Parents are people too

Press, 24 September 1987, Page 10

Parents are people too

by

MAVIS AIREY

People tend to think of adolescence as a problem, but often the parents are having more problems with their lives than the adolescents are with adolescence, believes Bryan Gray. “The middle years are the sandwich generation: you are coping with your own parents ageing and becoming more dependent as your adolescents are growing up and becoming more independent.”

His interest in the subject arises from his experience as an adult educator, organising courses for various groups in Christchurch on subjects such as the middle years and stress management. His new course, which began this week, is on

parenting adolescents. It is being held on Tuesday evenings at Hagley High School, and is aimed at those who wish to improve their parenting by understanding what is known about adolescents, by sharing successes and failures, and by becoming aware of what support is available. He believes sharing experiences is the most valuable tool for parents. “We learn best when we are in a situation where we are dealing with experience: we need others to affirm us in the good things we are doing and not condemn us in the bad things, but show us other ways in things we feel we are not doing successfully. That can only be done by exchange with parents who are doing it.” Topics include teens yesterday and today, the role of the family, the peer group, morals and values, drug and alcohol use, unemployment, and coping skills. The course will focus on the later years of adolescence as much as on the earlier years. Parents are often reluctant to talk about parenting difficulties because they fear it suggests ina-

dequacies in themselves, says Bryan Gray. “But in reality, they are not that inadequate. I find they have marvellous coping skills, though these are lessened by the fact that they feel they are dealing with ‘a problem,’ whereas if they have accurate information and the myths removed they see it is not a great problem.

“The greatest stress people find is wondering whether what’s happening to them is normal or not. Parents need to recognise the wide variety of ways young people experience adolescence.” Two basic myths he aims to explode are that adolescence today is like adolescence when parents were young — which means parents bring to their parenting all their own difficulties and fears from the past — and that adolescence has a negative image. “Compared with the classical period for adolescence portrayed in ‘Happy Days,’ today’s society puts on younger teenagers adult expectations which weren’t put on us when we were young — particularly the sexual provocation of the media, the availability of a range of drugs, and the media presentation of violence as an adult way of dealing with problems.” In support of this claim,

he compares the contest of strength between male adolescents in wrestling and fights in the past with the present presentation of violence, in which the aim seems to be to extinguish the opponent. Another major difference, is that when today’s parents were adolescents they could choose what jobs they wanted. “Politicians and schools are culpable because they are still geared as if people will be in full employment for the rest of their lives. The reality is not so. It’s no wonder adolescents become cynical because they see this and ask ‘What’s the point of studying at school?’ ” says Bryan Gray. “Practically, parents need help to know what to do when their teenagers leave school and are unemployed. The evidence is overwhelming that 80 per cent of young people find work through their parents’ contacts.

“If you are in a lower socio-economic class you are disadvantaged because your parents will be reluctant to ask favours of management if they are in the workforce, and won’t have a network of friends who are.” Although parents cannot use their own experience of adolescence to help cope with their children’s adolescence, they can use their experience of human relations. “Remember, you’re dealing with people, not problems,” he warns. “Adolescence is the transition from childhood to adulthood, so you have to deal with your adolescents as persons, while accepting the fact that their response will not always be adult. It may still be perfectly valid. The important thing is to know what is appropriate to their stage of development.” One example he gives is the interest of older ado-

lescents in sects and religious cults. “It’s a stage where idealism and the search for a single underlying explanation of reality leads to openness to sects that see things in a simplistic way.” Many parents’ fears about peer group pressure are unfounded, he believes. “Adolescents choose friends who will be acceptable to their parents. When they are put to the test, younger ones opt for the moral and political values of their parents. “As they get older, their choice of friends becomes much more their own, but by that time, the peer influence is not so great — they have already developed their individuality." One of the few areas where peer influence is important, he thinks, is in fashion and popular music. “Because they do not have enough individuality of their own, they express group distinctiveness rather than individual distinctiveness.” Adolescent rebellion is unlikely to be deliberately anti-social. “If adolescents are going to be anti-social, there is good evidence that they will already have started this pattern by the age of eight to 10.” Parenting requires firm

guidelines to be given, and there needs to be a clear modelling from the parents’ own life, he says. However tempting it may be to see children as a form of immortality, parents need to beware of trying to make their children into the sort of people they wished they were.

“We must recognise their personhood: they can’t be clones of our ideal self,” he insists. “The prime role of parents is not to tell kids how to become adults, but to provide a congenial environment in which they can grow to adulthood.”

Some people never make the complete transition to adulthood, and many do not make it until quite late in life, he maintains. Sometimes, over-protec-tive parents stop children

from experimenting; at the other extreme, parents require their adolescents to take on adult roles prematurely, perhaps as a result of marriage break-up, alcoholism, or similar problems.

“If adolescents are' forced to take on these roles before they are sufficiently mature, they will become fixated,” Bryan Gray warns. “They may mature more quickly, but they may never fully mature. It cripples their long-term development.” It is typical of Bryan Gray’s approach that a practical session on helping adolescents to cope teaches skills which are needed as much by parents as by their children, such as learning to plan and put order in their personal lives, taking a quiet time, and where to get access to helping resources. “If parents are coping in their own lives, then their adolescent children will be coping,” he is convinced. • • •

Further information about the Parenting Adolescents course is available from Hagley High School, telephone 559-872.

‘Dealing with experience*

Coping with adolescence

‘Parenting requires firm guidelines’