Boundaries exist in all areas of life! To help your teens be adequately prepared, join the free Boundaries program to be held from 6:00 to 7:30 pm CT on May 24, 29, June 7, 12 and 21. Parents and their teenage children are encouraged to attend all sessions. Pre-registration is required prior to attending. Please contact the NDSU Extension Office in McKenzie County at 701-444-3451 or email [email protected] to sign up for this series. Deadline to enroll is Tuesday, May 22.
At these sessions, parents and their children will:
• Recognize why boundaries are important
• Understand how boundaries reflect personal values
• Identify negotiable and non-negotiable rules in their lives
• Respectfully work through disagreements with authority figures
Teens need parents to be their greatest fan through their best and worst in life. Regardless of the situation, our sons and daughters need to know parents love them---unconditionally. And loving them means establishing boundaries.
Part of setting boundaries for teenagers is to help them learn to eventually set their own boundaries. Parents should discuss the reasons for the limits they put on their teen. Let your teen know some of the responsibilities that go with setting boundaries.
Boundaries include saying yes and no, just as doors are made to be opened and closed. Teens need the life lessons of success and failure to mature. When we open the door to appropriate levels of freedom, we give our teens a chance to make their own decisions, and to learn from them. Boundaries set for your teens should show them how things work in the adult world.
Parents should explore effective ways to use boundary-setting to avoid conflicts with teens, encourage responsibility and self-management, resolve problems, prevent pointless and frustrating, no-win power struggles, and establish a foundation of mutual trust, consideration and respect.
As we look at setting boundaries for teens, one of the first questions we need to ask ourselves is, “who is in the driver’s seat – the parent or the child?”
For more information on the Boundaries series, please feel free to contact NDSU Extension in McKenzie County.
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