And because they are attention hungry, they go out of their way to do something outrageous,or do the exact opposite of whatever they're told to do,in other to gain attention. Someone said and I quote " If you want your children to listen to you, then, listen to them." Listening to your teens makes them feel they are wanted and important. This also paves the way for building a stronger relationship with them.
Building a rapport with your adolescents will go a long way to help them overcome the various challenges they face and the negative influence on their lives,especially peer pressure. Having a good relationship with your kids entails making our time to talk with them,and most importantly to listen to them. Even when you're rushing out of the house because you're almost late for work or a meeting, take a minute to listen to your child when he has something to tell you. You never can tell what will come out of that discussion.
Some youths say things like "I wish I have someone to talk to." " No one cares about how I fell." " What's the use of saying anything, no one will listen to me." " Even if I confide in my parents,all they will do is criticize me and make me feel like devil himself." Everyone needs a listening ear. Your kids needs to know they won't feel worse after confiding in you,if you do not take time to hear them out,they may get the impression that they are not relevant in the scheme of things.
This impression is negative and destructive to their mental development as young adults, and is one of the reasons young people increasingly detached themselves from their parents. They'll rather take their problems to their peers who don't know better and the result of this is that parents are left in situations where they can't really tell what is going on in the lives of their kids and don't have any clue as how to help them out. Also brings misunderstanding and frequent friction between parents and children.
Listening to one's kids is one of the hardest parts of parenting,but it goes a long way in successful parenting,listening to your teens will not only help you find out how they think,perceive life, and the things happening in their lives, it will also give the children an assurance of some sort according to Lindsay Taliaferro,assistant professor of Health Sciences at the University of Missouri. " Just talking about their feelings allows young people to articulate what they're going through and to feel understood,which can provide comfort.
Adults don't need to solve all of a teens problems, but they should let the teens know they have a safe person they can talk to,many times you may not feel like listening to what they have to say,it might not be convenient and the conversation might seems meaningless; do it all the same, because listening to your kids creates a bond between you and them.
This will give him/her the confidence to express dissatisfaction,concerns and fears, do you know that when you listen to your kids there is a like hood that they too will listen to you? Someone said, "once communication with your child improves,many things are possible."
Research shows that many youths don't go to adults gatherings, especially religious gathering because all they say in those gatherings have nothing to do with them. "They don't have us in mind, so what's the use attending the women fellowship," a teenage girl once said. you hardly find youths in some religious gathering all because they do not have program for them, while some are mainly attended by youths because they are acknowledged and given proper attention. Youths are hero worshippers and need a mentor to look up to. A recent study in Canada shows that youths with a mentor were more confident and got into less trouble than those without one. They also felt more self assured about their classroom performance and less anxious about peer pressure.
Parents and adults should take a cue from this article and make themselves available, listen more and complain less about youths.
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