Today, I want to talk about what is reasonable for a parent to do when pushing our teenagers forward.

What makes a good parent is being able to come up with a plan for your teenager, implementing it and then, when things don’t go according to plan, being able to alter the plan to keep your teen moving in a good direction.

Where do you begin when coming up with a plan?

What makes a good parent requires, you as the parent, stepping back from your own busy schedule and taking the time to give quality energy into thinking about what you want for your teenagers. This doesn’t mean general terms like, “you want them to be happy, you want them to be successful or you want them to be good people”.

If you have taken the time to read my previous posts you will know that I have written extensively on these core principles before. Let’s leave it to say, for this article, that your teenager being happy, successful and a good person are the building blocks of true success in life, but here I want to be more specific.

Let’s spend a little time with some concrete action steps and ideas for implementing what makes a good parent. We will be keeping our discussion today to addressing teenagers in high school or college.

1) Grade point average. Like it or not GPA is a critical measuring stick of how your teenager is doing. For those of you reading this and thinking GPA doesn’t matter, I highly encourage you to look inside and recognize the err of your thought process. You most likely are falling into one of two categories,

a) You are being defensive because your teenager isn’t doing well, or

b) you are one of those people stuck in the sixties progressive (actually regressive) mindsets that competition is bad.

The facts are that colleges look at GPA when your teen is applying for school, when they are in school and when they are applying for grad school. If time is an issue for you as a parent then you should know GPA is probably the easiest way for a parent to judge how their teenager is standing up relative to other teenagers and to how your parenting style is working.

So what you want to do is sit down with your teenager and let them know what your expectations are in regards to GPA, (I highly recommend 3.5 because scholarships and grants often use that number as the minimum requirement). Then you let your teenager know that attaining that GPA is going to be the centerpiece of what they think about.

Teenagers need to understand that doing well in school is their job. You take your job seriously and they need to take their job seriously. Creating this mindset will go a long way for them to create success in their life.

Please read part 2 of Parenting and expectations with teenagers.

Sincerely,

Dr. Bocknek

The Problem Solving Expert for Parents and Families

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Dr. Robert Bocknek is the problem solving expert for marriage, parents and families at www.takebackthehome.com and www.keyboard-culture-parenting.com.  He can be reached at bocknek@takebackthehome.com. He is author of the “Take Back the Home course” and the “Learning how to Learn course” which can be seen at www.takebackthehome.com.

     

More on Topics: Family, Parenting, Parenting Tips, Teen Parenting, Teenage Parenting, What Makes A Good Parent

Tags: Family, Parenting, Parenting Tips, Teen Parenting, Teenage Parenting, What Makes A Good Parent

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