Parenting Difficult Teenagers - Giving Guidelines To Teens For Social Networking And Other Issues

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One of the great problems in parenting difficult teenagers is coming to terms with their peer group pressures and how they have to cope with that. If we can understand that, then we can become better and more effective parents but we have to insist that certain limits cannot be broken.

Let us take social networking as an example. We know from research done by the Kaisey Family Foundation that kids and teens are spending almost 8 hours a day using all their electronic gadgetry.

A fair proportion of that for teens will be on Facebook and the other social networking sites. The problems arise when they are making virtual friends and attaching great value to that rather than making real live friends. While it may be helpful for shyer teenagers to start having social contacts, we have to be careful to teach our kids what all this implies.

What we should do when parenting difficult teenagers who are spending far too much time on this and neglecting face to face relationships?

How will these teenagers cope with real friendships and how will they interpret the social cues which are essential to any relationship in the real world? We hope that they will be able to communicate effectively.

The other problem is that cyber bullying now is a real risk. Over 40% of teens online said that they had experienced this in one form or another. They have to be careful about what information they post as anything confidential can be manipulated and used for bullying. Some teens have succumbed and have even committed suicide.

The guidelines for social networking should be made clear to your teens. There is no need to be friends with everybody. Information becomes global and everybody knows everything about us. Great care should be taken with personal information, family outings, holiday plans and so on.

Limiting cyber time is a great way to get teens out to make some real contact and do sports activities. These all help to relieve stress and can help in dealing with difficult teenagers. Who wants to spend their life staring at a computer screen?

If you need more advice on dealing with difficult teenagers, such as establishing curfews and other limits on behavior, why not check out my site below.

(Robert William Locke)