In the relationship between parents and children, the key is dialogue. Talk about a problem is to have already half solved. Trying to educate without fostering the dialogue is like trying to build a house without a secure foundation.
What did we do wrong?
This is often the question that many parents are asking. They feel like failures because they fail to engage in fluid dialogue with children and are aware that, if you lose communication, education becomes very difficult.
Some, mired in pessimism, throw in the towel when their children reach adolescence. Maybe because we do not realize that they are not children and we must change procedure.
With children teenagers can talk, yes, but it is hard. They put their own barriers of age. What we have to do is overcome them. Common sense will dictate to us in each case whether a certain behavior should be tackled promptly worth more or ignore. It sometimes happens that we turn a blind eye on important issues and we fix our gaze on insignificant details. We get nervous (too, perhaps) by the volume of their stereo and, instead, allow comes at odd hours. Precisely this fear of confrontation is often cause clashes.
Talk when they are nervous. Usually it’s what we do. We must recognize that in this case neither the time nor the environment we have chosen to discuss is the ideal. Typically, the dialogue does not take place, but at most a totally ineffective.
Not respecting their privacy. The teenagers are very jealous of their privacy, especially with their parents. Although we consider inconsistencies in their behavior with regard to this topic, we have to tread very carefully to not invade their space. Enter the chat room is a good start, but we must consider that we are on their turf.
Always say the same thing. We may not be aware of it, but the perception of adolescents is that. That does not mean we do not have to say anything, but we must find other ways to say.
Lecturing. If we talk about when we lost our temper, not dialoguing, but we lecture. We say what we did not want or should not say always negative things, exaggerated, taken out of context or unfairly simplistic.
Do not listen. The teenagers feel that their parents do not understand them. They usually say in almost every interview. Listening is the first step to understand, because not only it is to hear the other but to pay attention, take this into account, evaluating their opinions … and above all, to put in place.