As parents, one of the most challenging times for parenting in this life is the years in which children are raised. During this time it seems that life is at its busiest and that there’s no way everything is going to get finished. Sometimes the best advice for parents is to just try and do the best job possible with what’s available. Well, that’s not very helpful advice for parents now, is it?
Sometimes, with all that stress of a career and keeping a family together, parents may let those stresses build up and come out in ways that could be detrimental to their own children. Parenting styles can begin to swing toward the negative and may even get to the point of expecting the worst from children.
Best Advice for Parents’ Expectations of Teens
Yes, raising kids is frustrating, stressful, and downright hard at times. Parenting was never on the big list of easy things to accomplish in this life. Children are a true blessing and they may even prove that statement from time to time throughout their lives. But remember that children, especially teens, are flawed just like everyone.
Sometimes parents will come to expect so much from their own kids and think that they are bad parents. In this case, the relationship between parent and child becomes strained. The best advice for parents is to remember that children want to please their parents, they crave the structure and guidance from a loving, caring, understanding source. Good parenting means combining high parental expectations with real life, flawed individuals, and finding a happy medium in there somewhere.
Imperfect Parenting Makes Imperfect Kids
Some parents have made the mistake of setting expectations for their children way too high. Some have even come to expect the worst from their own kids. Teenagers seem to get the worst of this sort of failed expectations experience. Good parenting means not standing back and watching helplessly as a sweet child transforms into a supposed teenage monster. Parents are imperfect, flawed people who raise imperfect, flawed little people.
There is hope and it comes in the form of unconditional love. Unconditional love does not mean there are no rules, discipline, consequences, or expectations. Those are necessary for parenting kids. Love is like oil in an engine. Love allows all the hard steel to move together, reducing the friction and heat, keeping the whole thing working together. Love allows imperfect people to be together. Love allows imperfect kids to be kids, and imperfect parents to leave room for mistakes.
Teenagers and Expectations of Good Parenting
Ever wonder what teenagers think about their own parents? That should never be a question in the minds of parents. Yes, teens tend to be evasive, secretive, and even deceptive, but remember what they’re going through. This is a time of massive change and shifting in their young lives. Almost everything in their world is changing every day. But good parenting means open and honest communication with children.
This type of open communication in the parent/child relationship is critical, especially in these times of change and challenge. Good parenting means starting and cultivating a relationship in which both parents and children can be totally honest. What children expect from parents and what parents expect from their children will not be an unknown factor. Communication means knowing and discussing the expectations of both parents for children and children for parents.
The challenge of parenting kids can seem daunting at times. Good parenting means expecting that children will change, almost daily. But the essence of who they are really never changing. The best advice for parents is to expect kids to achieve great things while expecting they may experience spectacular failure. Loving kids through these challenging times is what good parenting is all about.