Dealing With Your Teens During Quarantine
Here are the advices she shared on how to deal with your teens during this quarantine:
1. We should be aware that most of their routines have been taken away from them during this quarantine and it makes them bored that result in binge or stress eating.
Genielle stated that 99% of our children's work consists of their school, hanging out with their friends, doing schoolwork, and extra activities within the school. Now that all their routines have been taken away from them, there are two things that we're going to hear very often in our home. One is the fridge door opening every 10 seconds and second, they are saying they're bored. Their lives changed, so do ours and they felt the pressure for real more than we do. We may have other pressures with finances or jobs, any sort of issues that we may have, but there's a lot of animosities that could happen if we don't continue reaching out to them.
2. This is the time that we have to listen and not just speak to them.
Genielle emphasized the importance of listening rather than speaking to our teens. That when we listen, we will be able to understand them a little bit more because many times they feel that we don't. When we listen and hear them out, we will realize that teens are so smart, friendly, and loving. She also stated that listening is showing undistracted interests with our teens in what they are interested in, what they're doing, and who they're friends with. By doing that, it will help them to process how they feel, and what they're going through.
3. Understand that teens can be moody most of the time because their brain is not fully developed until the age of 25.
Genielle believes that teens are having difficulties in decision making because of a lack of experience. They wouldn't be able to process how they feel. They can have behavioral issues because their behavior comes from a place within, which is an emotion in motion. They're not able to express themselves as clearly as vulnerable as an adult would be able to. So parents must understand where they’re coming from so we can guide them properly.
4. We should give our teens 100% of our attention when our teens are reaching out to us.
Genielle mentioned this is why listening to our teens' actions are super important. If we're watching the television, we have to pause it, or if we're reading, we have to put the book aside. We have to let them be comfortable in speaking to us. When we're speaking to them, we must show it in our face, not just only in the intonation of our voice. We show empathy, excitement, and joy when they are telling us whatever it is they just want to talk about. Genielle believes in the importance of creating a deep and fulfilling bond with our teens every day. In that way, they're going to be comfortable and relax. We have to build that foundation so we can be deep and meaningful to them.
5. Expect that parenting is not easy at all levels.
Genielle is absolutely right when she said that being a parent of a teen is extremely challenging because this is where they're fighting for their independence, but yet still want to be close to us so we should never give up on them. It sounds like everything comes down to the vulnerability of each person, like a parent being vulnerable on how you feel about different things and realizing your child on where they are as a teen.
6. Never forget to look after ourselves whether it's our health, our well-being, our social life, and our relationship.
I love how Genielle is encouraging us to look after ourselves because our teens are looking up to us. We are their strength on how they should respond to animosity and how they should respond in difficult times like these. This is an unusual time that we're all living through. None of us had experience. No one had this before, so it's new to them and it's new to us. According to Genielle, this is the time that we show them how to live and we can activate that by looking after ourselves.
7. This COVID-19 time is the best time to have a better relationship with our teens and just be on our best.
Genielle said if we don't know how that's okay. We don't have to take all the stick and beat ourselves about. Just find out how we can know more so we can do more and be better. Every teen and every parent is different. Don't allow other people to tell you who you are or get distracted on how you build a relationship with your teens.
8. Find a buddy who you can trust and you feel comfortable with speaking about the things that are going on in our lives.
Genielle stressed that everything is worth mentioning to our trusted person whether our spouse, our mom, our dad, our aunt, our granny, our nan, whoever it is. Find that person that you'll be able to talk to. Don't keep it inside and don't make false judgments about who you are in your thoughts. Don't look at other people and other teens and think they've got it all. She also mentioned that we should be open, but if we're not comfortable with that, we can try to write it down or record a video. She also implied that there are so many ways to get in touch with someone we love to give us the best advice.
Special Thanks
I want to thank Genielle for sharing her insights on dealing with our teens. Not only in these tough times but in general to have a loving, peaceful, and strong, relationship with them. I hope everyone was inspired by what she shared with us. Genielle brings a very calming and supportive coaching style to teens as well as parents. She's also very hands-on with her job and takes your request for support very seriously. Please check out her website at www.genielleinspireteens.com and subscribe to her Youtube Channel at Inspire Teens .Connect with Me
If you like this kind of blog, let me know in the comment section and check out my Blog Page every week to have more parenting and marriage advice. You can also email me at contact@charlottehaynes.com if you want me to have an interview with you for my Podcast or feature your business on my blog. Thank you and as always be honest with yourself and others. ❤❤❤
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I am a certified life coach and I have been coaching since 2011.
