much of this type of interaction with friends is what prepares them for close relationships with others when they become adults.” This period also is when most children choose to create some separation between themselves and their families to achieve independence. “The friend or clique becomes a surrogate family for many children,” explains Gross. This development can be particularly distressful for parents when they recognize the influence peers have on their children. Obviously, parents want their children to develop strong relationships with “good” people, but as teens start making their own choices about who to hang with, parents feel they have little control in this area. The positive news is that parents can actually play an important role in helping their children choose appropriate friends. A recent study by Ohio State University researchers found that teens are more likely to have good friends if they have a warm relationship with their parents and if their parents choose to live in neighborhoods with strong schools. “We found that parents can act as architects of the friendship choices that their children make,” says Chris Knoester, a sociologist at Ohio State University. The results of the study showed that when teenagers and parents reported strong relationships, the teenagers had friends who were less likely to fight and be delinquent and were more likely to be involved in extracurricular activities at schools, have higher grade point averages and have plans for college. However, when teenagers and parents reported strained relationships, the teens were more likely to have friends who fought and were involved in delinquency and showed fewer positive characteristics. Although there are things parents can do to encourage healthy relationships with friends, Gross states that most families will at one time or another have to deal with their teen befriending the wrong type of individual. To prevent this, she stresses that parents need to be authentic. If a child has already become close to the wrong type of friend, Gross advises parents to be empathetic but firm. Although the teenage years are a time when parents tend to be withdrawn from their child’s life, experts agree that parents need to become more involved during this stage. Says Gross: “One of the best things a parent can do is take time, look into their child’s eyes and listen.” Carol Daus is a freelance writer who lives in Huntington Beach with her husband and three teenagers. |
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