I've often worried and wondered about young people going missing, ‘running away.’ Parenting is hard work – and comes without an instruction manual. But we seem to have a societal trend of telling and telling and telling our kids. Great quote last year: “if we tell them and tell them and they don’t change, who’s really the slow learner?”
In the
last year, I have recommended ASK, DON’T TELL in working with teenagers and
their parents. It seems that kids who
‘run away’ may have been TOLD but simply weren’t listened to – even if they were
wrong! I’m not saying that parents are
wrong - just that emotions are not logical or rational, more so with teenagers.
Feels
as if running away is a last-ditch effort to be LISTENED TO!! Be assured that they think their parents are
NOT listening!
And
if you haven’t seen it yet, when you argue with a young person, you almost never
win, even if you did.
With ASK, DON’T TELL, we may be able to improve the relationship that we have
at home even if “the kid” is wrong!
