There wouldn’t be any parent on earth who wouldn’t want to have a strong yet sweet relationship with their kids. However, it has been seen that the parent-child equation generally comes across a rough patch when the child enters the teen years. Why is it so? Well, that’s because, during their teen years, children go through numerous changes, physical, emotional, and psychological. The changing hormones and the developments happening in their body not just make them feel irritable on the smallest of things but also impacts their emotional and social quotient. All this often gives rise to a strange and not-so-good feeling among parents and children, which is often referred to as the generation gap.
Today, in this article below, we, at Delhi Public School Sushant Lok, ranked among the top schools in Gurgaon, will shed light on this topic and share with you a few ways to avoid the generation gap from entering your relationship with your teens. Read on.
Bridging the generation gap with your teens made easy:
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Understanding is key:
You need to understand that you have grown up in a completely different environment as compared to the way in which today’s children grow or come to understand worldly things. Hence, it is common for your kids to find themselves on a different page than you are. It is this aspect that often becomes the reason for miscommunication and generation gap between parents and children.
An easy way out is for you, as their parents, to display maturity and take two steps forward in finding common ground. This is where your understanding of your child plays a pivotal role.
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Be good listeners:
We, at DPS Sushant Lok, urge parents to be all ears to their teens. Just as parents expect their children to be attentive to their words at all times, children expect the same. Hence, make sure you regularly indulge in heart-to-heart discussions with your kids where you remain all ears to them and show efforts to understand their point of view. Don’t let your children assume that it’s the generation gap that is preventing you from being attentive toward them. Just be a good listener and it shall do wonders!
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Communicate better:
One of the most crucial aspects in bridging the generation gap in your relationship with your teens is to ensure that instead of only focusing on telling your teen as to “how” he/she should behave, you also highlight the “why” behind you saying so. This is where effective communication comes into play. Take out time, sit down with your children, and enjoy a free flow of communication. This communication will help in clearing all sorts of misunderstandings and contribute to a stronger parent-child relationship.
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The right mindset matters:
We cannot deny the fact that since parents and teens belong to two different generations, friction in ideas and perceptions isn’t unusual. That said, if discussions are handled with care and received with an open mind, it won’t be difficult for parents to get along with their teens.
Many times, it so happens that the child’s views may not match the way society sees things. Here, instead of pushing children to meet societal expectations, if parents, for once, decide to consider their teen’s views, there won’t be any scope for things like the generation gap to seep into a parent-child relationship.
Concluding words:
No doubt, there is a considerable age difference between a parent and a teen. However, this can never be a real problem. We, at DPS Sushant Lok, one of the top 10 CBSE schools in Gurgaon, strongly believe that the generation gap as a problem exists in minority, but what we make out of it exists in the majority.
Owing to the same, we would like to urge parents as well as children to consciously work on ice-breaking exercises and come closer to one another. Do not let the generation gap, or anything else for that matter, spoil the beautiful relationship that you share with each other!