Surviving (Your Child’s) Adolescence

Parents have the job of absorbing and understanding novel, complex, and rapidly changing, uncertain information. At the same time they are called on to parent consistently, appropriately, and effectively. In other words, what parents need to know about parenting, children, and childhood is complicated and has real-life consequences every day (Bornstein, Cote, Haynes, Hahn & Park, 2010).

Parents generally rely on familiar and proximal sources to provide needed parenting information and support; that is, parents turn first and most often to family and friends. Then, they supplement advice from personal social networks and online sources.  As geographic mobility and age segregation have increased, the availability of grandparents, other relatives, and close neighbors—traditional sources of guidance to young parents—has decreased.  Therefore, blogs and online sites are often used by parents to share parenting ideas as well as gain information when faced with parenting dilemmas (Roberts & Foehr, 2008).

With the knowledge that parents frequently turn to websites and blogs for information, it is important that we make sure we are receiving accurate information; therefore, I am recommending Psychology Today’s blog:  Surviving (Your Child’s) Adolescence:  Welcome to the hard half of parenting by Carl Pickhardt, Ph.D.

Although sources are not included at the end of his posts, he uses ideas from his practice with actual patients to provide the reader with real life solutions.

Posts are available each Monday and really have some thought provoking content.  Some of the subjects discussed are:

         
          * Adolescence and Stealing from Family

          * Adolescence and Entitlement
          * Early Adolescence and the Negative Mindset

Dr. Pickhardt suggests great ideas of how to deal with your teen and practical ways to manage your daily contact with your child.  This is a great site that I refer to often and hope you will enjoy it as well.

~Tami

Sources
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Bornstein, M. H., Cote, L. R., Haynes, O. M., Hahn, C. S., & Park, Y. (2010). Parenting knowledge: Experiential and sociodemographic factors in european american mothers of young children.

Pickhardt, C. (2012, April 02). Surviving (your child's) adolescence. Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/surviving-your-childs-adolescence.

Roberts, D. F., & Foehr, U. G. (2008). Trends in media use. The Future of Children , 18(1), 11-37.