How to Handle Tricky Teen Situations: Understanding Teens and Tricky Teen Situations

Understanding teens and learning how to handle tricky teen situations, is a question that many parents, teachers and others frequently ask. At times, there are no easy answers, other than simply to love them.   

Parents love their children and raise them with the expectation that as teenagers, they will love their parents in return. Sometimes, what happens appears to be exactly opposite. Many parents feel their teenagers are alienated from them, turn on them and even seem to hate them, at times.

Teachers also exert a lot of time and energy, expecting to receive positive feedback from the teenagers who they teach. They too may receive what appears to be undeserved, negative feedback.  

Understanding teens and handling tricky teen situations is possible. Consider the following tips.

Do not panic.

Fear can lead to the feeling of panic but instead, consider the merit of the following, unconditional love, trust, respect, example, truth and honesty, as well as quality time.

Unconditional love:

Parents and teachers who focus on unconditional love, allow teenagers room to grow emotionally. Every teenager goes through a period of emotional adjustment, coupled with physical, mental and spiritual changes.

In many respects, each teenager is like a young bird that instinctively knows it has outgrown its nest. It has to start out on its own and does not really know how to go about it. The young bird learns how to fly and fend for itself through instinct, coupled with trial and error. With teens, errors happen and thus, unconditional love (including forgiveness) is always important.

A teenager who is loved unconditionally by his or her parents and teachers, experiences the freedom to grow into maturity and to explore his or her world. In tricky situations, regardless of the words or deeds of the teenager, he or she will know and understand that love still prevails, regardless of the circumstances.          

“Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength whilst loving someone deeply gives you courage” – Lao Tzu

Trust:

Teenagers have to earn the trust conveyed to them by parents and teachers. Parents and teachers learn that some teenagers can be trusted through their personal experiences with them. They also know when others are simply not mature enough to be trusted.   

In tricky situations, this often becomes a question of judgment on the part of parents and teachers. Being human, they too can err in respect to trusting or judging their teenagers. Remember that they were once teenagers and know the importance of building and maintaining good, trust relationships. At the same time, a teenager has to be able to trust his or her parents or teachers, if he or is to confide in them. 

Respect:

Respect is something that teenagers earn, but regardless of whether they earn it or not, if parents and teachers show respect for them, the teenagers sense it and respect them. Every teenager wants respect, even though he or she may not know how to earn it or may not necessarily deserve it, all of the time. Often teenagers attempt to demand respect, rather than earn it. Normally, that does not work very well.

When there is a tricky situation, if the teenager knows that he or she has the respect of parents or teachers, the words said and the actions taken will be on a higher plane, making effective resolution more likely. 

Example:

Parents and teachers knowingly and unknowingly, set examples for their teenagers by what they say or do. Whether they set a good example or a bad example, invariably the teenagers will follow their example, at least to some degree.

When there are tricky situations, a teenager is most likely to do what his or her parents or teachers would do in the same situation or have done in the past. Being aware of that reality allows the parents and teachers some degree of awareness and leniency with respect to what they can expect with teenagers.

On the other hand, teenagers have contact with others, who do not necessarily set a good example for them. Following their example in a tricky situation, there can be some degree of unpredictability and thus, parents and teachers do not always know what to expect. Suddenly, it may seem that all of their time and effort has been wasted.

Truth and honesty: 

Parents, as well as teachers, who have taught teenagers the importance of truth and honesty in day-to-day life, find coping with tricky situations easier, as these teenagers are more likely to tell them the truth. Getting to the root of a tricky situation is always important. Many situations can be resolved more easily if parents and teachers are aware of what is actually happening. 

Quality Time:

Parents and teachers, who have spent quality time with children who have been maturing as teenagers, find that they are more likely to turn to them for advice or help in a tricky situation. Tricky situations often involve trouble of some kind and there can be an urgent need for advice, action and discipline. The police or other emergency measures may be part of this kind of a scenario. Many times, these kinds of tricky situations are unexpected and involve other teenagers and their parents, who may have different values. No parent or teacher finds this kind of a scenario easy to deal with, as it may involve legal action, as well.

“I have taught you everything I can possibly teach you, now you are on your own. I trust you to do what is right,” a parent or teacher may say to a teenager. Then, the onus is on the teenager.

“If you need help, I am always here for you.”

What more can a parent or teacher do or say, as he or she watches his or her teenager take flight like a young bird leaving its nest, forever? Maybe that bird finds it possible to return to his or her parents or teachers in the future, if unconditional love prevails. That does not always happen.

Love wins, even in tricky teen situations.