What do you like about this subject?  Teens! I love to talk with parents about teenagers because they are the most misunderstood of all the child developmental stages. It is so incredibly easy to get parents and teens back on track with each other and so very rewarding!

What do you still hope to achieve/learn in this field?  I am completing a PhD in Family Relations and I truly want to leave parents with skills to enhance communication skills between them and their children. These communication skills not only enhance the present bonding and love, it carries them through the adult child's life! I love bringing families closer together.

Something interesting about this subject that others may not know:  Teenagers will often give off signals like they are not listening to you and indeed they are absorbing every word and action they hear and see! Don't pay attention to the body language when you are talking to a teen, they are trying hard not to be read, as they are vulnerable and need to seperate from you.  It is the developmental task of a teen.

Something controversial or provocative about this subject  Hmmm, this is not a popular concept, however, when parents and teens are having problems it is often because this time of seperation has snuck upon the parents and they were expecting it much later. Teens start the seperation process as young as 10 or 11 years of age! Parents are often unaware of their own grieving and bereavement as their child is no longer a baby.

Also, realize teens really take an emotional hit in our country. The messages we send out as a society are that we believe teens are bad. We often don't see teens on television unless they have committed some horrific crime. Many teens do wonderful things everyday however our society almost seems to fear teens. I believe it is because they are in between.

Teens are inn between being children and adults and it is us, as a society, that do not know how to treat teens or deal with them. We like everything cut and dried and small children are obviously helpless. Teens however are in the process of becoming independent and do so first by maturing physically. Their fluxing emotions and their gaining physical strength is often intimidating to us adults, especially as we age and lose our strength.

What you don't know about your teen is they still need you as much as the day they were born, they just need you differently now. This is what we shall discuss in the following chapter of this blog.

Kay