What parents should know about teenagers

Family expert Rob Parsons will be in the city on February 22, to present Teenagers! What Every Parent Has to Know.

Charity Care for the Family who are running the event ran a survey of 3000 parents of teens. Parents admitted they were not confident in their ability to parent teenagers. Only 15% of the parents said that they felt confident, whilst 62% said that they felt most parents didn’t understand what it meant to be a teenager today.

Rob says: “Today’s teenagers are experiencing things that previous generations didn’t – like the growth of technology, an expanding debt culture, the incredible pressure to be thin if you are a girl or muscular if you are a boy. These days it isn’t enough to be an ace footballer – you have to be a good-looking ace footballer. All these pressures make life much harder for teens and their parents.”

The surveyed parents attended Teenagers! What Every Parent Has to Know and following the event, 88% said they felt more confident about being a parent of a teenager, 93% felt less isolated and 95% had come away with a least one practical idea which would help them with their teenager.

Rob is keen to point out that many of the traumas of teenage life are part of the natural process of growing up. “Adolescents are at a time in their lives when everything is changing: their bodies, their friends – and most importantly their brains. They are quite literally out of control with their emotions and feelings.

“So it seems that testing teens are here to stay, but there is some good news!” says Rob, “The changes don’t last and the main task for parents is to just get them through.”

Teenagers! What Every Parent Has to Know will include: understanding what’s going on in your teenager’s brain; why reading your child’s school report can fool you; keys for dealing with the really testing teenager; the big issues: sex, drugs, self-esteem; why teenage boys sometimes act as though they hate their mothers; and danger signs for teenage high achievers.

The event will take place in the White Horse Hotel, Campsie, on Monday, February 22, from 7.30pm to 10pm.

Tickets cost 6 per person. The event runs from 7.30pm – 10pm. For further information or to book, call (028) 9262 8050 or visit online at www.careforthefamily.org.uk/teenagers