Understanding Teens: Opening The Door to a Better Relationship, HYG-5300-98

Understanding Teens: Opening The Door to a Better Relationship, HYG-5300-98: "Understanding Teens: Opening The Door to a Better Relationship


Eileene Welker
Extension Agent, Family & Consumer Sciences, Tuscarawas County

If you are a parent of a teen, do these statements sound familiar? He won't do anything around the house. She's always in her room. He is always on the phone. She can spend an hour on her hair; why can't she spend five minutes to empty the dishwasher? I can't stand the way teens dress. I'm worried that they may try drugs or become sexually active.

Despite the fact that most parent-teen relationships are warm and caring, issues of independence and increasing conflict emerge during the teen years. These two connected issues may cause you concern as you try to figure out how to handle them.

In recent years, psychologists have revised their idea of healthy parent-teen relationships. They have found that most teens have warm, close relationships with their parents. They care about their parents' opinion of them and hold their parents' opinions in high regard. Many teens who do not have good rapport with their parents have had difficulties with them for years. If your relationship with your child has always been strained, there are ways to relate more positively."

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posted by Robert Heard at 6:19 PM