‘Tuning into Teens’ Parenting Programme
Would you like to learn how to:
- be better at talking with your teen?
- be better at understanding your teen?
- help your teen learn to manage their emotions?
- help to prevent behaviour problems in your teen?
- teach your teen to deal with conflict?
Tuning into Teens aims to help you and your adolescent manage the many emotional challenges of this stage of life. The programme will teach you how to manage your own and your adolescent’s emotions in ways that help you to remain close and keep communicating. By learning these skills, you are less likely to have as much conflict within your family and your teen is more likely to talk to you about the challenging issues they face. These are factors that have been found to reduce the risk of mental health and substance abuse problems.
What is Emotional intelligence?
The program is based on the concept of Emotional Intelligence. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is about using your emotions to guide you through the world. It is about being able to use your own knowledge of emotions to make decisions, to calm yourself down, to manage anger and conflict, to help you in your relationships with people, to know what is happening in social situations, and to assist you in many aspects of life where you or another person are involved.
Why is Emotional Intelligence important?
Research has shown that adolescents with greater emotional intelligence:
- are more aware, assertive and strong in situations of peer pressure
- have greater success with making friends and are more able to manage conflict with peers
- are more able to cope when upset or angry
- have fewer mental health and substance abuse difficulties
- have more stable and satisfying relationships as adults
- have greater career success — Emotional Intelligence may be a better predictor of academic and career success than IQ.
When parents focus on helping their teen learn about emotions, the young person is more likely to have higher emotional intelligence. In this parenting programme I teach parents what to do to help these skills develop, and in doing so we expect teens to manage adolescence better.
Non-Violent Resistance Parenting Programme
Over the last decade I have been increasing helping parents deal with children and teens with serious behaviour problems such as aggression and violence, running away, truanting, stealing, drug-taking, criminal involvement and putting themselves at serious risk in dangerous environments outside the family home. Non-violent Resistance (NVR) is an innovative parenting programme and form of systemic family therapy, which has been developed for aggressive, violent, controlling and self-destructive behaviour in young people. With therapeutic support and psycho-education NVR helps parents/carers to:
- Take a firm stance against violence
- Hold back from physical or verbal violence
- Increase positive presence in child’s life
- De-escalate conflicts
- Announce commitments to the child/adolescent
- Break the cycle of shame and silence
- Recruit and use supporters
Outcomes include:
- Overcome a sense of helplessness
- Develop and strengthen a support network that will reduce violent and destructive behaviours both in and out of the home
- Reduce conflict and improve relationships between family members and the outside world
