Parenting has always been the toughest yet most awaited and aspired for job in human life!

‘Becoming a parent’ is a simple, natural, biological phenomenon but ‘being a parent’ demands an appropriate combination of skill and art, patience and assertion, commitment and compassion.

Human growth and development is a dynamic process. Modernization in lifestyle affects all dimensions of humanity not to spare the parent-teen relations. Parent-teen relationship has never been a smooth sail and it is a customary to blame the teens, whenever teenage parenting is discussed. This is unfair. Change and challenges are on both the sides.

Let’s enumerate the significant ones:

1) Increasing age of parent: With the right sided shift in the age of becoming a parent, more and more situations occur where the parents are exhausted of energy and vigor by the time child becomes a teen. Just when the teens are passing through their phase of “hormonal highs”, the parents too are experiencing the ‘hormonal lows’ with male andropause and female menopause. This results in increased generation gap and decreased tolerance levels.

2) Single child norm: It is a convenient selfishness of achieving social security and joy of parenting while limiting the burden and stress of rearing a child. With shrinking families and dying relationships, come the psychological vacuum and impaired social skills of caring, sharing, sacrificing and negotiating. Feeling of helplessness and loneliness in times of stress may predispose to depression. The parents too are overprotective, over demanding, wishing to fulfill all their unaccomplished dreams through the only child, leaving stress on both the ends.

3) Working Parents and latch- key children: My generation has enjoyed both; the bouquets of a warm welcome by mother on coming from school and the brickbats of nagging while talking a little longer on phone to a friend. But today, many children face the misfortune of being welcomed home by locked doors and surrounded by maids and servants most hours of the day. Parents’ efforts to compensate with ‘quality time’ may not be adequate always. Recent studies have shown that for healthy parent-teen bonding the physical presence of at least one of the parent at four times in a child’s day is inevitable; waking up in the morning, going to and coming home from school, at least one mealtime and at bedtime.

4) Electronic Medias as baby sitters and siblings: Addiction to electronic Medias is more in homes when parents are away for long hours and especially in child without a sibling. Televisions, computers, videogames, smart phones, online purchasing and net addictions are creating havoc on the teen’s health in form of obesity, attention deficit, poor body image, degraded values and morals and sexual promiscuity. Not to forget the economic burden on the parents.

5) Unhealthy lifestyles promoted by media: Advertisements wrongly promote branded things, junk foods, high calorie and zero nutrition snacks and drinks, smoking, alcohol, unnatural ways for achieving zero figures and six-packs bodies. Incorrect notions of sexuality and success as projected by media are blindly adopted by youngsters.

6) Social and Peer pressures: not only on the teens but even on the parents are at their peak today. It’s very difficult to escape from the influence of latest trends and western cultures. Consumerism is making one forget ones financial and social background. Easy loans and EMIs are promoting materialism as never before.

7) Unrealistic expectations for excellence in both academic as well as non-academic fields, pose great source of anxiety. Today’s era of scores, ranks, performance, qualifications, careers are taking toil of mental health of youths.

8) Extended age of responsibilities as parents: Today the parents are forced to carry on the financial and emotional burden of education and settling the child beyond the time he/she is young adult. Paying for higher studies, setting up a second home and separation of parents to help the child out in other city, all these add to the parental stress.

9) Long distance or remote control parenting: When the child is studying in other place away from home, the parents face the vacuum of being left alone at home, the insecurity about the child’s future or the fear of child getting spoiled in bad company. The more the extra efforts to keep control over the child from distance, the more the irritation to the teen. Lastly the parents have to prepare for the “empty nest” when finally the child settles down in a separate home.

These are some of the gross factors adding salt to the burning issues of parent-teen relationships today. How do they affect the teens specially and what can be the preventive strategies?

Rising health issues in the present day teens –

1) Physical health issues:

• Deficiency of micronutrients, anemia, sedentary lifestyles, obesity, early onset of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, hypertension.
• Allergies and altered immunity due to preservatives, food adulteration, pollution and reduced physical exercise.

2) Mental health issues:

• Lack of sleep, behavior problems, poor body image, anger and aggression, anxiety, depression, conduct disorders (like stealing, lying, damage to property, delinquency)
• Disorders like anxiety, depression, adolescent attention deficit hyperactivity disorders and other psychiatric illness.

3) Psychosocial issues:

• Safety issues, high risk behaviors like rash driving, dating, pornography, net addiction, sexual abuse, sexual promiscuity.
• Experimentation and addiction with Smoking, Alcohol and Drugs.

Upon realizing that no single party can be held responsible for the family crisis appearing as the child approaches adolescence, the best way to deal them can be through preventive strategies. Till now when we talked about preventive measures in pediatrics, we thought of vaccines only! Adequate knowledge, changed attitudes and acquiring skills to be positively practiced in times of crisis can be some of the preventative strategies to reduce the burden of stress.

Preventive strategies for better coping of parents and teens can be through:

1) Group and personal counseling of the parents:

• Physical, mental, psychological and emotional changes occurring during adolescence.
• Ways to communicate unconditional love and concern, to observe watchfully without invading the privacy, setting limits, discipline and role modeling themselves.
• Identifying and seeking guidance from specialist in specific conditions like abnormal puberty changes and growth, poor body image concerns, obesity, panic disorders, depression, aggression and psychiatric disorders.
• Reminding parents to also nurture their own marital relationships along with the changing roles as parents. They should learn to enjoy all stages of life, make many friends, cultivate hobbies and prepare beforehand for the ‘empty nest’

2) Group and personal counseling of teenagers:

• Anticipatory guidance for the physical and mental changes they will face during the journey through adolescence and handling them confidently.
• Nutritional requirements, personal hygiene, healthy habits, handling of media, role of exercise and yoga for holistic health.
• Life skill education for developing the skills of problem solving, negotiating, decision making, resisting peer pressures, positive communication with parents and teachers, standing for ones values, differentiating lust from love, saying no to inappropriate demands, improving study habits, learning to face failures and also ending relationships gracefully. Imparting knowledge is only half the way, the best way of changing behaviors is by learning and practicing the skills needed. This is life-skill education.

3) Awareness for specific needs and demands of adolescence among practitioners.

• Teenagers are not grown up children nor are they miniature adults.
• On and off they need help of special persons trained in the subject. Their problems and confusions may seem trivial and silly but they should be handled delicately and seriously.
• The parents as well as the adolescent feel safe in the hands of pediatrician as they are familiar with, without a taboo to consult. They may feel awkward seeing a physician or a psychiatrist.

4) Awareness in schools and society to create adolescent friendly environment.

• Encouraging approaches by parents and teachers.
• Establishment of centers to promote them seek help without any taboo

Finally, it is to be remembered that counseling may not be approached just out of ‘need’; it can be also approached for a ‘want’ by healthy teens and parents for relieving anxieties, learning better communications and enjoying the relationship at its full potential.

It is said that Adolescence is the last chance to grow. So is it also the last chance to cultivate good habits and behavior, for the habits and health once established are difficult to change!

PS: This article was written as a part of editorial corner for IMAX, a monthly bulletin of IMA Rajkot branch, July 2015.

DR NEEMA SITAPARA
MD (Ped)
Consultant Pediatrician & Adolescent Health Specialist
sitapara.neema@gmail.com