Parenting Life Hacks: Here's How You Can Survive with Teens

Most parents impatiently wait around for the time when their kids grow up and step into the adolescent period. It is usually believed that when kids enter their teen years, they become slightly independent, reasonable, and can solve problems on their own.

They can also be left alone at home for a long period of time without parents having to worry about them and can drive themselves to school or football practice. However, most parents do not anticipate the challenges they may have to face while dealing with teens.

Teens go through different developmental and hormonal changes and experience a whole new surge of emotions as soon as they hit puberty. It’s easier for them to get happy, sad, depressed, or angry in just a matter of a few seconds. Dealing with problematic and angst-ridden teens can be challenging but with the help of some parenting life hacks you can make it easier for yourself and your teens.

With parenting life hacks, you can work it out with your teens and deal with them easily. You can set some house rules for everyone and follow them diligently. If you follow them, your teens will be obliged to follow them as well.

Parenting Life Hacks: Dealing with Teens

Here are a few incredible parenting life hacks that you can put in place to make everything much easier and peaceful for yourself and your teens.

Avoid Using Electronic Devices at Night

One of the best parenting hacks for dealing with teens is that you need to refrain your kids and even yourself from using electronic devices at night. A rule should be set in place that does not permit your teens to use their smartphones and laptops at night or even in their bedrooms.

If you think your teens may find a way around using the devices at night, you can consider taking the devices from them, turning them off, and finally putting them away, probably in your bedroom, where your teens cannot come and take them back. If you do not want to go this way, you can make your teens agree upon this rule to make things easier for everyone.  

Use Monitoring Apps or Parental Controls

Another best parenting hack for teens is to enable parental controls on their browsers or simply install third-party monitoring apps such as Mobistealth on their devices. With monitoring apps, you can monitor everything your teen does on their smartphone or personal computer. You can keep track of their text messages, emails, phone calls, location, and even internet browsing history.

Some in-built parental controls will let you filter and block all inappropriate apps and sites on your teen’s device and prevent them from coming across unsuitable content. The good thing about most parental control apps is that they allow you to manage, control, and monitor your teens’ devices just the way you want.

Do Not Hand Over Gas Money

Teens are tempted to take their cars to places once they learn to drive. However, they must remember that vehicles require gas to be driven. They would be wrong to assume that parents would hand over gas money to them whenever they want.

If they want to drive the car as much as they want, they need to arrange the gas money for themselves. For that, they can start doing a part-time job and manage their running expenses. However, if they do not have a job, they need to find out some other ways to earn money to keep driving the car.

Don’t Monitor their Grades Frequently

We do realize not many parents would agree on this point and it may be difficult for them but they need to stop monitoring their teens’ school grades frequently. If you keep on checking your teen’s grades obsessively, you will be more likely to feel frustrated and this frustration may lead to many unnecessary flights.

It is recommended to discuss the academic expectations that you have from your kids up-front and early. Also, explain to them the consequences that your teens will face if they fail to live up to your academic expectations. Your teens may fail or come up with poor grades but at the same time, they will learn from their mistakes and failures and then get up back again all by themselves.  

Learn to Deal with Untidy Bedrooms

It’s wrong to expect your teens to maintain a clean and tidy bedroom. Most teens have messy bedrooms and they do not bother to tidy them up. You should forget expecting from your teens to keep a clean room. Until they move out, you need to learn to live with seeing their messy bedrooms. There is no need to quarrel with your teens on bedroom cleanliness.

The least you can do is set some basic hygiene rules about bedroom and bathroom cleanliness as well as dirty laundry. You never know when your teens behave slightly responsible and end up cleaning their rooms.

Be Consistent

Being consistent with everything should be your new parenting mantra. As a parent, you need to make sure that you are consistent with everything. Whether it is about house rules, discipline, curfews, etc., you need to be consistent. Do not waver and do not budge. The moment you show slight leniency, your teens won’t forget to take an advantage of it.

Let Your Teens Earn the Car Use

Just because your teen has learned driving and passed his/her driving test, it doesn’t mean they can get around to drive the car whenever they want. Ultimately, it is still your car and not your teen’s. You need to make sure that your teen learns that car use should always be earned and not assumed.

If your teen insists on driving your car, then they need to earn it. For instance, if they come up with good school grades, then they can be allowed to use the car. Make sure this rule stays non-negotiable.

Have Meals Together

The entire family should have meals together. Be sure to follow this parenting hack because eating meals together means you get more time to spend with your family. You get more opportunities to interact with your teens during mealtime because teens are always hungry for food. So, they’d not miss their meals for anything. Make sure to grasp this opportunity and interact with your teens. 

Give Them a Prepaid Debit Card

Another important parenting life hack for your teens is to avoid giving them your own debit card. If you hand over your debit card to them, they will be more likely to lose it within a week. It is suggested to give them a prepaid debit card on which you can upload a low balance and transfer the money to it through your smartphone.

Avoid Debates with Teens

It is recommended to avoid having debates with your teens. Debating with teens often do not end up well. It often leads to more frustration and anger. If you feel your argument with your teen is rising, you can get away from it by saying, “this conversation is over. Period.”

Turn Your House into a Cool Hangout Corner for Teens

Turning your house into a cool hangout corner for teens may seem like a great idea but it can also cost you a fortune. Especially when you are going to need extra groceries in stock to make your teens stay at home. When there are extra groceries and snacks, teens wouldn’t want to hang out anywhere else apart from their house. They would end up inviting their friends over and stay inside.