Posts Tagged ‘responsible’

R is for Responsible for My Relationships: Teenagers

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Those of you with teenage children may nod your head enthusiastically at the topic of relational responsibility. After all, your children are developing their own friends — often inexplicable to you! You’re concerned about the influence of their friends and about potential sexual activity. This area of relationships for those with teenagers is a minefield, fraught with both anticipated and hidden dangers.

You have a right to be concerned.

Proverbs talks about friends in this way:

“A righteous man is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray” (Prov. 12:26) and “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared” (Prov. 22:24-25).

Friends have influence over us. Teenagers especially tend to be “pack animals” and adopt the attitudes, beliefs, and values of the group with whom they associate. Pointing this out to teenagers can be a dicey proposition, as they tend to cling tightly to the image of defiant independence. Take, for example, teenage styles of dress, hair, or ornamentation. Teens adopt these styles as a way to declare personal independence, without taking into account their desire to fit into a group mentality. This paradox is visible to you, as the adult, but not necessarily to your teen.

The teenage years are a time of personal formation; your teen is making decisions about what sort of a person he or she wants to be. That is why it’s vital he or she has been given the tools needed to navigate these tricky waters. These tools aren’t handed to your children at fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen. Rather, over the course of their childhood, these tools are given, refined, supported, and encouraged.

Relational responsibility should be taught from infancy in order to support positive choices in adolescence and beyond. However, it is never too late to start teaching and modeling these concepts. Teenagers are still teachable and will listen to loving, commonsense advice. If your children are young, begin to teach these principles now. With solid grounding, your child can better weather the inevitable storms of adolescence, especially in the realm of relationships.

SOURCE: Chapter 8, “R is for Responsible for My Relationships,” in Healthy Habits, Healthy Kid: A Practical Plan to Help Your Family by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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R is for Responsible for My Emotions

Wednesday, March 31st, 2010

Just as children come in all body types, they also come in all emotional types. Some children are natural stoics. Some children have a seemingly endless supply of pendular emotions. Other children are one-sided emotionally, reacting to a variety of situations with a specific emotional response, such as anger or disappointment. You may have emotionally different children but one desired outcome — for each child to become responsible for his or her emotional response.

KNOWING YOUR OWN EMOTIONAL STATE

Before we begin to talk about your child, we need to talk about you.

As the adult role model, you need to have your emotional act together. Just as your own poor food choices can make it difficult for your children to eat responsibly, your poor emotional choices can make it difficult for your children to react responsibly. Your emotional stability, or lack thereof, provides an environment for your child’s emerging emotions.

Think for a moment how you usually respond to the following situations with your child — not what you hope you’ll do or what you think you should do but your standard response.

  1. How do you respond when your child whines?
  2. How do you respond when your child is excited?
  3. How do you respond when your child is angry?
  4. How do you respond when your child is happy?
  5. How do you respond when your child is defiant?
  6. How do you respond when your child is hopeful?
  7. How do you respond when your child is sad?
  8. How do you respond when your child is right?
  9. How are your responses to others different from how you respond to y9ur child?

The way you respond to your child, and to others, speaks volumes. As the adult, you set the emotional tone for your child, affecting his or her own emotional response. So now take the time to go through the same nine questions again, this time answering with the healthy responses you would like to emulate in the future.

ASK FOR HELP

Father, thank you for making us as  diverse emotionally as we are physically. Help me to know and understand my child’s emotions. I confess I’ve allowed the sun to go down on my own anger. I accept that my emotional stability is a model for my child. Help me to allow my child to experience and express emotions. Alert me to any difficulty my child has with emotional stability, and help me to subdue my pride in order to get needed help. Amen.

SOURCE: Chapter 7, “R is for Responsible for My Emotions,” in Healthy Habits, Healthy Kid: A Practical Plan to Help Your Family by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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