How to understand my adolescent son?

Conflicts between parents and adolescent children arise, in part, because of the difference between generations.

A technological acceleration has caught the attention of adolescents, who seek to feel connected to the world through social networks, games ...

Today's adolescents have developed skills for the use of these technologies from an early age, and in For some guys, this has to some extent spawned a lifestyle that involves staying connected for most of the time. weather. In some cases, they have stopped giving priority to school activities because of keeping busy in this way, and the parental concern about how to manage access and times without totally restricting the use of those devices electronic

This has caused conflicts in the relationship between parents and adolescents. How to approach them? Let's see.

• Related article: "The 3 stages of adolescence"

Common mistakes in parenting teens

When children show intolerance and irritability and it comes to impact the whole family, parents make sometimes desperate attempts to improve the situation.

Here are the most common ways parents attend therapy counseling sessions:

• Impose penalties, limiting the use of devices as a whole (games, cell phones, computers) for long periods of time (from two weeks to a month).
• Scolding with expressions with disqualifying adjectives (foolish, lazy, irresponsible, rebellious).
• Pushing, slapping.
• Restrict permissions for parties or socializing activities with friends.
• Assign responsibilities within the home, such as participating in some housekeeping or room cleaning activity.
• Limit your access to choosing a personal taste and acquiring it.

Many times this does not work for them, and parents reach a point where patience runs out and they realize they can no longer "control" their adolescent.

Understanding the adolescent child from Psychology

When parents arrive at the Psychology consultation, the advice they receive is directed towards some issues such as the following.

• Help them start a new way of making changes to communicate with their adolescent.
• Give tools to make the imposed restrictions more flexible.
• Establish clearly and with agreements new limits.
• Guide parents on how to exercise their role as a father and locate the role of their child by guiding responsibilities according to her age and that allow her to strengthen her development.
• Teach to accompany your adolescent son on this new path of discovery and self-knowledge to become a youth and later an adult.

For this, the following points are addressed:

• Understand that your child begins a new stage of development that makes him nervous, with the need to be recognized even in your emotions, frustrations, concerns and the desire to feel certain independence.
• To be able to recognize that children can observe themselves, reflect on their actions and manage to give themselves an explanation of their actions.
• Easily recover from conflicts and continue with your activities.
• Recognize that when young people react to defend their position it is not out of disrespect; they try not to be assertive to resolve his existential conflicts, without achieving it.
• They try to achieve autonomy by expressing their moods and the family is driven to change rhythms and tones when communicating with adolescents.
• Understand that the way in which the adolescent begins to live will depend on his personality, the way he lived with his parents as a child, and the changes in his family environment.
• Understand how your child feels about his body, height, hormonal changes, emotional and what beliefs when forming his selfconcept and esteem.

Possible sources of the problem

Parents come to the consultation in order to find help to continue supporting the development and training of their children. On the other hand, sometimes the consultation becomes preventive to avoid future imbalances in the emotional life of the boys. These aspects are important to start a support process that allows strengthening the development of adolescents and directing actions for their mental and emotional health.

Among the difficulties that can alter their mental health in adolescents are the following.

1. Physical Health

There are diseases that manifest themselves with symptoms of lack of energy, interpreted as laziness or a lack of motivation or the beginning of a depression; that is why it is important to keep your visits from the pediatrician until this moment of adolescence.

2. Sleep quality

Problems sleeping well can be temporary or very frequent; it is important to look for the causes. They can occur due to anguish or worries that are easy to solve and regulate sleep.

• You may be interested in: "The 7 main sleep disorders"

3. Their feeding

In quantity and quality, it is essential to be able maintain correct eating habits.

4. Your school performance

At this stage it is normal that they begin to present certain variations in their school performance. It is not alarming as long as they remain within the averages that can be given.

If this change is very marked and unexpected for long periods of time or if he shows absenteeism from school is already a reason for paying attention and concern.

5. Trouble with your friends

The quality of their friends is an important variable to identify if there is any emotional instability in their development. You have to see if he manages to keep his friendships and make new friends, if he feels rejection by his group, or looks for friends who do not value or respect him.

6. Mood disorders

Mood fluctuations are very frequent at this age. If the changes are very radical from one moment to the next and prevent you from talking to him for a whole week, this may be an indication that you may have a psychopathological alteration and cannot handle it. This is where you can be on the lookout for professional help.