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8-Tips on How to Transition from Parenting Your Child to Parenting Your Teen

Parenting Your Teen –From Middle School Thru High School

To start this discussion,I wanted to go over Kohlberg’s theory of moral development. Level one of this theory talks about the preconventional morality which covers birth to nine years old. Kohlberg thought that within this time span that children have little to no personal code of morality. They don’t sit there and think, “is this theright thing to do?” He suggested that a child’s moral code is shaped by the standards of the adults around them andthe benefits and consequences of compliance to the morals of those around them. Moral compliance is determined by the adults around the child;therefore they watch the adults around them to see what is being modeled for them and they will learn from this as well as being punishedfor things that are perceived to be wrong or a negative that they have done, based on the opinions of the adults around them. Therefore, morals will change from family to family as well as from teacher to teacher. Eventually as a child ages they will say,“okay, if I do this thing, am I going to get in trouble, and is the reward greater than the punishment?” Stage Oneis obedience and punishment avoidance. Within this stage Kohlberg discusses that if a person is punished and they must have done wrong. Therefore, the child learns right from wrong mainly by being punished. This is egocentric, centrated, dichotomous thinking (pre-operational thought). Kids within the age of birth to nine years old tend to think very egocentrically and dichotomously. For example, they might see someone getting in trouble and think that person must have done something wrong because they got in trouble. So,for this child they are not thinking about what they did but rather in very simple terms that they did something wrong and that’s why they got in trouble. In their minds there is no other explanation for what happened. Therefore, this is in line with preoperational thought. As they get older, stage to a preconventional morality is individualism and exchange. Within this stage, kids start to think that there might be several different points of view. So rather than simply believing that someonedid something wrong because they got in trouble, they might start to question what they did wrong and question the punishment for what that person did. Therefore, they are beginning to recognize that there can be multiple “right” views in each situation. Within this stage they start to recognize that there are different perspectives within different situations and that different individuals have different viewpoints. This is where they start to get out of the dichotomous thinking during this stage. This isin line with concrete operational thought where they can see that perhaps Mom has a different perspective than dad and one person might giveout a punishment for a behavior while the other person might think that the behavior is OK. So,the child can now start to see that the world is not black and white but rather there are gray areas within our thoughts and behaviors.

Level two within cold berg theory of moral development is conventional morality which is 9+ years old. Within this stage they have begun to internalize moral standards of the valued adult role models that are around them. Therefore, the adults around them that they start to align with and value the way that they live life, they will begin to take hold of the moral standards of these adult role models because they align with them. Therefore,authority from different adults with different viewpoints is internalized but not questioned. A child might question the parenting of one parent over another or one teacher over another and they will internalize what they are learning without much question of it. A child’s friends as well as the media will begin to play a more important and prominent role within the child’s morality during this stage. What experts have found within this stage and the high school years, is that people with low self-esteem and low confidence, will take what a parent, a teacher, a coach,a friend, or people in the media and

 

not question it, therefore, they might feel like they don’t live up to the standards that those around them have set. However, if they questioned these standards or perceptions,they would be able to determine if they believed that the standards were okay or irrational. For example, if someone around them has repeatedly said or behaved in a way that a person needs to be successful in order to be lovable and being successful is having a lot of money or having a prominentjob title, they might believethat they need to have these things in order to be lovable or likable. Within this stage kids are taking in what those around them are saying and if a child is not able to distinguish between what they believe to be importantor true, and what they are role models see as important or true they might start to take on the beliefs of those around them as well as the morals of those around them. Within level two of Kohlberg‘s theory of moral development cognitive reasoning tends to be based on the norms of thepeer group one is within. A peer group could consist of friends, a school sports team, family members, or a partner and their family. Usually as children grow,they start to see different perspectives and question the values of others and decide what values they want to have for themselves, and as they do this they tend to grow in confidence and self-esteem and believethat they are making good choices. In stage three within level two of Kohlberg’s theory is good interpersonalrelationships. Children will also start to question and consider what makes them a good person, a good person for themselves as well as a good person within their peer groups, as well as a good person within society. They will begin to look at their role models and think about what makes them a good person and consider what they would like to do or how they would like to behave so that they will bethought of as a good person as well. As parents, we have some control and, I believe, a parental obligation to sit with our kids and have a conversation either nightly or a few times per week to see what is being said within their peer groups, at school from teachers, at sports functions, at friends’houses, etc. to find out what some of the discussed values are so that we can have a conversation about the values of others and white our child wants to take with them as their own values. For example, if their friends believe that they have to get the newest shoes as they come out or the newest clothes, parents might want to question this and findout what their child believes. This will help their child to question the morals and values of those around them as well as the conversations that are being had around them so that they don’t feel like they have to follow the crowd, but rather, stand on their own and have their own beliefs, values, and morals. This will greatly add to their confidence and self-esteem.Parents can ask their child if certain things that they are talking about are important to them as a person now and if they think that it will be important to them as they grow, or if this is just somethingthat is important to their friends, so they canhelp them to distinguish between these two. This is very important to kids in middle school as they are hearing different points of view andperspectives as well as seeing how their friends behave, they can learn that it is okay if they feel a different way, and want to make different choices to hold different things as a higher value than others. For example, ifyour child is not concerned about the newest clothing or shoes, but rather thinks that reading is important and they want to know the newest books that come out and are interested more in that, they can learn from you and receive that validation and support that the way that they feel is exactly how they should feel, and they don’t need to think or act the way that their friends do. This differentiation and individualism will be very important for them as they grow in confidence through high school and their young adult years.

 

Piaget’sTheory of Cognitive Development

Now moving on to looking at children ages 7 to 11 within the realm of Piaget‘s theory of cognitive development. Within this theory children I thought too be at the beginning stages of being able to evaluate things on more than just one characteristic, meaning that things are not black-and-white but rather there are multiple reasons why people make decisions. And within this stage which is the Concrete Operational Stage, children are able to see that there are different reasons why they could make a decision on a specific matter. This means that by the time children are middle school age they will be able to make decisions based on complex reasoning and using more information regarding the subject to make that decision. WithinPiaget‘s theory, children ages 7 to 11 years old, will be able to use inductive reasoning, which means that children will be able to draw general conclusions from their personal experiences and specific facts about a situation to make choices. However, within this stage children are still developing deductive reasoning, which means that they are still learning how to use general principles to predict an event. This includes abstract and hypothetical reasoning which will continue to be developed through their high school years. In terms of parenting within this stage, children that have had faulty inductive reasoning or deductive reasoning will likely have a lot more cognitive distortions. Therefore, parents will likely hear more of all or nothing thinking, over generalizations, and egocentric thinking and personalization.

As far as formal operational thinking within Piaget‘s theory, within the ages of 7 to 11 years old, children begin to develop more abstract thinking and hypothesizing, their experiences within their life will likely start to prompt them to utilize their inductive reasoning, which looks like, “My experiences have led me to predict…“ This type of thinking looks like, “in the past when I’ve gone to a new school it’s been scary but it’s fine…” deductive reasoning within the stage of would look like, “foster hair homes in general are supposed to be safe places where I can learn, grow, and hang out until my parents can come and get me,“ so this is the general idea behind deductive reasoning and expecting and predicting outcomes. If things turn out differently than children were expecting, it is important for parents or guardians to have a conversation with them regarding their hopes, fears, and expectations because this helps children to express their feelings while also learning why something hasn’t worked out the way that they predicted, which will help them in the future to be more open and understanding. Basically these conversations will help children to learn how to accommodate situations and feelings when things don’t work out the way you thought they would.

 

 

Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs

Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs it talks about our biological, safety, love and belonging, self-esteem, and self actualization. When we’re talking about children in middle school, they are still developing their self-esteem, their sense of love and belonging, being loved by others and also loving and accepting themselves. As parents and guardians we can help them to look at our whole self and all of our in needs, from our biological needs to our safety, love and belonging needs. To start with this it is extremely important to help our kids develop an effective, independent sleep routine. Kids within this age need at least 10 hours of sleep per night to promote emotional stability as well as a healthy physical body which is allowed to develop to peak performance and peak health. For example, there are going to be times where they are really stressed or going through a growth spurt and they need a more sleep than normal and they are going to need your help to be able to identify those times. Nutrition is a big part of Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs as a healthy and well rounded nutritional daily diet is needed for creating healthy building blocks for their body and brain. It is very important that parents or guardians start teaching their children within the middle school years to eat for hunger and nutrition rather than for taste and emotional coping. For example, if your child had a bad day or played poorly during a school sport, do not ask if they want to go to get ice cream so they feel better. This is encouraging eating as an emotional support system which will grow as they become adults. The same can be said for eating to celebrate some thing that they have done well. This might be fun to do once in a while but should be restricted to a healthy amount so that parents are not promoting emotional eating or restricting, but rather eating healthy for nutritional purposes. Within the middle school years, it is important that parents and guardians start talking with their kids about stimulants and sugar. Children need to be aware of the impact of stimulants and sugar on the brain and body, as well as their emotional stability and mood control. Talk with your children about the different ingredients within the different products that they might be offered at their friends houses or at school. For example chocolate is a stimulant, most fruit drinks like HI-C, apple juice, or soda have extremely high amounts of sugar or artificial sugar which will impact their mood, focus, memory and emotional stability, as well as sleep and quality of sleep. Children within the middle school years should also be highly encouraged to be outdoors during the day so that they can be out in the sunlight absorbing vitamin D. Sunlight also helps set there circadian rhythms, therefore, making it extremely important that children are outside in the sun for a certain amount of time each day. This will help to increase their mood and immune system as well. The biological needs within Maslow’s hierarchy of care include medical care. I personally recommend finding a naturopathic doctor versus a medical doctor pushing pharmaceutical drugs with heavy, negative side effects that can effect your child well into their adult years, if not their entire life. A naturopathic doctor will be able to help you to find all natural supplements and vitamins that your body might be needing in order to function and grow to its peak performance mentally and physically. As long as you take the correct amount of supplements and vitamins there are not negative side effects, therefore, making this a safe and effective alternative to pharmaceutical drugs that can have immediate and long lasting side effects.Exercise is extremely important as it relieves stress, increases self-esteem, increases serotonin levels, and helps kids to develop a healthy movement habit. Exercise helps kids to figure out how to work within the body that they are in and appreciating the body that they are in. Within the safety aspect of Maslow‘s hierarchy of needs, it is important to work with our kids on emotional safety. Emotional safety includes mindfulness and being mindful of the present and mindful of ourselves and our goals, how we expect to be treated by others and how we will set boundaries with others, and interpersonal effectiveness and communication skills.
 
So taking into consideration all of the above information, let’s talk about an effective way of parenting your middle school child. In this stage, it is important to parent your child while also giving them the ability to discover who they are and who they want to be. Experts discovered decades ago that the best combination for parenting your child is the right balance between being assertive, comforting and accepting, and a good role model. Children need a parent that is somewhat strict so that they feel safe in being; growing, expressing themselves, making mistakes, making friends, trying new things, exploring their world, and communicating their needs, communicating with others, establishing important relationships, and creating and maintaining relationships with peers. Children need guidelines to feel safe. This creates a level of trust in you as parents from your children, that is needed for them within their foundation of being, to try new things and potentially fail or if a child has parents that is too lenient or not present enough in their life they will feel like they have to be the adult and the watcher of themselves. This will not allow them to be a child and explore new things without the fear of failure because they are going to be afraid of failure because of the negative impact on themselves, the people around them, and potentially their future. Too often nowadays we see parents giving their children way too much freedom; freedom to be on their devices as much as they want, freedom to hang out with their friends wherever they want, freedom to stay at home way too much by themselves, freedom to be on their phone or the Internet with out being monitored, etc. This freedom allows kids to grow up way too fast, assuming way too much responsibility at a far too young of age. This will greatly affect their cognitive functioning as well as their emotional maturity and stability. There is a reason why we are considered children for so long, and that is mainly because it is needed for us to grow and learn and make the mistakes necessary for growth and learning how to be successful and prosperous and fully functioning adult.
 
 

10 Essential Tips For Parenting Your Middle School or High School Child

1.Remember that you are a parent and a friend. Kids at this age might act like they want you to be more of a “cool parent“ or a friend more so than a parent. Your child might push you away and ask like they know what’s best for them and their future. They might act like they know how to handle all of the situation’s with her friends. They might act like they don’t want to be around you very much. They also might act like they don’t want you to know what’s going on in their life. However, kids at this age need the space to learn about themselves, who they are and who they want to be, but they also need the comfort and guiding hand of their parent. This is where a balance of being a friend and a parent will be the best mix for raising your middle school or high school age child. In being a mixture of a friend and a parent your child is able to have the stability of having a parent while also creating a deep bond with you as a friend which will carry on throughout their adulthood.

2.Establish reliable together time every single day. This basically means that you need to check in and have a quality conversation with your child every day to see how their day was and see how they are doing. It is up to their parent to make the time every day to establish this time of open and constructive communication. This is when your child will learn that is OK to talk to you about anything on their mind, share things that might have upset them, ask for your advice, or just spend quality time with you that they can count on every day. And having this daily communication, both the child and the parents will become more and more comfortable talking about things openly; which will illuminate some of the uncomfortableness that goes along with difficult conversations or topics that need to be addressed. Try to remember back to when you were in middle school or high school, What types of topics or issues would you have liked to talk to your parents about but we’re either too embarrassed, uncomfortable, and or shameful? These topics might have been more easily discussed if your parents would have been more comfortable having these daily conversations with you. In having an established time and conversation every day, everyone involved can look forward to it, count on it happening, and plan for things to either do or discuss. In maintaining this practice, the bond and relationship with your child will be positively impacted.

3.Keep your standards high. Your child at this age is growing, learning, and will want to start expressing themselves as well as creating goals for their life. As they do this it is very important that their parents accept and support Who they are and what their goals are. Though their goals and self expression tactics might change as they get older, it is important as parents that we support our children without judgment, but rather with guidance and open communication regarding hopes and concerns. If you have concerns about some of their behaviors or goals, try having an open and honest conversation with them where they are able to express themselves and share their plan of action as well as their fears or concerns. In openly communicating with your child during this process, you are solidifying a healthy foundation for which your child will feel comfortable coming to you with concerns in the future.
 
4.Eating meals together should be a top priority. Eating breakfast and dinner together as often as possible will also add in creating a healthy foundation for your entire family to have a close connection. This is a great time for families to come together to either talk about their day ahead or talk about the day that they had. In sharing this, kids will learn how to communicate in an effective manner with their parents and siblings. Making time to cook and eat together is a great way for kids to learn self expression. Cooking is a very mindful thing to do that eases stress and highs you to the present moment mimicking a meditative practice. When we cook we have to be very present in the moment which helps to defuse stress from the day, while also trying new things and tasting our creations, which increases one’s self expression.
 
5.Create and maintain healthy lines of communication. If you don’t communicate often enough with your child, they will not feel comfortable communicating with you when they need your support and guidance. If you don’t know what is going on in your teens life you will not be able to guide them to a healthy outcome. If you can set aside time to talk with each of your teens every night by themselves, you will be creating a safe place for them to communicate with you any concerns, fears, or issues they are having. If you are able to do this and they are able to come to you and talk with you about concerns, they might not need to rely on the support from friends quite so much. Therefore, decreasing the influence that their peers have on them. Teens that don’t have a healthy parental involvement within their lives tend to rely heavily on support and guidance from their peers which isn’t always a good thing. If this happens too often, The child’s self-esteem and self awareness can be negatively impacted.
 
6.Encourage a healthy self-care routine. It is extremely important that your child hears you talk about a healthy self-care routine. Communicating the importance of self-care to your child will help them to create a good self-care routine of their own. Therefore, modeling a good self-care routine for yourself is one of the best ways to effectively communicate this concept with your child. A good self-care routine might include: a healthy sleep habit or pattern, an exercise routine daily, no caffeine as it interrupts one’s sleep pattern, good hygiene as this will increase one’s overall physical health and self-confidence, and distressing activities throughout the day, for example, taking walks and practicing deep breathing and saying affirmations throughout the day. Talking with your child about the importance of self-care when they are 18 years old will lay the groundwork for a healthy self care regimen as they become adults. Life can be very stressful and a lot can be required from your child as they go through middle school, high school, college, and as they are entering the workforce. Therefore, having a healthy self-care routine that they can put in their schedule will be extremely beneficial to their overall health, mentally and physically.
 
7.Have weekly family meetings. This can be a long talk or a short conversation that is followed up with games or doing puzzles. Actively communicating as a family and hearing everyone’s concerns and progress in different areas of their lives is important for everyone in the family and will keep all members of the family Close. When having a family meeting make sure that you start by addressing everyone’s concerns and writing them down and going down the list so that everyone feels heard and valued. Then talk about some positives that each family member sees within the family but also within their lives out in the world. This is a great time to keep all of the family members updated and what’s going on in everyone’s life. This will keep the family members closely united, will help the children to feel supported and valued, which will increase their self-esteem and confidence. This will also help your child to feel a sense of security and stability as they enter the world, knowing that they come from a family that is strongly united and has a healthy foundation.
 
8. Promote and enforce responsibility and respect for others. It is important that children no that there is a necessity for them to be responsible within their lives. They need to know that they will be required to take responsibility within different areas of their life. If a child breaks the rule or doesn’t do what they said they were going to do or what was required of them, it is important for their parents to set guidelines and reinforce with consequences, as well as receiving positive reinforcement when they do something well. Teens need to know that they need to follow through with what they agreed to do and set out to do. Remember that you are not just raising a child but you are raising a responsible and respectful adult who will be fully capable of running their life while maintaining self-care, balance, and being successful with all of the goals that they set for themselves. Enforcing the rules and guidelines will help your child to feel safe and secure while also pushing them to do their best which will increase their inner growth, self-awareness, and self-confidence.