Sharing adolescence with our children is truly an exhilarating and adventurous experience. Those wondrous teen years offer parents an extraordinary education and countless rewarding opportunities. This age of youth presents our teens as our greatest tutors, role-models, and mentors. Many of life's important lessons can be learned from these intelligent and intuitive creatures. It is through the wisdom of the adolescent that we gain a true perspective of life and learn to appreciate the difference between democracy and dictatorship.
No stereotypical, 'one size fits all' training or authority will dictate the rites of goodparents and good children. The framework for the good, we so desperately seek, can only be achieved through the life experiences we share and our capacity to remember. Remembrance offers us the wisdom and compassion to relate to youth. Having the capabilities to identify enables us to fully comprehend their positions, perspectives, and potential. The shared experiences promote mutual growth and respect while cementing solid bonds.
It is important to recognize that the responsibilities of parenting reach far beyond giving birth and child rearing. Achieving and maintaining success in our parent/teen relationships involves avid participation in the growth and learning processes while supporting a realistic and holistic position. So too is a willingness to view ourselves with honesty and humility. Teaching and the willingness to be taught, guiding and allowing ourselves to be led, will offer the positives we demand from our parenting experience. Realizing and admitting that we can and do make mistakes, is a vital quality of thegood parent. Recognizing that our teen might hold the right answers, would not compromise our position or suggest failure, instead it captures success.
Children should be seen and heard and their value explored. Acknowledgment and appreciation play a major role in the design of our parenting resume'. Acceptance of theindividual our teen has become and placing his unique qualities in high esteem will provoke positive results. It is through acceptance that we gain insight and wisdom. We will find knowledge, understanding and patience in the characterand capabilities our teens display. In this renewed cycle of discovery and evolution, we learn the value of commitment and contentment in life's offerings.
Our children are not served well by buying their love and respect, or by any strategies to control their situations through manipulation and domination to achieve our own end. Expending energies pursuing a place as authoritarian or taking advantage of the innocence and vulnerabilities of youth is not required to reach our goals. Seeking counsel from "How-To" materials, which dictate stereotypes and portray someone else's perceptions, will offer little evidence of harmony. Guidance comes through the loving, learning and sharing we do in our daily lives. We are each too distinct in personality and character to be stereotyped by any 'one rule for all' standard.
Attaining our goals comes through active participation in our individual life situation. Rewards are tendered solely through sharing and living life with our teens. Our parenting lessons are best learned and successes achieved through discovery and acceptance. There are no rules or sovereignty. Harmony comes naturally with discovery of self and acceptance of others. Greatness is achieved by providing an environment for greatness to grow.
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