Practical Ideas for Sustaining Your Relationship With Your Preteen - Before He or She is Out The Door"
1. Eat dinner with your family face to face at a table at least three times a week. There is enormous amounts of research that it effects many things from a child's ability to read body language and feel comfortable and adept at human interactions, to it reducing teen dropouts and drug abuse because children are checked in with and nurtured on a daily basis for more than the typical fifteen minutes.
2. Put your preteen in the back seat of the car and talk to her. With the front of her body protected and hidden she more likely to self disclose, sharing things she would normally not share in everyday conversation. If she is in the car with her friends listen to the conversation. They will share things, and oddly they will know you are listening and sometimes share more!
3. Always make it a point to go to your child and interact with them as they leave the house, return to the house. go to bed and rise the morning. The rituals or greeting, goodbyes, good night and good morning, especially when their is touch, bond your relationship and make your child feel more secure and connected to you. With that connection they are more likely to feel safe sharing their concerns and fears when and if they have them. You are also more likely to notice if they stop or try to avoid one of the rituals and will know quickly that something may be amiss. Don't let them talk you out of the ritual, with the, "I am too old for that." excuse. Tell them you need the ritual, because you do. Face it, a teenager can be get temperamental and mean, having rituals that help you love on her a few times a day reminds you that she still is your, "baby."
4. If you spend time face to face with your child you know what their “normal” body language is, how they sit, what their energy level is, what their voice sounds like, what their facial expressions and emotional reactions are like. Understanding and knowing the “baseline” of your preteen helps alerts quickly to behaviors that stray from the norm. For example your normally energetic talker now won’t make eye contact at the dinner table. Some changes occur with approaching adolescence but some changes signal depression, being ostracized by peers, problems with web bullies and drug use.
5. Notice when your child's does something RIGHT and praise her and reward her immediately so she doesn't have to do something bad to get your attention. For more insights in dealing with your preteen you may wish to purchase my book, Success Signals at www.PattiWood.net
