Navigating the teen years: The power of involvement

I grew up in rural North Carolina and saw how just about everyone had an opinion on how to raise kids. They had thoughts on kids’ behavior, activities, looks — you name it. Unsolicited advice was often handed out.

Advice would come from teachers, relatives, pastors and neighbors who all cared for the kids and their families. I would see parents spend days caught up in the counsel of others, trying to find the right answers for their own children.

Navigating the right thing to do is the most difficult during the adolescent years, between ages 10-17. Research shows that for adolescents, this may actually be the most difficult time of their life!

So, who is responsible for ensuring adolescents find the right paths during this time? Who is accountable for helping to shape their behavior?

While parents have a key part, the duty lies not just on their shoulders. Other caring adults have a stake in this, too.

Responsibility for adolescents is known as parental accountability. This doesn’t just refer to the parents’ involvement, but also adults, such as teachers and life coaches, who take a leadership role in the teens’ lives. It takes a collective effort to raise youth well.

It starts with parental involvement

Research consistently highlights the profound impact of involved parents on a teenager's well-being and success. Engaged parents can remove barriers for youth by advocating for teens’ well-being, participating in teachers' meetings, and volunteering in activities that allow them to be closer to their teens.

I get it though — parenting during the teenage years is demanding. As a seasoned life coach and mother, I know there are many challenges to navigating the intense adolescent years. Adolescence is a time of exploration, self-discovery, and boundary-testing, where teens strive to find their authentic selves amid temptations and societal pressures.

During one’s teenage years, everything is changing.

Teens wrestle between their childhood values and the desire to construct their own path. Yet, the key to steering through these challenges lies in maintaining a connection with one's authentic well-being — the core of self that serves as a moral compass.

Parents can help teens find that authenticity while offering them foundational support.

Adolescence is a vital stage of life — research shows that the majority of adolescents experience some level of emotional, behavioral, and social difficulties. Also, adolescents naturally tend to resist any dominant source of authority, such as parents, and prefer to socialize more with their peers than with their families.

Research suggests that adolescents are more likely to modify their behaviors and attitudes if they receive healthy messages from peers who face similar concerns and pressures.

So, it’s crucial for both parents and youth to understand the importance of maintaining a strong, consistent presence during this time. Establishing clear boundaries, active listening, and allowing room for mistakes (within safety limits) are vital components of effective parenting.

Navigating negative teen behaviors

In the last few years, adjusting back to the post-pandemic school environment has been a challenge. The isolation and difficulties faced during the pandemic drastically affected students.

Parenting a teenager can be exhausting, and the pandemic added even more to that tiredness.

Despite our best efforts, sometimes parenting doesn’t prevent negative teen behaviors. Outside forces, like the pandemic, can push teens to offending and extreme behaviors. (Check out a recent article of mine to learn what interconnected factors can influence violent teen behavior.)

This leads some parents to find themselves involved in the juvenile justice system.

The juvenile justice system operates on the belief that intervening early in delinquent behavior will deter adolescents from engaging in criminal behavior as adults. Parents who stay involved with their children, even when they are in the judicial system, can make a difference.

Parents can vie for their kids, visit them, and support them as the adolescents figure out how to get back on the right path.

The power of engaged teachers

While parents need to be involved with their teens, teachers also need to be there for their students. Teachers should partner with parents to help youth.

To best collaborate, a former Wake County middle school principal suggested that teachers make parents feel welcomed and a part of the school environment.

Teachers can do this through warm smiles, making themselves easy to approach, being there to greet parents in the carpool line, and other small gestures. Coaches can also collaborate with parents to do this.

However, parents don’t feel welcomed when they sense intimidation from educators. When teachers and staff use jargon or language that parents don’t understand, it can make parents feel isolated or ashamed.

Also, any aggressiveness toward parents keeps these partnerships from forming.

Life coaching is another useful tool

Another element of parental involvement can be life coaching. Outside of teachers and parents, life coaching can have a transformative impact on middle and high school students.

As a life coach myself, I have seen how coaches not only enhance emotional intelligence, communication skills, and resilience but also instill a sense of personal responsibility in students.

Life coaching equips youth with the tools to make sound decisions, manage emotions, overcome obstacles, and motivate themselves and others. It empowers teens to balance the influences of social media with real-life experiences, enabling them to shape and edit their own narratives.

Life coaching programs such as Project Arrow, a peer-to-peer program, equip students with the skills to help other students.

In light of the recent tragedy in a Raleigh High School, such peer-to-peer programs have shown a positive impact on connectedness to school and peers; feeling of competency, empathy, moral reasoning, and self-efficacy; academic achievement; prosocial behavior and attitudes; intrapersonal communication and conflict resolution skills; which leads to a safer school.

All in all, parental involvement is a combined effort.

Effective communication and care from parents, teachers, and life coaches are vital tools for navigating the complex landscape of adolescence. By working together, these adults can empower teens to overcome challenges, make informed decisions, and thrive in both their academic and personal pursuits.

Gale McKoy Wilkins is a wife, mom, grandparent and family life coach. She is the founder of Project Arrow, an evidence-based peer-to-peer and leadership program teaching middle, high school and first-year college students how to deal with trauma and crisis using life coaching. It's the first life coaching organization in the state to receive funding from the Department of Public Instruction and the first to implement life coaching in a school setting.