As you watch your children enter the brave new world of the twenty- first (21st ) century; adolescence you can feel the sting of the volatile emotional reaction to this upheaval.
Being a teenager is an out of body experience, out of a Child's body into an adult or somewhere in between. A teenager may look like an adult while acting as a two year old as determined to establish their own identity of a defiant toddler. It’s a point of concern. Are they ready to handle the real world that awaits beyond safety of our protective care?
Naturally, our teens grow more self- involved and peer oriented. They assimilate into a real sub-culture adopting distinctive dress styles, hair styles, along with music and languages that often offends adult ears.
All this is rounded up into a deep personal struggle with identity and self-worth “WHO AM I” There’s a transition from dependence to independence, autonomy versus autonomy. They may totally change from the children we used to know. It could give some parents sleepless nights worrying about their teenagers.
In the adolescent ages, our teens get carried away by their mindset of the physical environment, wanting to enjoy life with their peers, this cannot but happen. Therefore, it is the duty of the parents to carefully guide their teenagers and help them lead a successful teenage life.
As parents, we hail from different backgrounds having different beliefs, we passed series of training which has helped us become the successful adults we are today, but many times we fail to identify the appropriate methods required for proper upbringing of our teenagers.
Let’s examine some approach of various parenting;
HELICOPTER PARENTS
The helicopter parents make a lot of wind, noise and vibrations, and go very fast. Their place in the world is to hover, rescue and protect. Emergency rescued team could not function without them. But what if the helicopter hovers ahead and there’s no emergency? Then it’s a problem
When parents hover ahead to provide constant protection, its nuisance! It can hinder normal life. Those who can use this approach are called HELICOPTER PARENTS. They stay close to rescue their children whenever a problem arises. Helicopter parents watch for their beloved offspring to send a signal flare, then they swoop to shield their children from teachers, play mates and other apparently hostile elements. Unfortunately, they shield their children from any of the significant learning opportunities offered. They accept any of the worry for the consequences their children should be shouldering themselves. They seem very caring and always there to do things for their children, but the dangers are real.
When the children hurt, they bail out, they force their children to do things irrespective of the consequences. Children raised by helicopter parents will turn to bee helicopters themselves someday, they will run out of fuel and crash in their personal lives, reasons being that their learning opportunities were stolen from them in the name of LOVE.
See Also: PICTURES - CHURCH LETS HOMELESS PEOPLE SLEEP IN PEWS
When the children hurt, they bail out, they force their children to do things irrespective of the consequences. Children raised by helicopter parents will turn to bee helicopters themselves someday, they will run out of fuel and crash in their personal lives, reasons being that their learning opportunities were stolen from them in the name of LOVE.
See Also: PICTURES - CHURCH LETS HOMELESS PEOPLE SLEEP IN PEWS
JET POWERED PARENTS:
These parents are like the helicopter parents not just rescuing and defending their children, but flow in with missile locked in to attack anyone who held their children accountable for his or her actions. They are “JET POWERED ATTACK MODEL” of the helicopter parents.
These parents are obsessed to create a perfect life for their children. The children should never face struggle, inconveniences, discomforts and disappointment. They can blast anyone who sets high standards for behaviour morality or achievements that may cause their children to take responsibility for themselves.
These kinds of children cannot stand up to their feet to claim their rights, they are never outspoken. They would rather wait for momma and poppa to fight their battles while being abused and molested, rather than rise up, strike for themselves to protect their integrity. They lack full understanding. These children are rendered handicap by their parents, since everything is done for them.
DRILL SERGENT PARENTS:
They are impressive parents like the helicopter parents. They make a lot of noise, stir things up and create incredible and immediate motivation in their listeners. They mostly issue commands and expect their children to obey irrespective of whether it hurts or not. They believe children must submit without protest. Drill sergent parents feel that the more the bark control, the better their children will be in the long run. These parents are on power trip. They assumed the children will be disciplined, they will know how to act right etc. The children of the Drill Sergent parents don’t know how to make decisions. They have been ordered around all their lives listening to voices outside their heads, when they moved into adolescence, and tried to shout out their parents voices having no internal voice of their own.
Drill Sergent parents use punishment(s) as a consequence for their children’s mistake(s). These parents discover that when they provide them with a great escape, value escape from the consequences of their actions. The children of these kinds of parents become very secretive in their lives, they hardly talk about their problems and challenges of life, they are exposed to the public which may end up getting them wrong informed because they’ve got un-understanding parents. The Drill Sergent parents hide vital and needful information from their teenagers. They feel their commands are enough to build their children into what they want them to become. The children of these kinds of parents are choice less, and often times imbalanced emotionally.
THE LAISSEZ-FAIRE PARENTS:
“LAISSEZ-FAIRE” According to the dictionary interpretations this word means “with minimally restricted freedom”.
These are parents that allow their children raise themselves all by themselves. If given the time and opportunity, they will even grow into successful and creative people, if the parents will just stay out of the way and not interfere. Some believe that they should be their children’s best friends not holding them accountable for anything, making sure they are always happy and have what they want. They believe preserving this kind of relationship is more important than teaching their children discipline and character. Rather than holding their children responsible for their actions, they simply let them run free, believing responsibility will rod off on their children during quality time. Others don’t seem to know what to do with their adolescent children and give up trying.
Emphasis here is that, this is “NOT” a true type of parenting, but an abdication of parenting responsibilities. If children were to run the home they should have been born larger.
THE CONSULTANT PARENTS:
The consultant parenting style is a better alternative, which works well throughout life; most effective with teenagers.
In adolescence, children move from being concrete thinkers to what child psychologist Jean Piaget called “FORMAL OPERATIONS” or “ABSTRACT THINKING”
With the change in cognition, parents must adjust their parenting to meet new thought process happening in their children. Children between ages 12 and 25 years affect brain wiring and thus future behaviour patterns than any other time. Younger children think concretely and heed thoughtful guidance and sometimes firm limits. Teens often resent guidelines and rebel at firm limits because they have grown to think differently. Their brains are drawn to pure emotions and extreme thrills, and have the ability to reason abstractly. Parents should work more on developing the reasoning skills of the higher and more advanced parts of their brains.
Teens read the rescue message of the helicopter parents as ’You are fragile and cannot make it without me’ They pick on the Do-as-I-Tell-you message from the Drill Sergent Parents “ you cannot think for yourself so I do it for you”. They see the ”whatever will be” approach of the Laissez- faire parents as not coring about them or not being of any help in setting boundaries in which they can feel safe.
Some parents resort to issuing commands and punishments which the children resort to irresponsibility, resistance and rebellion.
Children raised by consultant ask questions and offer choices instead of telling their children what to do, they put the burden of decision making on their shoulders. They establish options with safe limits. Parents can prepare their children for the world by shaping families.
Godly parents raise their children in the way of God through the word of God and godly guidance. Learning to trust God to help lead and direct children in their choices, raising family altars, sharing their personal experiences and depending on God to guide and direct the victories they won and the peace they receive in allowing God to be the centre of their lives, will help children in their choices. This builds upon the consultant parenting approach; children should not be trusted to take decisions but should rather be corrected and encouraged where they fail.
Train up a child in the way He should go, and when he grows he will never depart from it
It’s a compulsory assignment for parents to genuinely train up their children that they may become successful adults who will be confident enough to give quality training to their wards as the circle continues.
If children are properly taken care of, it becomes difficult for them to get carried away by the pressure of their age, there will be no reason for them to keep terrible secrets to themselves, also they won’t be wrongly informed.
The mistake parents of this millennium generation make is that they fail to dish out vital information. The easiest way parents can actually give their children a sound training is by building a communication bridge to help them keep their children rightly informed. This goes a long way in helping our children make the right choices. Sexual impurity comprising of abuse and assaults have become the norm in our society today, yet parents fail to keep their children informed of these things, with the belief that they are not matured enough to learn these things.
I will recommend that sex education should begin from age six (6) in our present generation, I as a person started facing the challenge of sexual harassment at age six, that’s how wicked the world we are in. Leaving my experience aside, a child within the age 12 and 25years, should be given proper orientation about sex, they should also be immensely taught of the rigors and vigor of the adolescent age, so that they don’t fall victims of the consequences caused by lack of information.
I am a very good example of a not properly informed teenager. I was raised by a guidance that taught me FEAR and was only registered in my memory as fear- designer. All they knew best to do was create fear in my heart, even while I was being molested under their guidance. They make lots of noises like the helicopter parents, they were absolutely like the drill sergent parents who only cared about giving orders without caring whether it hurts or not, they were neither jet powered If only they had adopted the laissez-faire parenting method maybe it would have helped a little, but NO, they didn’t apply this method, the worst is that they were never consulting. I had to face the world alone, fighting my own battles until I found the right source of information. Thank goodness I hadn’t committed much errors, I found correction and true guidance just in time.
When there are no informations, and mistakes are committed and the consequences come knocking, who should we blame?
This is another challenge the children are faced with. Their parents tend to blame them for making mistakes even when they themselves failed in their duty of giving out information to their children. Please parents don’t blame these children, the mistakes would have been avoided if only you hadn’t failed in your duty as parents. How do you expect a child to learn when he’s not taught? Be faithful to keep them updated. Filling their lives with fear isn’t good enough.
From the above listed parenting approach, the consultant parenting approach is the best. The consultant parenting approach consist of a little dose of the helicopter parents, jet powered parents, drill sergent parents and the laissez faire parents.
It is of great necessity that children are protected, they deserve love, care and support from their parents to grow into successful adults. Children also wawnt to talk and have their parents listen.
Parents should also respect the good choices of their children and encourage them in their pursuit. Remember “If children were to take care of themselves, they should have been born adults”
Written By
Omagbemi Adedolapo Jasper
{jasola writings}
Tags
Editorial