Dealing with your 'work in progress' (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Dealing with your 'work in progress'

8:22am Tuesday 13th October 2009 in

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He was fine until his 13th birthday. What happened?’ Rob Parsons has heard those words countless times from exasperated parents.

“You have a nice, polite child who’s perfectly fine – then they get past the age of 12 and they change. It comes as a shock to parents,” says Rob. “What I say is, ‘You can’t fight it all. Just remember, it doesn’t last forever. Hang on in there.”

Father-of-two Rob knows about the highs and lows of life with teenagers. “My two children are grown-up now, but I’ve been through it. Parents can get through most things if they know they’re not the only ones going through it,” he says.

Tomorrow Rob’s in Bradford, helping parents get the inside track on surviving the dreaded teenage years. The executive director and founder of Care For The Family, a charity supporting parents and children, he’s addressed half a million people worldwide at seminars on marriage and family life.

His new book, Teenagers! What Every Parent Has to Know, is aimed at transforming relationships with teenagers.

Rob says it’s all about understanding what makes teens tick. “In a lot of cases, parents become stressed because they have teenagers who are like chalk and cheese. While one sibling sails through their teenage years, the other may be more testing.

“Their bedroom may be in a constant mess, you might catch them smoking or coming home late, but you can’t fight everything, otherwise your teenager is caught in a wave of negativity.

“They’ll end up thinking you’re always on their back, which could lead to more trouble. None of us can survive constant negative criticism. If the ear never hears praise, the heart loses the will to try.

“If you’re always getting at them for smaller things, they won’t know when they’re really doing something wrong. The key is to highlight when they do something right, too.”

Charity Care For The Family surveyed 3,000 parents of teens and only 15 per cent admitted they weren’t confident in their ability to handle teenagers. Sixty two per cent didn’t understand what it meant to be a teenager today.

It’s tough being a teenager. Your body changes practically overnight, then those pesky hormones kick in.

“Adolescents are at a time when everything is changing; their bodies, friends and their brains,” says Rob. “There’s a burst of brain growth in adolescence, leaving them out of control with their emotions and feelings.

“The last thing to develop is common sense! That’s why your teenager may go clubbing the night before an exam, or hang around on street corner in the freezing cold. They don’t have the same rationale as adults. They’re a work in progress.”

One of the areas Rob addresses is why teenage boys sometimes distance themselves from their mothers. “A mother recently came to me in despair, saying her teenage son hated her. It’s something I hear from parents a lot,” he says.

“Basically, their son has discovered the opposite sex. Until now, the only woman he loved and had affection for was probably his mother, now he’s growing up and feels the need to distance himself. It’s not personal. My advice is to give your teenage son all the hugs you can between now and the age of 21 – but not in public! – and you’re likely to have a great relationship with him for life.”

With advances in technology racing by at lightning speed, there’s a huge gap between the world today’s teenagers live in and the one their parents grew up in. And with the world of texting and internet networking come huge pressures.

“They’re under enormous pressure to conform to images of perfection,” says Rob. “I knew of a 14-year-old girl who did an internet survey called How Sexy Are You? Her friends scored eight out of ten and she scored four, causing anxiety and low self-esteem. Fifty per cent of teenage girls think they’re overweight.

“When magazines publish photos highlighting celebrities’ cellulite and other ‘imperfections’, it’s no wonder girls are obsessed with diets and nose reconstructions.”

“Parents need to know their children are facing pressures the previous generation didn’t, like the growth of technology, expanding debt culture, readily available alcohol and drugs, the pressure to be thin if you’re a girl or muscular if you’re a boy. These days it’s not enough to be an ace footballer – you have to be a good-looking ace footballer. All these pressures make life harder for teens and parents.

“A lot of pressures come from parents though,” he adds. “The greatest gift parents can give is acceptance.”

• Rob Parsons will be at Bradford’s Hilton Hotel today from 7.30pm. For more information or to book, call (029) 2081 0800 or visit careforthefamily.org. uk/teenagers. Teenagers! What Every Parent Has To Know is published by Hodder & Stoughton, priced £8.99.