Category: Ages and Stages
Age range: ages 10-12 or 13-18

Adolescence — that charged word that causes many parents to roll their eyes and share that ‘knowing’ look. Some kids sail through this stage with relative ease, while others seem determined to make everyone’s life as difficult as possible, including their own. Parents often comment that it seems as though a different person has moved into their home, someone vastly different from the innocent, obedient, and affectionate younger child they had known. Adolescents may prefer not to be seen with their parents; they may retreat to their rooms as soon as they come home; they may spend hours on the phone or computer or listening to loud music; they may be extremely critical, but unable to take criticism they may have shocking standards of dress and general appearance; they may be overly concerned with every facial blemish, as if the whole world is judging them; they tend to be idealistic about social and political issues and can argue with parents about almost anything like champion debaters! This 4 part series gives parents an understanding of the developmental turbulence that is so typical of this stage. This series helps parents modify their communication styles and set limits when necessary, choosing issues sparingly and carefully.

The Pre-Teen and Early Teen Years consists of 4 sessions:

1. Laying the Foundation: Who Are They? Who Are We?
2. Let’s Talk About It: Keeping Communication Open
3. Areas of Disagreement & Conflict: Setting Limits
4. Conveying Values and Letting Go

Note: This 4 part series can also be scheduled as a 2 or 3 session series. Each session can also be scheduled as an individual workshop.

1. Laying the Foundation: Who Are They? Who Are We?

The teen and pre-teen years bring normal but dramatic changes as children move from childhood to adulthood. Adolescence is unquestionably a complex and challenging stage of development; but, it is a necessary transition. It helps for parents to have a strong understanding and realistic expectations about the changes happening for their children. This session helps parents understand the key developmental issues that pre-teens and teens face including physical changes, intellectual growth, and socio-emotional changes. It also focuses on the biggest tasks facing adolescents, including separating from their parents and determining who they are as individuals.

2. Let’s Talk About It: Keeping Communication Open

As with earlier stages of parenting, communication skills are the key to creating a comfortable and emotionally safe relationship with adolescents. There are lots of barriers to strong communication that arise in the pre-teen and teen years such as adolescents’ mood swings, their desire for increased control in their lives, their reliance on their peers and their questioning of family values. This session helps parents learn about and draw upon the changes adolescents undergo which can increase communication. It also gives parents tools to help gauge when to react and when to listen more and how to do both of these with the sensitivity adolescents require.

3. Areas of Disagreement and Conflict: Setting Limits

Adolescence demands a great deal of parents in terms of understanding the developmental issues of a new stage, learning new skills for positive, effective communication and facing the difficulty and pain of establishing a new balance between holding on and letting go. There definitely remains a need to establish certain limits on behavior. This session helps parents choose their battles carefully and know what to do when limits do not seem to be effective. Strategies for problem-solving with pre-teens and teens will also be shared and practiced.

4. Conveying Values and Letting Go

When we ask ourselves what kind of adults we hope our children will become, we must be willing to let them go. In working toward that goal, adolescents benefit from parenting which teaches the values we hold through our own words and actions as parents. Listening to them and respecting them, will teach them to listen to and respect us; but it takes time. This session focuses on helping parents define the values they most want to instill in their pre-teen and teenage children. It also explores the ways parents teach and convey those values and which strategies tend to be most effective with this age group. The issue of when a teen’s values differ from those of a parent’s is also explored.