Style and Substance: Preparing your teen for adulthood
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Loading... - Reyes Paul
- 20 Apr 2023
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You are being offered a wonderful parenting opportunity, to help with this miraculous transition from childhood to adulthood. We are thinking that this ‘child’ is 17 or 18, so begin to see them for the young adult that they are becoming. This slight shift of labels informs you to begin fading the words you have used in the past and intensify the words of adulthood that will become your new form of communication.
Whether you are co-parenting or parenting solo, examine what it is you want for this young adult, what has been important up to this point in the raising and what you will shift to now in the letting go. A word that comes to our minds is intentional. This transition is purposeful, meditated, intended. Am I/Are we enabling or encouraging? allowing or controlling? demonstrating or assuming? …are good touchstone questions at this critical stage. Take it seriously and your young adult will too.
Surely you have a list of Do’s and Don’ts that you have noted from your own missteps and accomplishments. Although important, we believe that your best influence is from a values perspective. Decide what you value most in life, family, work, and relationships and come up with three core family values. If you use these as a measuring stick, they clarify and create a mutual understanding for life’s path. From these core family values your child/young adult will have guidelines and a foundation for their personal achievement path.
To demonstrate, we will use truth, respect and accountability. What do they mean to you, your partner, and your young adult? Change your value words as you define and discuss. You may have different choices as you set the framework; attempting to uphold these mutually agreed upon values. Read More…
