What You May Be Experiencing
Suddenly, the smooth sailing is over, and you've hit stormy parenting seas, with increased technology and media consumption as the sandbars that pop up unexpectedly on your radar screen. You may be experiencing some of the following behaviors and defiant situations.
Peer Pressure
You probably remember this one from your own childhood. Suddenly, your rules and expectations are constantly compared to those of your child's friends and their families. Your child does things you think are clearly not “him,” or that strike you as stupid or confusing, since he's known all his life that trying alcohol or going somewhere without telling you is against the rules. What happened? Peer pressure is probably a contributing factor, and you can deal with it, but not stop it.
Essential
You can give your child some freedom from peer pressure by offering to be the bad guy. You can give your kid permission to use “My mom won't let me,” or “My dad said I have to be home by five,” as excuses for any activity he doesn't want to engage in.
You can't control peer pressure, but you can use it to your advantage by surrounding your child with positive peer influences. Some ways to give your child alternate peer environments could be going to church or temple, visiting family, or allowing your child to find and join a club based on art or self-expression, like dance or photography, where the tone might be calmer and the social standards different from those at school. These experiences could bring your child huge relief if peer pressure at school has been heavy, and your child needs a break from pressure to be violent, wear the right brand of jeans, or listen to a particular kind of music.
Where Is My Kid?
Your child goes to school all day, then to an extracurricular activity, and you see him during dinner before he does homework or has screen time; on the weekends, he wants to be immersed in his social and extracurricular life. If in the toddler years you were the costar, and in the grade school years you were the director, now you've become executive producer — you might offer input and advice that shapes the production, but you're not present for every shot.
To remain a force in your child's life, you must be sure to have regular emotional contact with him. Five-minute freezes and bonding are necessary; eating together at least once a day without the interruption of phones and television is also extremely beneficial. It's also important to decide which occasions you allow your child's friends to share — inviting a friend to a party or the beach is wonderful and necessary, but there should also be family-only times, when your family is alone together and friends are not invited.
