Being a parent do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the pressure to buy stuff for your teen such as a trendy item of clothing or the latest gadget? Do you end up caving in and then later thinking: "I wish I just said 'no'?" Do you also have the experience of thinking "I am damned if I do and damned if I don't?" If so, welcome to the world of the parent teenager relationship.
Even so, the most helpful advice I would like to offer is to start getting used to saying "no" in your parent teenager relationship and not feel bad about it. This does not mean that you come across as a cranky old fart who develops a reputation for always saying "no". So how do you avoid getting labelled as some kind of nerdy parent that always seems to be putting a damper on great purchase ideas?
Whenever your teenager comes out and says they want something, your first response can go something like this: "What a good idea". Notice that you are not necessarily agreeing with them or that you are ready to hand over your money. By being positive, you avoid dampening their enthusiasm. Moreover, you are communicating that you have confidence in their ability to make good choices, even if it is not entirely true.
Remember that a common perception of many teenagers toward parents is that parents often say "no" to their ideas. In your parent teenager relationship you don't want to be playing into the hands of your teenager by confirming that your nick name is "no".
So what else can you say that communicates your openness? When our teenagers come asking for stuff, I usually say "where is the money coming from? Notice that this question implies that I am open to the purchase idea but not necessarily open to paying for it.
Over more than a decade, my wife and I have supported our kids' purchase of numerous items ranging in value from a couple of dollars to several thousand dollars. However from a young age our children learned that they had to make the money to pay for their purchases. This forced them to think hard and fast to decide whether they really wanted the thing or not. Many times, since they were paying for it, they decided it was "not a good idea". The upside is that over the journey, they experienced their parents always there as a supportive sounding board.
By the way, in case you think that my wife and I are scrooges or something like that, we do buy stuff for our kids for their birthdays and other occasions.
Regarding buying stuff and the parent teenager relationship, the approach my wife and I have taken has resulted in the following three benefits. One. We have been able to maintain a positive atmosphere around our children even when they did not get what they wanted. Two. We were able to encourage them to do a cost-benefit analysis, regarding any purchase idea. Three. We have been able to impart some wisdom to our kids about the value of money and taking care of their things.
Even so, the most helpful advice I would like to offer is to start getting used to saying "no" in your parent teenager relationship and not feel bad about it. This does not mean that you come across as a cranky old fart who develops a reputation for always saying "no". So how do you avoid getting labelled as some kind of nerdy parent that always seems to be putting a damper on great purchase ideas?
Whenever your teenager comes out and says they want something, your first response can go something like this: "What a good idea". Notice that you are not necessarily agreeing with them or that you are ready to hand over your money. By being positive, you avoid dampening their enthusiasm. Moreover, you are communicating that you have confidence in their ability to make good choices, even if it is not entirely true.
Remember that a common perception of many teenagers toward parents is that parents often say "no" to their ideas. In your parent teenager relationship you don't want to be playing into the hands of your teenager by confirming that your nick name is "no".
So what else can you say that communicates your openness? When our teenagers come asking for stuff, I usually say "where is the money coming from? Notice that this question implies that I am open to the purchase idea but not necessarily open to paying for it.
Over more than a decade, my wife and I have supported our kids' purchase of numerous items ranging in value from a couple of dollars to several thousand dollars. However from a young age our children learned that they had to make the money to pay for their purchases. This forced them to think hard and fast to decide whether they really wanted the thing or not. Many times, since they were paying for it, they decided it was "not a good idea". The upside is that over the journey, they experienced their parents always there as a supportive sounding board.
By the way, in case you think that my wife and I are scrooges or something like that, we do buy stuff for our kids for their birthdays and other occasions.
Regarding buying stuff and the parent teenager relationship, the approach my wife and I have taken has resulted in the following three benefits. One. We have been able to maintain a positive atmosphere around our children even when they did not get what they wanted. Two. We were able to encourage them to do a cost-benefit analysis, regarding any purchase idea. Three. We have been able to impart some wisdom to our kids about the value of money and taking care of their things.
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If this article is useful and helpful to you in terms of cultivating your own parent teen relationship , you might be interested in getting parenting guru, Paul Saver's 7 FREE parenting videos. Each video is power packed with content to save or even transform your relationship, so that when you speak, your teen will want to listen to you.
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