Focus on Better Behavior

Adolescence is a challenging stage for both you and your child. It’s a stage where your child begins to separate from childhood. By establishing distance from childhood this means distance from parents and finding friends who are going through the same things. Striving for popularity seems so important at this age, that belonging with their peers will make things a lot better. There is a down side to popularity. It requires pleasing, it brings pressure, attracts inauthentic people, and it can go to their head and have them act inauthentically themselves. Popularity and friend ship are not the same. Popularity is political and friendship is personal. More importantly they find find a few close friends that they can trust and be able to spend time alone and enjoy themselves. Talk to your children about popularity and real friendships.