Hi – Sue Blaney here with your Parenting Tip from Parenting Teens Info.com

My tip this week is Don’t give your hurt feelings too much importance >>Listen

Has your teenager ever hurt your feelings? I just heard from a mom of an 8th grade girl who was noting how much her daughter criticizes her. Her previously loving daughter tells her now “her hair isn’t right, her clothes are weird” and on and on it goes. If you have an older teenager you may have experienced something like this. And if you haven’t fallen off the pedestal yet, you might want to prepare yourself for the fall. It isn’t a lot of fun….

BUT this is “normal.” I don’t want to give you a lesson in adolescent psychology here….the point I want to make is this isn’t about you! It’s about your teen.
Your teenager criticizes you as he is going through a necessary developmental step - that of becoming more of a separate person, independent from you. Sometimes it is easier for a teen to separate from parental ties if he emphasizes everything bad or irritating about you; you should know this is largely subconscious on his part.
 
There are times your teen is going to hurt your feelings. Sarah’s mom is still reeling from some of the unkind words they shared last weekend. But, as is typically the case, Sarah has moved on. Her mom needs to do the same.

What can parents do when your teens are being overly critical?  Here are some ideas:

• First, understand this is part of their process of growing up. Don’t let it take on more importance than it really has. Keep this in perspective.
• If things are getting tense and your child is being critical, use humor and distractions. Lighten things up or change the subject.
• I’m not saying you should be a doormat if your child is being unkind and inappropriate to you. Your feelings do deserve to be respected, so you should draw the line on what’s unacceptable behavior. You’ll help your teen by being pretty consistent about what you’ll accept, so give this some thought.
• Find your own friends and develop your support network. You need a place where you can gather with your own peers. And if you happen to compare notes with other parents who are experiencing a similar dynamic in their home, you will surely find ways to help one another out.

It’s amazing how smart parents turn stupid when kids are teens…but don’t despair, we re-gain our intelligence when the kids get older!

Thanks for subscribing to my Two-Minute Tips for Parenting Teens at PTI.com……. ‘Til next week…I'm Sue Blaney