UNDERSTANDING YOUR UNIQUE TEEN

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2011

The School of Family Education (SFE) organised a talk entitled “Understanding Your Unique Teen at the AVT of Temasek Secondary School on Saturday, 29th October 2011.

We had a cosy yet in-depth exploration on the above relevant issue of this generation.  Indeed, this is every parent’s challenge in our everyday life.  As a matter of fact, teenage is just a growing phrase but in this an ever-changing world, parents are called to equip ourselves with knowledge and skills so as to align with our children’s growing-up years.

Mr Joshua Ng who is a Certified Behavioral Consultant and a Professional Trainer was  the speaker and a parent of 3 children himself, helped us to acknowledge the basic changes in teenagers: be it physical or emotional due to puberty development.  Once we recognize these changes, we can empathise with them and stretch our patience and love towards them, even though we may view them having numerous problems on attitudes, relationship and academic performance etc..

Correcting vs connecting, which one comes first? Correcting is important but connecting is even more crucial.  We may correct teenagers hundred of mistakes but connecting fewer times can hardly make up for the hurts sometimes we unknowingly bring forth to them during correction.  Disciplining does not necessarily come with punishment.  Parents actually demonstrate how we deal with conflicts with our children, their response depends how we react to situations, such familiarities will mould them into their adulthood and subtly influence them how to be parents next time.

Conclusion:
The principle is: we are not just parenting children, we are preparing and developing future adults who will shoulder future responsibilities in families and society.  Treat them an unique person and love them for who they are.

Every human mind is delicate, we parents must learn to handle with great care.  There is no perfect parent but the best parents are those who are willing to learn and grow up with their own children.
We are never alone, there are many parents out there sharing the same struggles.  TMS PSG spending time to find resources and support to make these seminars  available.  Parents please come forward to take advantage of such opportunities and you will bring home a new insight in your parenting walk.

Contributed by PSG member Phyllis Lau