Reflect on your readings and personal experiences to consider the unique challenges of raising a child from 14 to 18 years.

As your teen shifts from grade school to high school from around 14 to 18 years of age, it is a time, in part, to help your child prepare for their shift from teens to adulthood. Your teen will likely experience many milestones during this time, including getting a job, earning a driver’s license, sending out applications to colleges, and even possibly finding their first “love” (Morin, 2020). Online activity will be a critical concern, as you monitor their activity and help them understand social responsibility, while trying to balance that with allowing them their independence.

While there will likely be many times when your teen insists that they know better than you, there’s a good chance that their skills could use some fine-tuning and that you have plenty to teach them. This is an age when serious issues may need to be addressed, such as encounters with drug use and abuse, mental health—including anxiety, depression, and suicide—cyberbullying, and loneliness (Morin, 2020). As a parent, it can be quite rewarding to prepare your child for adulthood, but it certainly does not come without many challenges along the way.

Parents raising their teens are often given advice, such as take time to support your child’s milestones (e.g., help them practice driving), consider giving them chores to help them learn responsibility, monitor their activity (particularly online), and support your child’s efforts to be their own individual (Morin, 2020). For this journal entry, consider—from your readings and from your own experiences—the challenges of raising a child from ages 14 to 18 years. Specifically, answer the following questions:

1. Put yourself in in the role of the parent. What strategies do you feel would be successful to raise your teenager?
2. How does your parenting perspective relate to your own experiences and the course material?
3. What specific relevant connections can you make?