By Ogova Ondego
Published April 5, 2024
That teenage is a turbulent time for most parents and adolescents regardless of creed, socio-economic status, time or geographical location is a fact.
While world-renowned US American evangelist Billy Graham and his wife Ruth Bell had problems with their eldest son who regularly returned home in the wee hours of the morning and British prime minister Tony Blair’s 16-year-old son was arrested for being drunk and lying to the police about his identity, Angolan rebel leader Jonas Savimbi’s 15-year-old son defected to the government describing his father in unpalatable terms.
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Many parents concur teens are moody, have strange tastes for clothes, listen to rather loud and inaudible music and challenge basic principles they had understood and accepted since childhood.
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Teens often demand independence from their parents and a sense of belonging to their friends and spend hours on the phone conversing with their friends but give their parents less than 10 minutes.
Matilde and Yolanda, two teenage girls, rebel against their parents, run away from home and end up doing all the forbidden things like doing drugs, engaging in sex. As they live dangerously on the wild side, their intelligence is almost sacrificed and they end up cheating in examinations and engaging in mindless strikes.
However their story, told in the Mexican soap, Un Ano Perdido (a lost year), ends well as they both realise their dreams; while Matilde becomes a dentist, Yolanda ends up as a professional singer. But not many teenagers’ stories have a happy ending.
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Mark Twain, a US American humorist and writer, is quoted to have quipped: “When I was a boy of 14 my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.”
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What can parents do if their teenagers rebel from their upbringing?
Parenting Teenagers, a book by Claire Short, takes a humorous look at adolescence from the point of view of both teenagers and parents. She notes that teenage can be a difficult time but that negotiating it with care and tolerance on both sides can lessen its vagaries.
Short, a family therapist and parent, notes that adolescents not only have mood swings but question the authority of their parents. She recommends that parents be not dictatorial in demanding compliance from their children because children brought up this way usually rebel in adolescence. They also become cynical of authority figures.
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Parents are also advised to have equipped their children with life skills in washing, ironing, cooking and relating well with people before adolescence besides steering clear of being obsessively protective of their children confusing this for love. They should set rules and boundaries for their children early enough.
Parenting Teenagers, that can be bought online , shows why and how to go about this. It tackles most issues touching on modern youth, such as looking for identity, self image and value, sexuality, sex education, media influence, pornography, masturbation, leaving home for college or job, living together without being married, and marrying and beginning a family.
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