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Teenagers have been known to be difficult during this stage in their life. Your cute and adorable little children will change into more difficult persons once they step on this stage. Thus, as parents, you might need to know more about your teens you to know more about how to handle difficult teenagers.

Well, every child is unique. Therefore, the levels of difficulty will also be different. This stage should not remain forever. Once they are getting older and more mature, it will last slowly but sure. The moment I am writing this post, I am dealing with 3 teenager sons, 17, 16, and 12 year old

Generation after generation parents everywhere have questioned if they will ever survive the teenage years. With the changes in body shape, hormones, peers and school requirements, many teenagers can become rather difficult to manage. While parenting a teenager may seem impossible to cope with, there are some ways to handle difficult teenagers that will get them back to the child you know and love as well as help you alleviate the stress during this time in parenthood

Before we start, you might want to check some books about parenting teenagers

Parenting Teens With Love And Logic: Preparing Adolescents for Responsible Adulthood, Updated and Expanded EditionThe 7 Habits of Highly Effective TeensHave a New Teenager by Friday: How to Establish Boundaries, Gain Respect & Turn Problem Behaviors Around in 5 DaysRight Click: Parenting Your Teenager In A Digital Media World [Sticky Faith]The 6 Most Important Decisions You'll Ever Make: A Guide for Teens: Updated for the Digital Age

How to Handle Difficult Teenagers

Privileges at Tips

Most times as adults we think about tips in the form of monetary value. Let me further explain, when we tip someone it’s usually someone who’s served us a meal and we give them extra money in addition to paying the bill. When it comes to handling difficult teenagers, you can use privileges as tips. Inform your difficult teenager that from now on specific privileges will only be allowed in exchange for good behavior. If your teenager makes good choices, is respectful and follows rules then they can have certain privileges.  Figure out which privileges are extras and will be used as tips, create the list of “tips” so that your teen can see what falls under this household change of rules.

Always Follow Through

Think of your difficult teenager as a large version of a toddler. Your teenager will continue to make bad choices if you lack follow through with consequences. So while you can set up privileges as tips, it’s important to not give those privileges if your teenager has been extremely difficult and making poor decisions. When you follow through with consequences, your teenager becomes more willing to be respectful and make good choices. The moment you lack follow through, your teen will find that grey area and take advantage of that every single time.

Be Less Reactive

Please allow me to elaborate on what it means to be less reactive. As a parent of a teenager, you want to be more proactive while maintaining control of your emotional responses at all times. You need to keep your control as the parent, otherwise, your teenager will see how they can push your buttons and they will take advantage of this. When you learn to be less reactive, you are simply making a commitment to not lash out when you’re angry at your teenager. Take a moment to breathe, think about a good consequence or discussion to have and then come back to address your teenager when calm.

Use Effective Communication

To coincide with maintaining control of your emotions during trying times with your difficult teenager, you also need to use effective communication. There are some books on the market that will help teach you the great leadership skill of saying no in a way that doesn’t make someone feel defensive. When raising a difficult teenager it’s so important to learn how to say no in an assertive way. This form of effective communication leaves your teenager will zero ability to negotiate their way with you. Mean what you say and say what you mean when it comes to handling a difficult teenager.

Develop a Sense of Humor

I am sure many parents don’t want to hear this because when you’re trying to handle a difficult teenager the last thing you want is to find a sense of humor in the situation. Believe me, it’s not always easy to find humor when a teenager is being difficult. With that being said, if you can learn to develop a sense of humor with your difficult teen’s moodiness, it will go a long way to ensure you handle your difficult teenager effectively and quickly. Being able to find the humor allows stress to go away and in turn, you remain in control as the parental unit.

While these 5 key ways to handle difficult teenagers may not help solve every problem, these are a great start. When it comes to being a parent to a difficult teenager, often times any advice will assist in guiding you forward in a positive direction to parenting your teenager.

If you like this post, you might want to check out:

8 Ultimate Life Things Teenagers Must Learn
Dealing with Teenagers’ Sexual Temptation and Romantic Relationships
6 Steps To Help Homeschool Teenagers to Learn More Independently
Stop Losing Your Temper with Your Teenager
Tips to Build Trust with your Teenager
What Kind of Parents are you? 3 Different Parenting Styles