“Fathers, do not embitter your children, or they will become discouraged.” (Colossians 3:21)
‘How to get my teenager listens to me and behaves?’ I think all parents in this world would want to find an answer to this. Teenagers seem to have a mind of their own which is actually not a bad thing. They need to step out of the shadows of their parents and form their own identity. If they do not have opinion of their own and never object to anything we say, then we would have something to worry about.
Parents are often conditioned to this paradigm: we expect our teenagers to behave (change their ‘objectionable behaviours’), believe us (accept what we teach without question), then they belong (accepted by us), in that order. That concept doesn’t seem to work in this present time. I learnt from someone who is an effective youth leader that we should instead make our teenagers: belong (accepting them as who they are), and the rest will follow (they will believe us and behave). May be we need to change the way we relate to them.
Isn’t true that we are far too busy clothing and feeding our children, keeping them safe that we spend too little time to really listening to them? This is especially so for parents who come from a poor family background. They just wanted to ensure that their children never suffered the same deprivation they had suffered, without realising that material deprivation is not the same as emotional deprivation.
I must admit that I hear, but not listening to what my children have to say most of the time. Also, my habit of jump in with judgement, giving solution (which is more like an order than an advice) put off my children. We need to acknowledge our children’s feelings so that they feel a strong sense of belonging to the family. If we want to know what is going on in our children's lives and to continue to pass on our values, we have to keep the communication channels open by listening, which seem lacking especially among parents who are busy.
Teenagers today are more demanding that in the past. Perhaps it's due to how our society has evolved to become more complex and that has affected our relationships with teenagers. In the past, I do not ever remember my parents taking time to listen to me in a family of 9. In fact, my parents would rather that we 'shut up' and not talk so much, be seen and not heard! It does seem very much like an Asian upbringing. I believe the need for a more enhanced relationship between children and parents is the result of education and Westernised thinking. As parents, like you and your husband, are better educated, there is greater awareness of the need to have quality relationship which requires spending time and listening to your children. To achieve this requires hard work on the part of both parents and children. Are you willing to put in hard work? In modern Singapore today, there are many means of communication - handphone, internet, ipad, etc but are parents and children using them to communicate effectively? It's an irony that they are not - last Sunday, when I was having lunch in a restaurant after church service, I noticed a family of 3 seated at a table next to me. While waiting for their food to be served, the father, mother and teenage son were each absorbed in doing their own thing on a handphone, there's not a word spoken to one another!
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