When we say 5 most common issues people will automatically think about drug abuse, other types of substance abuse, low grades and school problems and any other tough situation that might pop into your head. But the fact is that they are not near the top five most common issues parents deal with every day when their teenagers are in question, they are more common then you can imagine and I’m sure they will get each and everyone of you on a personal level, maybe not all, but at least 2 out of this 5 will.

The most common issue most of the parents have to deal with their kids is that everything is a drama with them. Yes, they are going to a process of becoming adults and everything is mixed up and they are overly sensitive. Some things that you may find to be normal and ordinary might get a totally different reaction from them, so don’t be alarmed.

Another well known teen issue most parents have is the fact that their children are hanging out with kids the parents don’t approve of and don’t like. But the fact is that more we push them about it the worse it becomes, and sometimes parents are at fault here. Just because a teen has greasy hair, or dresses in a way we don’t like doesn’t mean that he is bad for our kid. We have to know those kids before we make up our mind.

Of course, what parent didn’t have to deal at least once with worries because his child stayed out too late! You have to understand that teens will test your limits every chance they get, so once your child is home, do what needs to be done to ensure that this doesn’t happen again. Ground them.

A very popular issue in the past two years is that our children are getting run by technology, yes, their lives are influenced by cell phones, computers and internet. By using too much they are starting to forget the art of communication face to face with real people standing in front of them. So try to limit their gadget use to a normal level as much as you can.

The last issue we discussed just a while ago, it feels like your teen hates you. It happens to all of us, that is just their way of teens expressing their defiance and emotions.

These are the 5 top issues every parent has to deal with when their children are in question. All of these issues can be dealt with a little effort and positive discipline, sometimes all we need to do is listen to our kids.
 

Every parent knows that he should be careful when his children start approaching ten years, and they know that it will be hard. We all know that, but we manage to make ourselves believe that our children are different and that they will never talk back, never get in trouble or never do something like get a tattoo or start smoking. Guess what, 99% of us are wrong, we all think that but we all suffer the same fate, our children become hot tempered and wired and they do crazy things, just like we did when we were in our teens. That is how things go, but with some effort and genuine concern we can make the transition much smoother and easier on both the kids and ourselves.

So here you are, your kids are doing great, they listen to what you have to say, they are doing their homework and a few minutes after they are rolling their eyebrows and giving you the silent treatment. What happened? Most parents are shocked by the sudden change, and in most cases they don’t know how to respond to this and that is when problems start to appear. If you think about it you have seen all of this before, with that same child, only he or she was few years old and was screaming; now they are silent. It’s just a transitional phase when children are more involved with their friends, think more about their feelings than they think about their family, we all went through that. Maybe not in the same way, but the basics are the same.

There are some cases where parents feel hurt and they respond in the same way, by rejecting their children in the same way the children reject them, which is the biggest mistake a parent can make at that point. Your children need you still, and they know it, they just want to find their way as individuals. Since that period is confusing for them you need to have understanding and patience.

This is the time when you have to make some ground rules from scratch, not just for your child, but for yourself. It’s one thing if your child roles his eyeballs or makes faces, but if your child starts cursing at you and slamming the door whenever you open your mouth you need to enforce some discipline. A good simple “no” is a thing that teenagers respond to, although they act like they don’t, be direct with what you want to say, don’t beat around the bush and don’t let your own child boss you around. If you can’t establish authority in your own house you are in trouble and your child is in trouble as well. The bottom line is that whatever you do you do it for the sake of your child, even if that something is not to his or her liking.
 

Stress is a big influence on teen behavior and it can be caused by many things ranging from moving to another place, divorce of parents, loss of a loved one, home troubles, school troubles and many other things. The biggest issue about teen stress is that it may lead to many other things such as depression, anxiety, behavior issues, drug and substance abuse, insomnia and plenty of other mental and medical issues.

There are dozens of things that cause stress for a teenager and most of them are hard to notice, so parents have a hard time dealing with this issue and helping their child. The things parents should keep a close eye on, related to stress sources, are too much homework and being over scheduled with school, sports and extracurricular activities in general. Having high standards set by parents or school for performance that may seem unrealistic and even fear of failure despite having great grades. In most cases the toughest source of stress can be a loss of a loved one, death in the family or divorce situations. Some teens can get stressed over news, natural disasters and such. Others may have a medical issue that causes stress on a daily basis, like diabetes, asthma or even a broken leg, a medical issue in the family is also a cause of stress for teens. And the last stress source is the most common one, financial trouble.

There are many ways teens can cope with stress and ways that parents can help them do that. The most common ones and the ones that bear the most importance are a good conversation, good night’s sleep and regular physical exercise, burning out energy always relieves mental issues and stress.

That is not all, other ways that can help your child relieve stress can go from more free time to relax to spending more time with your child and trying to sort things out in a calm and friendly fashion. Routines and rituals are a good way to relieve stress, regular family dinner is always a good way to relieve stress, routines can be an effective healer. As a parent you shouldn’t be the one causing stress for your child, so instead of pushing your child you should set realistic expectations for your child. At the same time you shouldn’t spare your child for the most basic things, dealing your child with responsibilities appropriate for his age will help him in the long run and it will help him develop his problem solving skills, which means less stress for small things.

Of course if you have trouble helping your child and you feel that his problem is getting out of hand it would be wise to seek professional help. Talking to the counselor or a pediatrician may do the trick, whatever you do you should do with a simple thought, will that affect my child and how. Once you figure that out try doing everything keeping in mind the best possible outcome and always setting some time aside for talking with your teen child.
 

If you go around the house all the time telling your teen child to do his homework, clean up his room, or now to get a summer job, you have a problem and the problem is that your teen child is not motivated enough. Just going around the house telling them what to do brings no effect, so you should already know better and stop repeating yourself and try some new things that will end up benefiting both you and your teen child.

First of all, don’t look at other teenagers and nag your teen child how they are all better than he is, some kids are just naturally more motivated than other, it’s normal. You need to understand better your kid, his moods and his personality, which may shed light on what to do. Some kids simply won’t do what you tell them when you tell them, they have their own timetable and there is nothing you can do to make them obey. The bottom line is that you shouldn’t expect of your teen child to listen all the time and be motivated all the time, which is simply impossible.
If you ever wondered why your teen child is sometimes unmotivated here are a few examples that might shed some light on this issue.

Some teen kids simply have a low self esteem and they don’t have big expectations of themselves. Maybe your child is surrounded by kids and peers with lack of ambition, which may influence his behavior and motivation. In some situations teen kids can’t see their true potential and they set low goals for themselves. Most teens simply don’t care and have their mind set on something else, so whatever you tell them won’t even reach them. Or your child is simply a rebel and does not respect authority.

So what should you do to change all of this? To get the idea you have to realize that there are two types of motivation, the one when you are about to do something enjoyable and fun and the one when you are looking forward to a reward. The first type of reward is something that has a longer life expectancy, in other words it will last longer while the second type of motivation usually flies out the window as soon as the reward is received. Let’s go over few things you need to implement in your kids raising in order for them to have the first type of motivation.

You need to teach your kids that whatever they do they need to finish it and see it to the end, quitting can easily become a habit. The next step is learning, they need to develop the tools needed for self education, they need to want to learn, and you can do so by providing them with things that will interest them and keep them asking questions, like computers, books and even travel when necessary. The next part is to try and influence who your child is friends with, we said that unmotivated people around your child may make him unmotivated, the same goes for the alternative. The most important part about motivation learning is to teach them how to set goals, let them start with small goals in order to achieve larger goals in life. Always try to interest your kids in things they are good at, that will get their self confidence and motivation up.

All of these things will help your teen child motivate himself in such ways that you won’t have to tell them to do something ever again. But you need to understand that pushing a kid too hard has its negative effects, kids will have to give up some things, be sure they give up the wrong things and not the right ones.
 

We live in a troubling time, the time when out teenagers are in danger more than ever. The statistics are terrifying, when I look at those numbers I get a chill down my spine. Over 50% of all teenagers use drugs and alcohol and teenagers account for over ¼ of all sexually transmitted diseases. If you want numbers here are some frightening numbers, in the next 24 hours 1,439 teenagers will attempt suicide, 2,795 teenage girls will become pregnant, 3,506 teenagers will run away and 15,006 teenagers will use drugs for the first time. Are you scared yet? I know I am!

The issue here is how to provide our children with help and where can we learn how to help them, how to educate them and how to educate ourselves in order to help them. Since we do live in the 21st century the first thing we should do is use that to our advantage as kids do, we look on the internet, the biggest library on earth. Every quality institution in the world has a website offering its services, free advice and many other things. For emergencies you have 411 resources, but for the problems that are not as urgent as right this instant you can use teen resource websites to get some insight into teen issues and how to help solve them.
If you think your child needs to go to a specialty school or a treatment facility, what better place to ask which ones are good and what to expect. What are the programs, what is the curriculum and many other things, what better resource than internet itself? But understand one thing; internet is just a first step of informing yourself and first step in helping your troubled teenager. Internet can be used as first aid resource center, after that depending on the issue at hand you will go further or maybe you can solve the problem yourself. This goes for both parents and teenagers. Parents can inform themselves and educate to some degree. Teenagers can find teen help on anonymous forums where they can ask for help, and in most times they will find someone who had a similar problem and that can give them some advice on what to do and how to handle the situation at hand. But again, internet mustn’t be taken lightly. There are safe websites and there are those that are not safe, if you are a teenager that is the first thing you must investigate. After all, you don’t want a psycho solving your problems.

Many teen problems start in their own home, unfortunately many parents won’t admit that, so they blame it on the school, teachers, friends, but in the end parents need to take most of the responsibility. The reason why that is a fact is because parents have forgotten how to communicate with their children. As our kids are now part of the internet generation we were once a part of the MTV generation and we cause troubles for our parents, but they knew how to deal with us more or less, that bond and that knowledge seems to be disappearing.

Communicating with teens has always been a problem, but it’s something we must do in order to be apart of their lives and in order to help them when they need it. The first thing you need to do is learn how to talk to your teen child, that is if you forgot what it feels to sit down and have an honest conversation with your children. After that everything becomes easier to deal with, but the talking part can be sometimes incredibly difficult. That is if you let it get that way from the start, by connecting to your child from the early age you will have a chance to avoid that bridge when the teenager years come and the inevitable rebellion begins.
There are many different teen behavior patterns, some can be frightening, some can be alarming and some can be depressing, but with love and patience any parent can overcome them. Maybe I was wrong in saying that you first need to learn how to talk to your teen child, the first thing you need to do is listen to your child. That involves more than just taking some time to listen to what he or she has to say, you as a parent need to try and understand them and you also need to be aware of their social life, of their desires and their dreams. By knowing all that, by listening you will be able to talk to your child about those things and many other, that will give you the right tools to fight against many teenager behavior problems and other teen issues that might occur.
It is the parent’s responsibility to raise a child, the first step to dealing with your teenager is talking to him. So for those who forgot how it’s time to start learning the forgotten art of communication.

We all know that bullying is one of the biggest problems our teenagers go through in school. Well, most of us know, unfortunately some of us are proud parents of children that do the bullying and close a blind eye to that. That needs to stop, because teenagers are getting more sensitive and at the same time bullying is getting harsher. The consequences of bullying are not just children that isolate them from society, which is also intolerable, but much worse than that, teenagers are committing suicide because they can’t handle the pressure. To make things even worse the bullies have evolved, now they use even internet for bullying people, which is called cyber-bullying.

Cyberbullying is different from cyber-harassment or cyber-stalking, those two are used by adults and they mostly involve sexual harassment. Cyberbullying is when a teen or a preteen harasses, bullies, spreads lies, or does anything to hurt another teen or preteen via internet or mobile phones. The worst part about it is that children that had no involvement with bullies nor did they show violent behavior in school are taking part in cyberbullying. It’s like an open invitation for anyone to tease others; unfortunately the newspapers have been full lately with talk about cyberbullies, full with talk about teens taking their own lives because they couldn’t take it anymore. What’s even worse is that cyberbullying continued even after their death, so that means that the children that are doing this are out of control and the internet addiction has spread to a whole new level.
The only way to help in this situation is to prevent, try and prevent it from happening. Cyberbullying prevention is the only way that means that you should avoid having anything to do with that kind of communication and should refuse to pass any form of cyberbullying messages. Also you need to prevent your friends from doing the same and you must report cyberbullying to a responsible adult. So basically you need to make people around you aware that this is bad, this is why we are writing this article, to create awareness of this rising problem and to appeal on you to take some actions.
The news is that the school boards and the states are thinking of a new law that will protect children from cyberbullying and in the first place to create a law about bullying at school. So be aware, after all that has happened lately a law will be issued where all bullies will be punishable by law. You need to keep in mind that after the January incident where a little girl took her life 9 criminal charges for bullying and cyberbullying were brought up. We appeal to you to do your part and prevent cyberbullying from happening.

Being a parent with a teenager child, they are mostly concern with many things, because of the fact that teenager years usually surrounded with temptations or problems. Parents with teens in the family usually fret that their child might use drugs, smoke, depression, sex, grades and other more things that their child might do. But what is more very alarming is the status and prevalence of teen suicide nowadays.

You will be able to get further information on teen suicide and teen suicide facts from teen suicide articles and other sources. Sources and support groups are also available online that would help teens and their parents in facing teen suicide. There are many teens out there that commit suicide when they feel that they have no way out from their problems in life. But for others, suicide is their only way to get attention from the society that overlooked them. It their way of saying “look at me, I need help!”

As a parent, teen suicide must be taken seriously since this situation might put your child in a dangerous situation or it may end their life. Make certain that you do whatever it takes to prevent your child from doing it. If you notice your child becomes depressed and suicidal, you need to act immediately and try to talk to him/her of what’s bothering him/her.

Moreover, knowing how to prevent suicide is what the best thing that we can do. To prevent suicide we must know the reason why the child is sad and depressed. By knowing this we will be able to prevent more teen suicide. Keeping the child busy and pre occupied is also the other way of preventing the child from committing suicide. And more importantly make sure that you boost the self- esteem of your child.

If you notice your child is with suicidal tendencies, get immediate help from a professional on this field for example a psychiatrist. If your child has suicidal tendencies, do not leave things anywhere, things that can be use to hurt themselves like guns or other weapon, pills or medications. Do not also leave a suicidal teen alone in their house, he/ she must be given observation at all times.

As a parent, always have a good relationship with your child especially with teens. Always have an open line of communication with them. Try to understand what they are going through and be more empathic.

Teenage depression is a very common incidence in teens nowadays and it generally affects anyone. Most of the parent with a teen already knows what teen depression is. They are already aware of the dangers depression might bring to their teens. If not, we have to inform them about teenage depression for them to prevent it from occurring.

To start teaching parents with teens in their family we must first present to them the signs and symptoms of teenage depression. Some common symptoms of teenage depression are; frequent sadness, crying which is often with no reason, they tend to withdraws, refuse to eat or overeating. Sometimes they feel hopeless, they sometimes talk of death or suicide or obsession with death or suicide is evident.

After teaching the parents with the signs and symptoms of teenage depression, next stop would be presenting to them the causes of teenage depression. Teenage depression may be due to different causes. Teen years can be hard stage for someone, together with pressure around them, like expectations of parents, friends, and school. If this is combined with the use of alcohol and drugs this could lead to depression.

Furthermore, one of the problems of a depressed teen is that they have problems either in school or at home. The other reason of teenage depression can also be form medical conditions or other behavioral problem like eating disorder. But some teens may only need an improved diet or get some sleep.

When it comes to treating teenage depression it should not be treated the same with adult depression because this two are not the same. There are different treatments when we speak about teenage depression. Medications are available to treat depression but it might only be needed in a short period of time. Teen depression involves knowing what the cause of depression is and it involves counseling. In counseling knowing the origin of the problem is the way to help the teen get away from depression.

When you are a parent with a depressed teen, it is essential that you try to understand your child’s feelings, listen to him/her and try not to be accusing. Respect your teen’s opinions and do not blame him/her in his/her situation. It only shows that being a teen is not that easy. When you grasp this, you can aid your child. And bear in mind to offer loads of love and support and encouragement.

Peer pressure is what some of the teens are undergoing right now. This is one of the pressure that teenager will usually encounter in this stage of their lives. Teen peer pressure can either be a good or a bad influence to the life of a teen. Teen peer pressure can be bad if your child or your troubled teen is involved in gang members who use drugs and alcohol. But if your child belongs to group wherein thy value their family and the presence of their friends in their lives and do things in a good manner, then the peer pressure becomes good. With this kind of peer pressure, your child can also gain confidence and inspiration from his/ her group. These children are usually up to sports which permits family involvement. Encourage your child to be with those kinds of people with positive influence to them.

The main reason why these kids give in to peer pressure is because one of the stages that they need to pass is not to become isolated. That is why most of the teen wants to be liked and be popular. They do not want to be left alone and not accepted. If a teen feels that he/she is alone, he/she will try everything just to fit in to a certain group of people even though they do smoke, take drugs or drink alcohol. Having a group of people to be with, they can escape things like becoming a joke of the school or have others make fun of them.

The teenagers are the ones vulnerable to this kind of pressure, so it is a must that we should give tips on how to avoid peer pressure with bad influence. First, teen must know on what he/she wants to do in his/her life, he/ she should know herself introspectively, what makes him/her happy and sad. Knowing your own self is kind of fulfilling and challenging. With this the teenager can resist temptation of peer pressure. Follow your heart on what you think is right, follow what you think is best for you. Be strong enough and have more confidence in facing challenges of peer pressure. Secondly, chose your friend carefully make sure they are the ones that will give you good influences rather than bad. Have friends who are with the same interests as yours, rather than those you don’t know because maybe they have a family problem or any painful experience that they want you to experience also.

If you already have a group of friends and they’re doing things like taking drugs, alcohol and others, it is better for you to go away from them and find a new set of kids to hang out with.