Easier Parenting Your Middle School Teen

Parenting your Middle School teen can easily get you into a rut. You find yourself acting out the same frustrating scenes with your kid and they go nowhere but into more anger and struggle. Learn how you can step out of your rut in 5 minutes. Then your parenting will be easier and more effective.

 

Are you in a parenting rut?

There were times when I was acting out the same bad scenes with my teen—as if the movie of our lives had been edited to be an endless repetition of the same 12 upsetting interactions. That was a rut. Yikes! How useless.

 

I thought: “My kids are growing up so fast. I don’t want to miss out on the joys of parenting and just suffer the pains of doing it wrong…I’d better find a way to get out of this rut.”

 

How did I get into this rut?

I couldn’t blame anyone else. I got myself into this rut. How? Just by doing the same thing that didn’t work, week after week.

 

But it’s so hard to get out of a pattern! Do you feel that way? I knew I could do better but the pressure of the rat-race was so strong that I didn’t take the tiny effort and time to STOP and step out of my rut.

 

The key is to take the first step

I knew I wasn’t trapped by anything but my own willingness to take a step. One little step! So one day I got so sick of being stuck that I just stopped everything and took a 5 minute break. It sounds unbelievable but that’s all it took.

 

The problem was to take the first step– to begin to build a new pattern of learning the many parenting skills that I didn’t know naturally.

 

It seems obvious to me now that nobody is born with all the complex knowledge of how to parent. Parenting is as complex as playing a violin or flying a fighter jet—and I wouldn’t presume to do either of those without guidance and weekly training for hours.

 

You can begin right now:

1- Stop. Close your eyes. Breathe deeply and slowly.

2- Close off the next 5 minutes for yourself and nobody else.

3- Picture a frustrating incident between you and your Middle School teen.

4- Imagine this scene is a video loop, repeating itself over and over until you can’t bear it any more.

5- Open your eyes and write the time TODAY that you will spend 5 minutes on your parenting.

6- Use that time to define a problem and find a solution. You can ask a friend, an expert, read a book, use a CD or DVD, or search the internet. The world is filled with superb resources.

7- Right now schedule another 5 minute break for tomorrow.

 

Be a hero

I have done this exercise several times and it helps me to begin. And then after a few weeks I fall back into my rut– so I have to do it again. That’s ok. That’s that way it is.

 

I know how to get out of my rut. The real crime would be to let myself stay in my rut.

 

“A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson, US essayist & poet (1803 - 1882)

 

Take 5 minutes NOW and get out of your rut. (If you’re in one.)

 

If you’d like to see how you can send a message of love to your Middle School teen you can get free access to a wonderful resource I found on the internet: http://www.easierparentingmiddleschool.com/ar/item8tt.html.

 

We went through hundreds of websites and articles online to find the best parenting experts. We’ve collected 52 of the best parenting resources we found on the internet. We invite you to get them all for free at:

http://www.easierparentingmiddleschool.com.

 

Enjoy yourself! From Nitsan and Caroline Gaibel, founders of EasierParentingMiddleSchool.com.