Maureen Karol, LMHC
Maureen is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor who enjoys working with adolescents and adults. Maureen has experience working with a variety of issues such as depression, anxiety, relationships, parenting skills and adolescents. Maureen is also a qualified supervisor for the state of Florida and is able to supervise interns for licensure.
Surviving Your Teenager
Parenting, good parenting that is, is hard. It's a fact! There is no way to side step the difficulties of knowing the right thing to say at the right time. There is also no way to not second guess yourself after you have just shouted at your teenager for, once AGAIN, not taking out the trash. Each stage of development has new challenges for parents, beginning with a newborn's need for constant care to a teenager's search for independence. Unfortunately, no manual to address such challenges was provided to you when you became a parent. It's like buying a DVD player with no directions; you just fiddle with it until something clicks and the picture appears.
Parenting tips to make "it click" are:
- Understand yourself and what emotions we bring to the table when we are interacting with our children.
- Identify your adult emotions and recognize that this is especially important when trying to parent adolescents.
- Recognize the emotional immaturity of adolescents. This is a "special" time in your child's life, where they "know it all", say they need nothing, but want everything. Moods change like light switches and no matter what you say the response is..."you don't understand"...again.
- Parents have to pull closer together as a team and remember a simple fact; it's not personal.
- Maintain objectivity. Objectivity is key to good parenting.
- Monitor the impact of divorce. A common example of this occurs with divorced couples, when one or both parents feels guilt over the divorce and allows that guilt to influence their parenting; causing them to be too lenient because they "feel bad."
- Maintain consistency in your home.
- Create rules for your home that are enforceable and realistic. (None of the: "you're punished until you're 18!" nonsense).
- Keep balance in your life.
- Remember that all children do grow up and become adults!
At times, children and adolescents listen more attentively to advice from an objective professional. The Center of Psychological Effectiveness helps families navigate the difficult road of parenting and growing up with adequate coping strategies.