3 tips for dealing with the teen years

When it comes to being parents, I suspect that there is no more difficult time than our children's adolescence.

Teenagers want to be adults. Or at least they do when it comes to freedom and privileges. They'd just as soon remain children when it comes to responsibility and accountability.

Teenagers think they are experts. They know everything there is to know about their own lives, our lives as adults, and the world in general. From their perspective, we adults are at best misinformed, at worst just stupid.

Teenagers are above the law. Rules - ours, their school's, society's, even the laws of nature - don't apply to them. Things like curfews; speed limits; prohibitions against drinking, smoking, gambling are wrong, and, of course, stupid (after all, we adults made up all these rules).

Teenagers believe they will live forever. They take risks that scare parents half to death. They live life for the moment, too seldom thinking about what they need to do to prepare for the adult world.

Of course, the above are all generalizations. They do not apply to all teens all of the time, or to the same degree. They do, I think, apply to most teens at least some of the time.

Now, in case you're wondering, I actually do like teens, even my own. I have a lot of empathy for just how hard it is to be a teenager in today's culture. I think many of their observations and objectives as to the state of the world we adults have created are pretty much on target.

And I also remind myself just how difficult it is to go through the often overwhelming, always confusing, physical, emotional and mental changes that adolescence involves.

Back to parenting teens. To successfully get our kids through adolescence, not to mention survive ourselves, we need to practice three interrelated strategies:

1. Patience: remembering how hard the teen years are, we parents need to cut them some slack. They are going to make mistakes, push their limits, and talk and act a bit crazy. It will seem like they are taking two steps forward and then one, or three, steps back. Often, we parents just need to step back ourselves, hold our tongues and let them struggle.

2. Pick our fights: some of the things we adults are trying to teach our teens are incredibly important. For example, those having to do with how they treat other people, how they treat themselves, how they choose a meaningful vocation, how they build intimate relationships, and what life is all about are key to their healthy adult functioning.

Some things we adults are trying to teach our teens may not be so important, or at least a lot less important than the above.

The reality is we have only a limited amount of time, energy, and influence when it comes to our teens, so we need to use it wisely.

We need, then, to ask ourselves which fights are the really important ones and which ones we can avoid.

Obviously, different parents will make different decisions when it comes to picking which fights are important to fight, but we do need to ask ourselves this question before the battles begin.

3. Persevere: there is an end to adolescence. Teens do grow out of a good deal of the seeming craziness they live by. Though today adolescence can seem to start at age 10 or 11 and extend well in to the mid-20s, it still has a limited life span.

Our children will eventually become adults and figure out how to get along in the adult world. If we keep all this in mind, have patience, and pick our fights, it will be a lot easier to hang in there with our kids. And, ultimately, that is the most important thing we parents can do for them.