6 Tips to Empower Your Pre-Teen

Tom Kidd |

If you are preparing to raise a pre-teen or are smack dab in the middle of it, it is critical to adopt specific parenting strategies, such as creating open communication with your child, to allow a smoother and healthier transition through this challenging time. Although we parent as best as we can most of the time, it is an extremely important time to “intentionally parent” a kid between the ages of 11 and 16. Why? In 2017, kids are facing:

• Prescription drug use and misuse.
• The rise of heroin and methamphetamine use.
• Dramatic increases in teenage depression/suicide rates.
• More incidents of verbal, physical, and cyber-bullying.
• Sexual intercourse before the age of 18.
• More incidents of date rape.

There are a number of very important parenting strategies that can be practiced while preparing to raise a pre-teen. Below are six that will help prepare you to help your teen through this transitional period:

1. Take care of yourself

In order to have the needed energy, passion, and proper attitude to be a good parent (and spouse for that matter), you need to take the necessary time for you! Parents generally save time for themselves after all their time is spent on others. This simply needs to be reversed as much as possible by specifically putting time aside for you on a daily basis.

2. Practice good communication

Every parent loses his or her temper. But in a situation in which a tough conversation between you and your child needs to take place, it is important to remember to keep your voice calm, to look them in the eyes intermittently, and to sit at the same level as the person you are speaking to. If appropriate, sit fairly close to them and touch them as you talk. Practice and use phrases such as:

• “I feel ...”
• “Because ...”
• “What I need/what I want/would you consider ...”
• Thank them!

3. Get to know your KID’s friends

One researcher believes this is the No. 1 factor determining whether your child will use drugs, be sexually active, or choose other unhealthy behaviors. Make your home a welcomed place for all of your child’s friends. Take the time to get to know them and their parents!

4. Help set goals

It is extremely important for your child to have hope. Simply put, many teens without hope and anticipation choose unhealthy behaviors. Everyone in the family should write out a “bucket list” of 30 things they want to do in life.

5. Don’t shout

At times, it is difficult to refrain from raising your voice, but shouting matches quickly escalate into power struggles instead of discussions about wants and needs. As their voice escalates, your tone should diminish. You might want to say, “I really would like to discuss this with you, but I can’t continue right now with the yelling. When you have calmed down, come on back and we’ll discuss it so we can then try our best to make it a win-win situation for both of us!”

6. Provide the following life skills

Key skills include assertiveness, communication, problem-solving, decision-making, refusal, listening, and “care-frontation.”