The Paradoxical World of Teens

Marko just wrote an amazing article for our parenting page this week about the paradoxical world of teenagers.

If you have a young teenager in your home… you probably have experienced this.

Here’s just a snippet of that article:

They want to be treated like adults, but have the opportunity to act like children. This has enormous implications. They’re caught in an in-between world. They know where they want to go: they know they want to be treated like adults, to have more freedoms, to make more decisions on their own, to not be treated as if they were 4th graders. It’s important to talk to young teens with an adult voice, and to begin the move to a come-alongside perspective.

But at the same time, they are still very much children, and need the opportunity to act that out, without pressure to grow up too soon. A girl may move out of her childhood music choices, but still love to play with Barbie dolls. Allow her to live in that place. A boy may desire to sit at the adult table at family gatherings, but still keep a childhood stuffed animal on his bed. Don’t rush them into adulthood, but don’t treat them like little kids anymore either.

Great stuff.

CLICK HERE FOR THE ENTIRE ARTICLE

If you like that article, you’ll love these parenting books from Marko as well: Understanding Your Young Teen and all five of his little Parent’s Guide books.