Getting through the teens unscathed!

EVERY PARENT has their own way of dealing with teenage traumas - but there are certain topics which are common to many families during adolescence.

The length of time spent on the telephone, staying out overnight and parties while parents are away are among the classic situations which test the parent-teenager relationship.

Daisy Hartley, Natalia Clarke, Will Hawkyard and John Hollingworth believe that, at the age of 17, they have proved themselves to their parents and earned a certain amount of trust.

The early teen years tend to be ones of rebellion, they say. Natalia, at the age of 14, used to go to clubs with her 16-year-old sister. "We went out clubbing and to places we shouldn't have done. I said I was staying at my best friend's house when I wasn't, and my mum found out," she said.

"Then my mum kept tabs on me all the time. She would want the address and phone number of where I was going and would ring their parents before. I was annoyed. You always want to do something that you can't do.

"My parents tried harsh, severe rules, like having to be in by 11 or taking my pocket money away and trying to ground me. But I still did it behind their backs, so they sat down and we talked about it when they realised it wasn't working."

All four realise how worrying it must be for parents who don't know where their children are - and believe that parents of girls have more concerns than those who have sons.

Said Daisy: "You compare your parents with other people's parents but now I think I live in their house and they set down the rules and it's only because they care for me." She is one of eight children - and finds that everyone in the family behaves differently and has meant a different challenge for their mum and dad.

The teenagers, all pupils at Bradford Grammar School, say their parents tend to discuss what should and shouldn't be permitted with other parents, to help them to decide what is right and wrong. Said Natalia: "My mum had the impression that clubs were places where everyone was on drugs and everyone gets beaten up!"

Only child John lives with his mum and feels they have built up a trusting relationship, partly because there are only the two of them at home. "I don't have rules given to me. My mum has always been fairly liberal. I tell her what I'm doing and because she knows I'm being honest she doesn't worry as much. I was going out to clubs at the age of 13 or 14 and my mum was worried but she talked to other parents and knew I was in a big group."

Will believes that teenagers learn from making their own mistakes and from learning from their parents' attitudes and advice.

On the thorny issue of telephone calls, Natalia's parents have a call-barring system installed and they pester her to finish once she has been on the line for 10 minutes; John paid to have his own line installed and tries to meet the bill himself ("It's never a huge bill," he said); Will sets his own budget of £30 for calls.

Daisy's large family nag her to spend more time with them at weekends if she has been out with friends a lot, she said.

Said John: "Your parents can always embarrass you - that's their trump card! And when I'm 40 my mum will still be saying, 'I don't think you should go out tonight!'"

The Teen Commandments

A practical and down-to-earth paperback book aims to show parents how they can help to steer their teenagers through the moral maze and conflicting pressures of the modern world.

Author Paul Francis, a director of Going Public, an organisation which works with young people, says: "We can't stand with our kids as they queue to go into the club where they may be offered drugs. We can't stand with our kids as their mates try to pressurise them into doing things they really do not want to do. But we can build frameworks into their lives that will help them make right decisions."

The book says the ten most important steps to help your children are:

1 Value them as unique and special people. Don't stop telling them how proud you are of them.

2 Spend time with them doing what they want to do.

3 Tell them you love them, but do more - demonstrate it by your actions.

4 Always build them up in front of their friends.

5 Ask their advice and listen to it.

6 Give them a hug as often as possible.

7 Build bridges for your children to walk over.

8 Remember, you are never too old to say: "I'm sorry."

9 Trust your children.

10 Love them through it all.

Teenagers: The Parents' One-Hour Survival Guide, by Paul Francis, is published by Marshall Pickering, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers, price £5.99.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.