How Parents Can Help Teens Navigate the Arduous Path to Adulthood

Martha Rush-Mueller looked up from her coffee to see her teenage daughter stride into the kitchen. Elizabeth had just put her hair up in tiny ringlets, sweeping back the light brown locks that normally hang freely. As corny it may sound, Rush-Mueller admits, she glimpsed a more mature Elizabeth that day.

“I looked at her profile and thought, ‘That’s a whole new person – a young woman,’” says Rush-Mueller. “You’ll blink your eyes one day and say, ‘Where did she go?’ She turned around and she was 4. She turned around and she was 10. And now, she’s 17!”

Our children grow into teenagers seemingly overnight. Some days we look into their faces and notice a new, more mature person. A sharper angle to the jaw. A seriousness around the eyes. A sassiness that wasn’t there before.

Along with a new look or attitude, the process of actually becoming an adult, experts say, follows a somewhat predictable path: acquiring certain skills, taking risks, trying on and casting off habits, and defining one’s own set of values and morals. How and when that all happens, though, can be tough to articulate.

Robbie, a 14-year-old ninth-grader, says he’s “on his way” to becoming a grown-up. “There’s still a lot more to go through, and things that I haven’t seen,” says Robbie, a dirt bike enthusiast who is also a member of his school’s football, wrestling and baseball teams. “A few years from now, I could become a whole different person. I don’t know, it just seems like it happens over time. There isn’t a breaking point. You grow into it.”

Robbie’s right. The process of becoming an adult takes time. And teens need help from their parents.

Parents Still a Powerful Influence

Research shows that moms and dads continue to wield tremendous influence over their teens – how they can “fit in” and survive in our unsettled times. And, though the temptation is often great, parents should never just watch while the rest of the world – good and bad – shapes their adolescent’s future.