In addition to Thursday's class discussion regarding gender acceptance in society, this week we discussed about the relationship between parents and adolescents. Unlike the infant and toddler years, during the adolescent years, our body has the most drastic developmental changes. Physically, the body changes during puberty with an increase in hormones. Cognitively, the mind becomes more developed and our reasoning becomes more abstract. We begin to develop a sense of identity and begin to look for future partners. We all developed differently, to become the unique individuals we are today, due to the diverse parenting styles that our parents have used towards us.
In the article, Five Basics of Parenting Adolescents, there are 5 significant ways that parents can promote healthy adolescent development and create a strong, positive relationship between parents and their child. Choose one of the 5 ways and give an example of how your parents may have effectively or not effectively used them to shape you to be the adolescent you were.
For example, my parents were often clear with their boundaries and gave strict rules on what I can and can not do. Being a Hmong daughter, it was even more difficult for me to go out and have fun like my brothers. In the Hmong culture, and most Asian cultures, women were often more limited than men. Women had an image to uphold and bringing shame to the family by acting outside of the "norm" was not acceptable. Therefore, my parents were strict and were rarely flexible with my sisters and I. This resulted in me becoming a rebellious teenager who went out and disobeyed my parent's rules. This created a strain in our relationship and caused us to butt heads on a daily. I believe, if my parents had been more flexible and more fair, I would have been a more honest teen and our relationship would have been better. Of course now, being a young adult, I am more responsible and I barely go out like how I used to. Thinking back, I'm still grateful for their parenting ways because it taught me to develop my morals and think more about those who care for me rather than being so focused on myself and "fun".
My parents also provided guidance and limits for me as an adolescent. They had clear boundaries for me, but also encouraged me to explore my abilities and own maturity. For example, they would have a curfew for me to be home at and ask me what I would be doing while I was out. But while I was out with my friends they trusted me to be mature and responsible. They did not hover over me or check in constantly. This made believe in my own competence, but also kept a healthy communication going between me and my parents. The expected me to check in with them when I got home at night, which also build trust between us. This idea of guidance but limits made me think of the idea of a secure base. They allowed me to explore my own world, while at the same time having me return to the secure base when they felt necessary.
ReplyDeleteMy parents provided guidelines and also monitored my academics. My parents set very firm rules for me, but still allowed me to explore and be my own person. Similar to Ashley's they had me tell them where I was going, whose was going with, and what we would be doing. After that they left it up to me to make good decisions and be responsible while still being somewhat independent. They also checked in on my schooling and monitored my grades in middle school and then less in high school. They never always had the chance to go to my school conferences so being able to check in made them feel like they were involved. The firm rules and academic checks really benefited me because I became more mature and self-aware. I knew right from wrong and became more independent. I constantly worked to do the best in school and get good grades because it made my parents happy.
ReplyDeleteI'd say my parents were a bit too stringent with limits, both with me and my sister; however I feel they have guided me well and as a result I have developed a strong sense of personal responsibility and orientation toward long-term goals.
ReplyDeleteThese limitations have affected the level of love and connection, in other words, communion between us -- abundant criticism has somewhat distanced me from them, especially in my middle adolescence. Even now, the level of intimacy between me and my parents is not the highest, so me and my sister prefer to share our problems with each other instead.
The limitations also hindered my independence and ability to make decisions on my own freely -- I had to constantly assert my will and attempt to enforce my choices, especially when it came to my future career.
My parents had very different ways of modeling and consulting me when I, or they, wanted to discuss a difficult topic. My mom had a tendency to talk to me as if I were older than I actually was. She expected me to process concepts from her point of view with out considering how I would feel about the topic or the situation. Because of this, it caused a strain on our relationship. I felt like she never listened to a thing that I had to say or wouldn't consider my feelings in the matter. My dad on the other hand didn't like talk about difficult topics but would if he had. He usually differed to my mom to talk to me about things that he felt uncomfortable with. He would always take my feelings under consideration if he was forced to discuss something with me. There was one time when my mom was rearranging the house (like she always does) and she wanted to change how the bedrooms were set up. At the time my parents made our basement into their room and I was in the master bedroom. My mom wanted to move me back into my old room, which was only big enough for my bed. I was upset about this because I spent a lot of time in my room. I did everything in there, it was my special place. My mom called me into the living room with her and my dad to talk about it. I could tell that it was the first time that my dad had heard about the change in rooms. My mom said "you're moving back into your old room." That was the end of her "discussing" it. Due to our lack of communication I felt frustrated and was on the verge of tears due to the frustration. I eventually told her no. She didn't understand what the big deal was. My dad could tell that I was unhappy and pointed out to my room that I spend all my time in my room and that putting me in the smaller room didn't make sense. My mom eventually agreed and decided that her and my dad would switch into my old room since they only spent time in their room to sleep. A lot of times during my adolescence I felt like I couldn't openly tell my mom what was going on with my life and turned to my friends instead. I knew that my dad didn't like talking about personal things so I felt like it was better to just not say anything. I feel like because of the lack of communication I became really trusting with my friends and more independent from my parents.
ReplyDeleteMy parents provided me a lot of love and connect growing up. They supported my decisions growing up like what jobs I was currently applying for, the type of people I hung out with, what I wanted to be when I grew up, and what college I wanted to go to. They also supported me when I wanted to quit soccer. My dad took it the hardest compared to my mom, but that was because he has been to all of my practices and games and watched me grow up playing soccer. He knew he couldn't force me to keep playing, and knew that if he did it would hurt our relationship. I had to have many talks with him on my decision, he understood it and listened to me, and accepted my choice. It was really nice to have parents who knew and accepted my values growing up. They knew that if I wanted to do something that was not going to benefit me in anyway, they would talk to me and tell me their opinions. I became really independent because of their support and love as I found out who I was as a person growing up.
ReplyDeleteMy parents provided me with a lot of love and a sense of connection growing up. As i've made it clear in class, my parents we're not strict with me at all, they were more of my friends than parents at the time but they always acted as my secure base. Our relationship continued to build and my attachment with them strengthen through our open relationship. I had the freedom to explore but also had them to fall back on. I think the lack of limits they gave me sometimes bites parents in the butt, but it worked for our relationship. They gave me a lot of love and a good sense of connection that kept me grounded and safe. I knew I could tell them things without them freaking out, I didn't have to lie to get away with things and it proved to be an efficient method that worked for our family. It also worked with my personality, I'm not a person that can be told what to do very easily, they understood that and tried hard not to "crush my strong willed spirit". They put trust in me and took my personality into consideration, which is something parents should take into consideration when they are raising their children.
ReplyDeleteLooking back, my parents and I had a good relationship and I always felt loved and connected, especially to my mom. At the same time, I think my parents really felt like their most important job was to "guide and limit". I don't think they always understood that I needed to have more independence in order to learn to be my own person and think for myself. I think I was a pretty good kid and never did anything truly bad, so it would have been nice to have had them demonstrate more trust and to force me to do more for myself. At the same time, as we discussed in class, parents are learning too. Since I was their first child, I can understand that they were not really sure what was the best thing to do in many situations and that their parents were even more strict when they were children.
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ReplyDeleteOne of the things that my parents did a bad job of was modeling and consulting. They could have done a better job of teaching me right versus wrong. For me, I was a spunky, energetic child that turned into a talented basketball player and exceptional student, but no one really taught me how to be polite or manners or just certain things you need to know to be healthy and when they tried to confront me about something they would do it at unnecessary times or I simply didn’t take them seriously. I could have listened to them, but they didn’t know how to get through to me. They could have been stricter with me and I could have made some better decisions and could place blame on them, but what’s the good in that?
ReplyDeleteIn retrospective, I get that my parents had to put food on the table and with every opportunity they had to work they did and I appreciate that. I understand that we might have had our fair share of ups and down with each other and hell they may be hurting for not being able to spend more time with me, but I am the youngest and one of the smartest and passionate individuals out of my six siblings and they missed out on that and I hope that one day we can see eye to eye for longer than a picture frame.
When it comes to my family and the way that my parents have raised form my adolescents stage, the main type of parenting my parents used was guide and limit. they would guide me and my siblings according to the situations that we were in. They did give us ample space in our social lives so as to learn from our surroundings independantly. They guided us in a way that would make us realize the benfits and consequences we all happened to bee in and gave us a path to make the right desicion on ourselves that really guided us to gain and benefit from different instances in our little social lives. They also were able to limit how long we spent watching tv and what we watched on tv this is because it increased and nutured our cognitive factors. i.e our attention spans and level of understanding. This helped us not to only to benefit social amongest our peers but mostly in or school work since high school education and participation is very important to adolescents.
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