Dealing with the perils of the teenage years

THE final stage before adulthood is usually a rough time for youngsters as they seek a sense of identity and push the limits in almost everything.

From trying alcohol, partying, experimenting with relationships, attempting to fit into popular culture, you name it, your teen will likely try it.

But during these tumultuous years, it is important to stick close to your children. If you don’t, you may permanently lose your precious gems to the world, and destroy the potential of having a good relationship with them in their adult years.

Kaysia Kerr, chief executive officer of the National Parenting Support Commission, told All Woman that typically, most teens try to wade through the explosion of ideas, thinking they have the solutions when they don’t.

“While transitioning, they feel that they are old enough to do certain things without guidance. But it is important that parents stay close to them and help them with questions and provide them with real and reasonable answers. Show them options through probing without any threat of punishment. As a parent you must be able to have an open conversation with your child without any punitive action. Give them proper guidance to weather the stormy years of adolescence, and if you are having difficulty coming up with answers, refer to the NPSC or state agencies established to offer support,” she advised.

Additionally, psychologist and chief ideator of Above and Beyond, Dr Leachim Semaj, said those are the years when a critical component of identity is being formed, and the first source where children get the framework for identity is what they experience in the home.

“Parents have to stick close to their children; the home sets the frame of reference. Imagine a child growing up and not seeing positive examples in the home. While there are good outcomes from single-parent homes, in a single-parent family the child is not seeing the dynamic between mother and father, you’re not seeing how they love each other, you’re not seeing how they break up and make up again. Those dynamics are completely foreign to them. All you will have in your frame of reference is what you see on TV, in movies, or what you hear dancehall music talk about. It gives you a very warped view of what is indeed possible,” he said.

Dr Semaj also made reference to teens needing a positive male figure during those times in order to understand critical elements of their sexuality.

“There’s a special case around girls we have not talked about a lot, where generally the first person a girl falls in love with is daddy, and she wants a husband like daddy. But what if daddy is not there, what if daddy is not that kind of person, what if daddy is someone her mother is always cursing as your ‘no good puppa’? Then that is her frame of reference. Look at some high school girls when they get involved with taxi drivers and bus conductors,” he explained. “Many times the first male that told them they were beautiful, that told them how nice they look are those men, and because they didn’t have daddy telling them this all the time, [they go to] the first conductor who rubs up against them on the bus.”

He painted another example, using girls maturing in an environment around males with whom they are not biologically connected.

Dr Semaj said that in this situation the girl’s body will mature faster as it responds to the likely passes grown men around her will make.

“Just imagine a teenage girl growing up in a tenement yard where every morning when she is going to the bathroom all the man dem a look har. Her body will respond. Some men aren’t mature enough to know that when she is hugging her stepfather and wants to sit in his lap, she is just flexing her femininity, and then you have this male who violates that, who takes advantage of that. All of these things can set her back, as it is part of how her identity and femininity are being formulated,” he explained.

Dr Semaj said it is important to reassure your children so that they don’t look to friends or strangers for justification.

“I made sure I told my daughters how beautiful they were, why I named them after princesses and queens, how bright and how sharp they were. I told them they didn’t need a man to shape their identity. They can be anything they want to be. I told my sons exactly the same thing. You become the kind of partner you want in life. Whatever it is you want, you become it. Just imagine parents who are not actively involved in their teenagers’ lives,” he said.

Dr Semaj added: “Be there for your children. Understand their mood. Fit into their world, do something they like doing, and they will talk to you. For me, I made it my duty to take the kids to school from prep school right through to university before they learnt to drive. That’s the time the most effective conversations take place ­— road trips, family trips. It provides a context when you are alone and they can open up to you and share their fears and concerns.”

The psychologist also pointed out that parents must know who their children’s friends are and give them options.

“It’s important that you get to know their friends. My yard is where all the noise was made. The only rule was no bad words, no fighting, but play your basketball, talk and do anything else. They had to visit grandma, they attended jazz festivals and experienced a new horizon. As they got older they thanked me for having exposed them to so many options in life. So it’s a rough time. We have to help them through that rough period of their life. It’s the last stage before adulthood where their identity and the framework for partnership get established.”