Raising teens

*Article taken from The Star online newspaper.

By RUTH LIEW

Many parents find it difficult to cope with the turbulence of the teenage years. This is the time when teenagers want to exercise their independence and experiment with ideas. Effective parenting is much needed during the adolescent years.

Malaysian teenagers have to cope with the pressure of academic pursuits as well as growing pains. In our competitive society, parents are obsessed with having their children score straight As in all the public examinations. The paper chase occupies most of our adolescents’ lives. Many teenagers measure their success or failure by their academic achievements. Once they enter secondary school, they only focus on doing well in their studies.

Syed Azauddin Syed Bahaldin and his wife Syarifah Madinah Syed Abd Rahman felt compelled to share their parenting ideas. Their three grown-up daughters were straight-A students and scholarship holders. They recently completed a book entitled 11 Proven Tips of Nurturing Top-Notch Adolescents – A Parental Experience. In their book, they offer ideas that they have tried successfully with their children.

The authors of the book believed that our children should have the right tools in life to succeed. They promote the idea that children should be mentally and physically prepared for success. They reiterated that if your adolescent children are not prepared, you should not “even dare dream of having them admitted into the world’s most reputable academic institution.” This sums up the hope of many parents today who want their children to work towards academic success by getting into the right schools.

I find the 11 tips offered in the book practical and reasonable. An average parent should be able to carry out these ideas easily. But sadly, the average parent does not really have the time nor the patience for their children. In most families with troubled teenagers, we find troubled adults as parents. The authors of the book mentioned are successful adults who lead balanced lives. They have their priorities in the right places.

Most parents today want a formula to raise their children so that they can be stress-free. Conflicts arise when parents try to control their children’s lives and force them to conform to a set of rules. Their teenage children will revolt against them when they feel suppressed.

Some parents feel that their teenagers are old enough to make their own decisions, so they literally allow them to do anything they want. Without parental guidance, these parents are unwittingly setting their children up for mistakes that they may regret for the rest of their lives.

To do the job right, we have to go back to the basics – food, rest and shelter. Most teenagers do not eat right nor do they get enough sleep. In many homes, television-viewing and computer games have resulted in children staying up late and missing out on proper meals. Their parents tend to be too busy with their work to give them any attention. The authors advised parents that they should ensure their children get adequate nutrition, rest, physical exercise and leisure time for their minds to function well.

This parenting book promotes positive discipline for children as this is more effective in the long run. Punishment does not teach the child discipline. According to the authors, children with appropriate and consistent discipline will learn about consequences and take responsibility for their own actions.

Parents are reminded that the parenting goal should be to encourage children to have self-discipline and self-control. Therefore, ground rules and boundaries should be set early for children to live by and follow from an early age. The authors warned that parents who fail to do so will suffer when their children are older and smarter.

When children are small, their behavioural problems with adults are limited to that in their homes and school. When dealing with teenagers, parents have to consider the influence of their peers and society. It is no longer clear-cut and easy for parents to influence their teenagers. Hence, parents must work on the teenager’s growing need of wanting to get involved. Teenagers want to be acknowledged for what they can do and what they know.

The tips in this book advise parents to train their adolescents to be top-notch, reflecting the ambition of the parents in our competitive society. I shudder to think that these ideas will make those kiasu parents even more demanding.

Children who cannot meet their parental expectations will think of themselves as failures. They will have low self-esteem. This may lead to more runaways and teenage suicides. If we keep insisting that our teenagers become the best, we are denying our young people the opportunity to feel important through other useful accomplishments.

For every straight A student, there are thousands who are not. To get recognition, these teens will seek out behaviour that is admired by their peers but rejected by adults. These include smoking, taking drugs, speeding, making easy money, sexual promiscuity, stealing and vandalism.

We should help our children to become successful by giving them the right guidance and advice. We must also regard them as individuals who can equally help themselves to be successful. We must also allow them to define their own success with their own interests and ideas. When we reject their ideas and put them down for being inexperienced and not capable, we will only make them feel inferior and worthless.