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Communicating with Your Teens
 As a parent you probably view speech development as beginning in infancy, growing bigger in their childhood and it quite possibly comes to a complete stop during adolescence. But, the teenager views it as "My parents do not understand a thing that I say".
A communications degree is not necessary to realize that teenagers and parents spend quite a bit of time talking at or past each other rather than to and with each other. Of course there are different agendas involved, the stresses of every day life, or even the adage of familiarity breeds contempt. But, whatever is the reason, the art of conversation between parents and kids, seems to be a lost art.
 Remembering to use both give and take, a great deal of patience and a healthy amount of respect may make possible for teens and parents to remove some of the barriers involved in two way communications. Some parents may need to realize that a child may not have the same amount or level of knowledge, wisdom, information or the experiences as they do but they do have fundamentally the same tools for logic and can actually see through some logical fallacies and breaks in what is considered sensible.
In other words remember the words of your parents when they would say "do it because I said so"? While that may have worked with you that same approach won’t work with most teens anymore, if it ever did at all. Most will not be intimidated by that type of powerful assertion from parents because they don’t feel that it is based on any logical reality. Believe it or not teenagers have a very sensitive “bull” detector and experts say that parents need to be authentic in their emotions, don’t pretend to act angry if you are really not or don’t try to telling your child something like “when you don’t go attend school it hurts me”, when in reality you are angry.
In recent years with the expanding World Wide Web, children are becoming more informed than you were at their age and perhaps it is not always the easiest or best information, but in general kids want to be good. The next time you happen to see a text message or email that shows one of those popular "MSN Emoticons"; don’t just assume that it is meant in a harmful or even sarcastic manner. Those, along with the bit more advanced emoticons, are merely a way for them to express themselves when not speaking face to face. While there may be some that are not entirely appropriate, most of them are just plain cute and harmless.
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