Week 5 Discussions: Parenting older children

Consider the following scenario: 

You are a working single parent of a 16-year-old son and a 13-year-old daughter. Your son has an 11 PM curfew on weekends, but recently, he has been ignoring curfew and coming home after midnight. When you try to address this with him, he either ignores you or gets angry and starts screaming at you. When he’s at home, he tends to shut himself away in his room. His latest report card shows that his grades are slipping. You are getting very concerned, but you work full-time and parent by yourself, so you are getting frustrated as well. 

At the same time, your daughter has been telling you that she doesn’t feel well and doesn’t want to go to school. After some prodding, she shared that she has been getting teased at school and bullied online. 

After reviewing the learning resources for this week, come up with a strategy for dealing with your children that is supported by the literature on adolescent discipline. What are some of the things that you need to take into consideration? What actions would you implement to try and address the problematic behaviors you are witnessing? What actions would you avoid?

For this discussion, an excellent response will be well written and at least 2-3 paragraphs in length, incorporating at least 3 of the learning resources provided. You may also include other resources that you find outside of the classroom. Remember to use in-text citations and a reference list to identify the ideas that you learned from your sources. Any idea that came from something you read must be cited. When in doubt, cite it!