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What Influences Your Adolescent?

Every parent knows that when their children go through adolescence things change around the house. Adolescence is a period of rapid change in the life of a child and of the family that the child lives in. Many families experience huge amounts of turmoil as their children pass through the teenage years. Parents could, and reasonably so, describe adolescence as a period of temporary insanity. What influences adolescents at this time in their lives and how can you as a parent understand their world?

Hormonal changes in the adolescent body bring about sudden, dramatic changes in their physical bodies and in their ability to reason. Hormones cause rapid growth spurts in teens that not only bring about larger physical features but also the mature development of their sexual and reproductive organs. Along with all of those changes, adolescents find themselves with new physical strengths and abilities. Sexual development brings with it a new interest in the opposite sex. This can occupy much of a young person’s thought life as they discover new ways to interact with and catch the attention of the opposite sex that a few months earlier were of no interest to them.

During the teen years, peers become much more important than ever before. Adolescents want to fit in, they want to be part of the crowd and they want to feel popular. You will notice that they often adjust their dress, speech, and taste in music and more just to become more acceptable to others of their own age group. In addition to this, your teen will probably want to spend more time hanging out with their friends. Friends can suddenly have a huge influence over your child during adolescence. If you want to keep some level of control over the influence other teens have over your child, don’t stop your child from being with their friends. Instead, get to know your children’s friends, allow them to visit and feel welcome in your home. The more you see of them, the more it helps you monitor their activities.

Music, media and television are each factors that have a strong influence over teens, as with the rest of the population. Media programming and music that are directly aimed at influencing youth can affect the way your children dress, speak and even the things that they buy. In fact, the music on your child’s iPod will most likely have a heavily influence on the way they think. This does not however have to lead to paranoia on your part, try to balance out your child’s collection by buying them milder forms of music to listen to as well. They will listen to them when they need a change.

Although adolescence is often a time of extremes, whether that be mood swings, behavior or dress sense, parents do not necessarily need to panic when they see big changes in their children. It is important to learn as much as you can about the adolescent stage of life and coping with it as a parent. Although your children may flirt with things that seem scary and extreme to you, they will most likely naturally come back to center. It will not be very long before they have successfully passed through the teenage years and have turned back into the wonderful human being that you love and remember. Continue to hug them throughout the teen years, even when they screw up their faces and act as though they don’t like it. They still need those hugs no matter how big they have got.

Susan Roberts has many years experience working with teens and families and also publishes various articles on HubPages including a “Comparison Of Children Growing Up In Different Countries“. She currently works with KS Child Locate. She was born, raised and educated in the UK.

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