Finding The Right Balance Of Being A Friend And A Parent to Your Teen

Usually a couple that marries will decide when it is time to have children and they look forward to the arrivals of their babies so much. Of course, there are also plenty of times when people are not married and an unplanned pregnancy comes along and changes your life when it was not exactly what you had in mind. Sometimes people adopt a baby or a child when they can not have any of their own. Then there are blended families when the person you choose to be your mate has children that are brought into the relationship in the very beginning. Either way, these children are in your life, you are the parent or stepparent, and they are going to start growing up and will eventually become the dreaded teenager.

The word teenager can strike fear into the minds of a parent because it is well known that problems can up that will difficult and confusing to deal with. Most normal parents want desperately to have a good relationship with their teenagers, but it can be hard to allow them to grow up because you have a protective fear for them. Usually, parents learn how to let go a little at a time and when they are lucky they can trust their teen to be responsible and do the right things. That is not nearly always the case because sometimes the last thing a teenager wants to be is responsible. They want to grow up too quickly and be able to their own thing whether you approve or not.

Some teens are more rebellious than others. When you have one that has a tendency to get in trouble and be untrustworthy, it can make your life a nightmare. They might shrug off any curfew you give them and you could end up being that parent sitting up in the chair late at night wondering where they are and if you should call the police or go out looking for them yourself. Then there are other parents that will allow this kind of behavior because they are so afraid of making their teen mad at them, they will give them free reign to do whatever they like because they want to be their friend as well as the parent.

It is a fine line that parents have to walk between being the parent or being a friend and sometimes you just can not be both. If you can have a good relationship with your teenager and be a friend to them as well as their parent, that is great, but it can be hard to do this. When it comes right down to it and you are forced to make the choice, you have to be the parent first and the friend second. When you know they are making choices that can cause real problems in their life, now or later on, you have to step up and be the bad guy as distasteful as it might be for you. They might hate you for the moment, but that is better than allowing them to make mistakes that can affect the rest of their life.

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Aydan Corkern is a writer an you can visit his sites for more information: how to get your ex back and how to get your ex back.

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