Parenting Resources For Difficult Teens

Parenting Resources

Parenting is a tough gig, and it can get even tougher when your child is in their teenage years when raging hormones and crushing social pressure make “normal” a moving target. You’re going to need some resources providing straight talk on the pleasures and pitfalls of raising a healthy adolescent. Fortunately, a number of websites do just that. We’ve listed 4 of our favorite parenting resources below.

If your teen is struggling with serious mental health or behavioral issues, you may want to consider sending them to a residential treatment center for troubled teens. Early intervention can do wonders when it comes to getting a young life back on track.

1. Aha! Parenting

AhaParenting.com is an information-rich site offering advice on raising kids of all ages. You can click on tabs directing you to articles regarding tweens, young teenagers 13 to 15 and older teenagers aged 16 to 18.

Created by a clinical psychologist, the focus of Aha! Parenting is positive parenting. Proponents of positive parenting set rules and consequences and engage in follow-through when rules are broken. Putative measures, however, such as yelling and corporal punishment are avoided.

If you have a troubled teen on your hands, it can be tough to avoid shouting matches. Still, keeping the lines of communication open is crucial.

Aha! Parenting gives great directions on specific topics, like how to talk to kids about alcohol, as well as more general guidelines.

2. Raising Children

As the URL indicates, raisingchildren.net.au is an Australian site. Don’t worry, though. Just because it’s produced Down Under doesn’t mean this resource will upend your parenting style. It has quite a bit of valuable advice for those in the thick of raising teens ages 12 to 18.

One of the best aspects of the Raising Children site is that there’s a whole section dealing with mental health. There are articles on detecting and dealing with issues like teen depression and anxiety and an array of troubling behaviors.

The tone of the articles, such as one on when your troubled teen engages in self-harm, is pitch-perfect. Rather than being alarmist, it stresses that it’s normal for young people to have strong feelings that are difficult to deal with. At the same time, it highlights the seriousness of rituals like cutting, encouraging parents to intervene early and seek professional support for their struggling teens.

3. Raising Teens: A Site For Parents Of Teens Striving For Sanity

Can you keep a level head while raising your teen? It’s enough to make a parent feel lost at times, but the Raising Teens blog provides a pretty good roadmap.

Created by mom bloggers Cindy Goodman and Raquel Alderman, the Raising Teens blog has a conversational tone and addresses topics that will sound eerily familiar to anyone raising a teenager. Posts cover everything like relatively benign but crazy-making teen behavior like “earphone silence” as well as more serious problems like what to do if your teen is smoking pot.

4. Your Teen Magazine

YourTeenMag.com is a comprehensive site on navigating the teen years, from your child’s first day in middle school to the moment they leave the nest.

Many of the articles cover little-discussed topics, like the very real problem of boys developing eating disorders. Eating disorders are typically seen as something affecting only girls, but many troubled teen boys also engage in unhealthy behaviors like food avoidance, excessive exercise and purging.

This article—and others on the site—are solution-based rather than just anecdotal, providing warning signs as well as direction, in this case scheduling an evaluation for your son as soon as possible.

The above resources can provide significant guidance when it comes to surviving those tumultuous teenage years. Sometimes, however, a family can find themselves in a situation no mere article can address.

If your son’s issues are threatening his future and wreaking havoc on your home, you may want to consider sending him to a boarding school for troubled teen boys. Spending time in a safe place that offers therapeutic and academic support can help a teen in crisis move onto a bright future.

Request Free Admissions Information

Step 1 of 3 - Your Contact Info

Written by Natalie

29 Oct, 2018

Recent Posts

The Good and Bad of Viral Challenges

The Good and Bad of Viral Challenges

Viral challenges. What words and ideas come to your mind when you hear those words? Viral challenges have a reputation of being either completely good or bad. In this article, you’ll learn about the viral challenges common nowadays, the pros and cons of these...

Negative Thinking Patterns: Magnifying and Minimizing

Negative Thinking Patterns: Magnifying and Minimizing

“I hear a thousand kind words about me And it makes no difference Yet I hear one insult And all confidence shatters. -focusing on the negative” --Rupi Kaur in her book of poems The Sun and Her Flowers. In Rupi Kaur’s book of poems The Sun and Her Flowers, she centers...

Negative Thinking Patterns: Labelling & Personalization

Negative Thinking Patterns: Labelling & Personalization

Negative Thinking Patterns: Labelling & Personalization “If you have secretly longed for significance, the journey does not begin out there in the world, But deep within, where you embrace Your honest self.” --Morgan Harper Nichols in her book of poems, All Along...

Negative Thinking Patterns: Fortune Telling

Negative Thinking Patterns: Fortune Telling

“The only thing that truly matters Is how often you say On your journey, “This, all of this, is for me.” -- Nikita Gill in her book of poems, Wild Embers: Poems of Rebellion, Fire, and Beauty As Nikita Gill points out in her book of poems that center on mental health...

Negative Thinking Patterns: All Or Nothing

Negative Thinking Patterns: All Or Nothing

“You’re a rainbow my love,Their sky is too clouded with darknessFor them to see your colors.”--Pierre Alex Jeanty in his book of poems Her. This article will help you understand some of the behaviors that the All or Nothing negative thought pattern can trigger in your...

You May Also Like…

Why Your Teen Needs To Get A Job!

Why Your Teen Needs To Get A Job!

In my 3 decades of working with teens I have frequently been asked if teens should work. I am referring to working at...

How Defiance Begins in Teens

How Defiance Begins in Teens

Unfortunately, the words “defiance” and “teens” seem to go hand in hand.  Most parents have learned to expect...

0 Comments

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *