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Parenting Teens Quotes

Browse 64 quotes about Parenting Teens.

Parenting Teens Quotes

“It’s not difficult telling enemies from friends. • Your enemies say, “You don’t need to work hard.” Your friends say, “Always do your best.” • Your enemies say, “Just quit.” Your friends say, “Never give up.” • Your enemies say, “No one will ever know.” Your friends say, “Always do the right thing.” • Your enemies say, “Let’s get high.” Your friends say, “Rest in Peace.”

“I think that we ought to be listening to our children a lot more often. Our children are living in the "here and now" and they know what to do about it. We can teach our children about where we have come from, but they can teach us about where we are all at, right now. Parents tend to come at their children with an arrogance merely due to the fact that they've been alive longer, but this is exactly where the disconnect takes place, this is exactly how you are going to not be able to connect with your children at the heart level. Being alive longer doesn't make you better at living. Read that again. I have many times turned to my son for guidance on LIVING in the here and now, and have become a vastly better person for it, as a result. We are not the only leaders here; we may be carrying a torch but our kids are carrying flashlights, and sometimes, flashlights are going to work so much better.”

“Let us all stop being controlled by the fear of disappointing others and let us all learn how to stop perpetuating the cycle of manipulating our children through their fear of disappointing us. The people we love are allowed to be disappointed in us and we are allowed to be disappointed in the people we love. Everyone is allowed to experience life as it may flow. Nobody is born as a safeguard to other people's life experiences. Live AUTHENTICALLY; do not live out of the fear of dissapointing others nor out of the fear of being disappointed. And above all: change the narrative for the next generation. Your kids were not born *for* you. People are born for themselves.”

“A child s a special possession from God.”

“Sitting on the train I watch the scenery speeding by, notice a cobweb in the top corner of the window, undulating with a gentle breeze I can’t feel. I lean back in my seat and take my book out of the carrier bag. Turning it over in my hand, it feels warm. It feels how I want to feel; full of knowledge, full of the future. The time I’ve spent staying in bed smoking dope I’ve been hibernating, recuperating and gaining strength. I’m weak socially, but being away from other drug users has made me resilient. It’s allowed my mind and body to heal and mend. As if the winter is over, I’ve come out stronger now. I’m on my own. I have the choice of what to do with my life. I’m going to stay clean. I’m going to be the woman I can be.”

“Sitting cross-legged on her bed, I watch her take out her gear. She’s been smoking so much the room stinks of it. Over the last few weeks, I’ve seen her do it so often I’ve resisted the urge. It’s surreal, like I’m watching me from outside my body. My willpower is fragile at the best of times, but my resolve is always weaker in the evening. I feel a dread and a revulsion for what I’m about to do, but there’s a stronger feeling, an unutterable longing. I crack. ‘Give us a line,’ I say.”

“There is something about being loved and protected by a parent (or guardian) knowing that I can be loved for who I am, not what I can do, or might one day become. Unfortunately it’s not usually like this in every single situation. From time to time, my parents made mistakes during my childhood. Possibly I was the mistake, or unwanted. But I don’t know. I had every material thing that I could have ever wanted, but there was still something missing, as if I felt distanced from my parents, or misunderstood, in the ways that they treated me. At times, I had felt completely loved and accepted by my parents, but for one reason or another, they were unable to care for me, provide for me, in some ways that would have been very important. Sometimes I feel like I am trying to make up for the experiences in life that were absent when I was a child.”

“Whatever emotional state you’re in while you’re parenting conveys more to your child than the content of what you're doing with them, no matter how perfect your intervention looks "on paper." In other words, to paraphrase Marshall McLuhan, "your emotional state is the message.”

“Embrace your beautiful mess of a life with your child. No matter how hard it gets, do not disengage... Do something—anything—to connect with and guide your child today. Parenting is an adventure of the greatest significance. It is your legacy." - Andy Kerckhoff, from Critical Connection”

“Now, the error which many parents commit in the treatment of the individual at this time(adolescense) is, insisting on the same unreasoning obedience as when all he had to do in the way of duty was, to obey the simple laws of "Come when you're called," and "Do as you're bid!" But a wise parent humours the desire for independent action, so as to become the friend and adviser when his absolute rule shall cease.”

“In a parent support group “...This is the miracle. We belong together because we are engaged in the same quest as we search for answers to our most anguished questions. In that journey, we reflect back to each other the meaning of our own experience. In telling the truth about myself, I discover the truth about myself. I have come to know myself in the honest, unashamed, unedited telling of my story. Like the others in the room, I let go of that vision of myself as someone who is holding it all together, who is in control. I let go, though not without some initial concern that I will be found out, that people will hide from me or laugh at me or feel superior to me. But my self-consciousness quickly fades away, because I am no longer lost. I am found. I am found within the circle of others through this community of fellow human beings who are hurting and afraid but fearless when it comes to admitting our need for help and support. This is where we belong, where we “fit” We share our stories, and as we join our stories with others who are on the same journey, we discovered a story that is shared.. We are not alone.”

“Adolescence is a time of self-discovery. But discovery doesn't have to mean defiance. Teens do need to find out who they want to be, but they should be free to select qualities and values held by their parents as well as those not held by them. In our opinion, reaching adulthood does not require relational tension. Defiance of authority is not a growing pain but a behavioral choice. Rebelling against parents doesn't make you an adult any more than rebelling against a government makes you president.”

“For adolescents to be ready for life after high school, they need at least some period of time exercising their own judgment in all aspects of their life while they are still at home, with their parents.”

“Don't make a young person's behavior be about you. Never, "Oh, you're hurting me so much! You're going to be the end of me, but "It's hard to watch you hurting yourself this way." Teens will like your concern more if they feel it's for them and not yourself. Other ways of expressing your concern include: "You deserve better," and "You need to take better care of yourself.”

“Make consequences as logical as possible. If teens drive irresponsibly, they should lose car privileges, not phone privileges. If a curfew violation occurs, make curfew one hour earlier for a week. If homework is not getting done because of video games, restrict them, not baseball. Try to make your restrictions selective and specific. Teens need a solid consequence they can feel, but they also need fun and enjoyment in their lives. If you take everything away, they have nothing to fill their cups. Young people who are running on empty will have fewer resources to use in producing good behavior.”

“Her boy—this child she raised on her own, in whom she placed her purest faith, to whom she read on countless evenings books he loved, which she found dull, for whom she baked special birthday cakes in the shapes of superheroes, and with whom she whooped and hollered around the backyard while pointing cowboy sticks against darkening skies—was no longer her ally. Bang, bang.”

“In the moment of decision, may you hear the voice of the Creator saying, ‘This is right road, travel on it.”

“There will come a time when a person you most likely pushed out through your vagina and nursed from your nipples, whose bottom you wiped, and whose snot and spit you cleaned up over several sleep-starved years will apprehend you with a mixture of boredom and irritation and say, ‘Get a life, Mum.’ This would be a good time to remember that a) violence never solved anything; b) teenagers don’t have a full brain yet – the prefrontal cortex that controls the ability to make important distinctions, like who controls the pocket money, only kicks in around the age of twenty-four; and c) you are, in fact, the adult.”

“You will need to stay calm as you witness the candy floss in your daughter’s smile harden into brittle bitchiness. You will need to muster a new resolve as your son’s fascination with Pokémon shifts to porn. You will have to recalibrate your mothering instinct to accommodate the notion that not only do your children poop and burp, they also masturbate, drink and smoke. As their bodies, brains and worlds rearrange themselves, you will need to do your own reshuffling. You will come to see that, though you gave them life, they’re the ones who’ve got a life. They’ve got 1700 friends on Facebook. They’ve got YouTube accounts (with hundreds of sub- scribers), endless social arrangements, concerts, Valentine’s Day dances and Halloween parties. What we have – if we’re lucky – is a ‘Thanks for the ride, Mum, don’t call me, I’ll call you,’ as they slam the car door and indicate we can run along now.”