How to Bring Up an All Rounded Teenager
As children quickly grow into teenagehood, it gets even harder to control their behavior and choices, but they’re still ways to bring up a well-rounded teenager making teen years stress-free and rewarding.
Understand that you don’t have a lot of influence on the choices they make, such as online activities, friends, and strangers they allow in their lives. It’s also hard to control much of the activities. However, there are ways to bring up an all-rounded teenager.
Empower them with Life Skills
Although academics are important, it’s not everything in life, and not everyone excels in classwork. Encourage the teenagers to explore life outside the classroom and learn skills such as new languages, public speaking, computer courses, and other skills not included in the core curriculum.
Also, focus on essential life skills such as cooking or food preparation skills, grooming or clothing skills, sewing, first aid skills, social skills, manners, organization, money, and budgeting skills.
Monitor and Restrict Their Online Time
Teenagers can easily get hooked to gadgets which means that they’ll be spending more time online chatting with friends, exploring different websites, playing video games, and discovering new things. Some of this activity might be dangerous.
It also means that they can quickly make new friends who can negatively influence their lives. It’s okay to monitor their online activities and have all the information about who they talk to, details of the phone owner when they receive calls, and the website they spend a lot of time on.
It’s still okay to use parental controls restricting content on different platforms, ensuring that they don’t get exposed to information or contact that is not age-appropriate.
You’ll also be protecting them from cyberbullying and other cybercriminals. Also, restrict their screen time by having rules, such as no gadgets during dinner, homework, or bedtime.
Encourage Relationships
Encouraging relationships doesn’t always mean a love affair. Creating meaningful relationships with friends and adults makes it easier for teenagers to express their feelings, disappointments, and struggles, helping them live healthier lives.
Introverts usually don’t have anyone to share their challenges with, causing them to most often resort to unhealthy ways of letting out the frustrations. They can easily result in drugs use, violence, or crime. Encourage them to form friendships with their teachers and other adults they highly regard. It also helps to have mentors.
Let Them Learn About Responsibility
Right from an early age, teach your children about responsibility, and this involves giving them age-appropriate chores. As a child grows older, give them more involving tasks, making them understand that hard work and responsibility is part of growing up.
You don’t have to pay them to attend to the chores and for better results involve all the family members in doing the chores. Teenagers can handle responsibilities such as tutoring, babysitting, and even pet sitting.
It’s also important to talk about budgeting and money management to responsibly use money when they start earning. Also, encourage teenagers to take up jobs that allow them to make some money while still focusing on education.
Prioritize Family Time
Spending quality time as a family builds a positive relationship and boosts a teen’s self-esteem. Plan to have at least one meal together, probably when everyone is at home, and plan fun activities such as a vacation, outdoor games, visiting friends, or shopping sprees.
During family mealtimes, get to know how their day was, gauge their mood and encourage them to talk about their feelings. The more you spend time with the teenager, the sooner you’ll detect any issues such as bad influences, a drop in-class activities, or other emotional problems.
Note that solid family bonds determine a child’s success in class and how successful they’ll be in their adult relationships and life. Children with strong family ties tend to be happier and more confident as adults.
Encourage Hobbies
Don’t pressure the child to spend most of their time attending classwork but let them live a balanced life with hobbies and fun activities they do after school work. It can be anything like reading, playing an instrument, painting, hiking, or playing basketball.
Get to learn your child’s likes and dislikes and encourage them to try new hobbies while still supporting them with current extracurricular activities. Ways to encourage them are picking and dropping them at an event’s venue, investing in the required gear, getting to learn about the hobby, and participating in their events.
How to bring up an all rounded teenager: allow alone time
It’s okay to allow a teenager to have some unplanned time where they can relax, think about life, and make some critical decisions. When you have an introvert, this is usually not a problem, but you sometimes have to tone down activities for a hyper teenager.
Let them understand that they cannot thrive on attention, constant activities, and friendships alone, but they need quiet and alone time to think about their focus and figure out what they want to do with their life.
Encourage Them to Volunteer
Volunteering teaches a child to think beyond their daily needs and realize there are many less privileged people in society making their decisions and actions less self-centered. Find volunteer work within your community, such as hospitals, schools, clubs, churches, scouting organizations, and other volunteer networks that support the less privileged.
Choose the volunteer time to bond with your teenager and talk about life in general and encourage them to continue with charity work even as they grow older.
Learn How to Handle Conflicts and Mistakes
Teenagers can make mistakes quickly, and the type of relationship you have determines whether they will come to you when in trouble or seek help elsewhere. Encourage them to always reach out to you even when they make mistakes.
Stay calm when they are in the wrong, making them more comfortable to come to you when they are in trouble. Although it’s crucial to discipline teenagers and follow up on the set house rules, never shout or use any information they give you against them.
When an issue is overwhelming, like drug addiction, seek counseling not only for the teenager but also for yourself to have a more meaningful relationship.
It takes work to bring up an all-rounded teenager, and although sometimes they will make mistakes, be assured that they will turn out well if you have taught them the right things, brought them up in a healthy environment, and have a solid relationship.
