Empowering parents to cultivate strong, positive relationships with their children through effective and uplifting communication, despite the inevitable challenges.
Building a solid parent-child connection requires effort and nurturing, much like cultivating a strong marriage. While biology provides a natural foundation for parental love towards infants, as children grow older, it becomes essential to further strengthen and maintain that bond amidst the complexities of modern life. Fortunately, children inherently love their parents, offering an opportunity to foster a lasting connection.
By prioritising effective communication and avoiding actions that could strain the relationship, we can preserve and nurture the strong connection between parent and child. Although we acknowledge that challenges may arise, it is possible to establish a calm, clear, and mutually uplifting dynamic. Through understanding and embracing the needs of both parent and child, we can navigate the complexities of parenting and foster a resilient and loving relationship.
At Be Charity Group, we empower parents with resources and guidance to enhance their communication skills and create a positive and enduring connection with their children. Discover the tools and insights available to strengthen your parent-child relationship, even in the face of difficulties.
Websites Offering Support:
Teen Mental Health
The question, ‘will we ever understand teens?’ is as puzzling as the question of which came first, chicken or the egg? While we might not ever truly understand teens, we can learn more about what makes them behave the way they do.
You might be wondering if the teen in your life is going through a tough time. Are they just going through those ‘teenage years’? Or is there truly something wrong?
Teen Mental Health has a slideshow crash course in teen development, and to explain how some adolescent behaviours are completely normal and happen as a result of brain changes, which include attention, motivation and risk-taking behaviour.
Hey Sigmund – Where the Science of Psychology Meets the Art of Being
Just one of the many pieces designed to improve our understanding of our kids and how to parent them:
Phew! It’s Normal. An Age by Age Guide for What to Expect From Kids & Teens – And What They Need From Us
“Understanding what our kids are wrestling with and the developmental goals they are working towards will make their more ‘frustrating’ behaviours easier to deal with. Things will run smoother if we can give them the space and support they need to do whatever it is they need to. Of course, none of this means the total surrendering of boundaries around what’s okay and what isn’t in terms of behaviour. What it means is responding with greater wisdom, clarity and with more appropriate consequences. Life just gets easier for everyone when we are able to take things less personally.”
Books on this subject:
Get Out of My Life
updated with how to deal with everything from social media to online threats and porn, as well as looking at all the difficult issues of bringing up teenagers, school, sex, drugs and more. But it’s the title of the second chapter, ‘What They Do and Why’ that best captures the book’s spirit and technique, explaining how to translate teenage behaviour into its true, often less complicated meaning. One key mistake, for instance, is getting in no-win conflicts instead of having the wisdom to shut up when shutting up would be the most effective, albeit least satisfying, thing to do. Another is taking offence when the teenager views you, the adult, as idiotic. And there’s advice on what to do when this happens. The message is clear: parenting adolescents is inherently difficult. Don’t judge yourself too harshly!
Enough As She Is
Enough As She Is sounds an alarm to parents and educators, arguing that young women can do more than survive adolescence. They can thrive. Enough As She Is shows us how.
Conversations That Matter: Talking with Children and Teenagers in Ways That Help
So many children and young people in our society are hurting. Research indicates that more children are depressed, anxious or locked in anger than ever before, with all the problems that creates at home, school and in society at large when emotional pain gets expressed through behaviour or physical symptoms. Many well-intentioned adults really want to help when children suffer because of parental conflict, divorce, family financial worries, loss and bereavement, trauma, bullying, isolation, general growing up issues, and worse. But we often lack the confidence and key skills to know how to help in ways that will genuinely support the child or teenager to properly process what is troubling them, and so reach a more positive place of genuine hope and optimism. Conversations that Matter, the latest book by Margot Sunderland, offers a wealth of tools and techniques to empower parents and practitioners to connect to children and young people through conversation, in life changing ways. Dr Sunderland is widely acknowledged as one of the UK’s leading experts in child counselling and therapy, as well as being a best-selling author of books for parents and professionals and co-founder of both the Institute of Arts in Therapy and Education and The Centre for Child Mental Health, London. Her life’s work has been to find the most effective ways of helping children and young people in distress, underpinning her practice with cutting-edge findings from the fields of affective neuroscience, developmental psychology and the study of trauma. She is also a passionate advocate for the healing power of the creative arts as a means to reach troubled children, when words are not enough. This long-awaited book will give readers a thorough, evidence-based and inspiring grounding in every aspect of talking with children who are hurting, from how to build a trusting relationship with the child, how to deepen the dialogue between you and make it meaningful, when to work directly or indirectly, how to handle the various inevitable challenges that will arise when talking to children about the difficult stuff, and more. Packed with creative possibilities, and illustrated with numerous ‘conversations’, this book can be re-turned to again and again whilst helping children and young people work through any life issue, past or present. The book also contains photocopiable worksheets, and introduces a completely new therapeutic story specifically written to help children who are struggling with trauma and shock. Dr Sunderland’s book will be of benefit to professionals as well as parents, carers and other adults who want the conversations they have with children and teenagers to genuinely help, and to matter.
Beyond Toddlerdom: Keeping five- to twelve- year-olds on the rails
A Survival Guide to Parenting Teens
Talking to Your Kids About Sexting, Drinking, Drugs, and Other Things That Freak You Out
Turn back the clocks! Your sweet child has morphed into a teen. And it’s no longer just a messy bedroom or an attitude with a capital “A” causing concern. There’s a whole new range of issues on the horizon. From lying to sexting to falling grades, the teenage years can be an uphill battle. Here is the no-nonsense guide you need to get your teen talking, listening, and back on track.
What you need most is quick and candid advice for dealing with the issue at hand. After all, if you say the right thing you will open up the lines of communication, but say the wrong thing…and WATCH OUT.
What if your daughter texts a naked picture to a “boyfriend”…which he then forwards to the entire class? What if your son becomes increasingly withdrawn…Or your child is being bullied online? Would you know what to do? You could read a whole book on teen psychology – but who has the time!
This book covers a broad range of issues for parenting teens from the terrifying (sex, drinking, drugs, depression) to the frustrating (defiance, laziness, conformity, entitlement). Parenting teens expert Joani Geltman approaches each of the 80 topics with honesty and a dash of humor. Want to understand why teens do what they do? Joani reveals what they are thinking and feeling – and what developmental factors are involved. She then explains how to approach each problem in a way that lets your kid know you “get it” and leads to truly productive conversations.
Videos on this subject:
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