Parents as role models for pre-teens and teenagers
You’re an important role model for your child.
For example, how you cope with strong feelings influences how your child regulates their emotions. What you eat, how much you exercise, how you look after yourself and how you treat other people all influence your child.
What you say is also important. You can help your child behave in positive ways by talking about how behaviour affects other people. You can also talk with your child about the differences between right and wrong. Now’s a good time for this because your child is developing their ability to understand other people’s experiences and feelings.
Ideas for role-modelling
Here are practical ideas that can help you be a role model for your pre-teen or teenage child:
- Include your child in family discussions, talk openly and give them input into family decisions and rules. These are good ways of helping your child understand how people can get along with others and work together.
- Try to stick to your family rules about behaviour. For example, if you’d like your child not to yell, try not to yell yourself.
- Keep a positive attitude – think, act and talk in an optimistic way.
- Take responsibility by admitting your mistakes and talking about what you might do differently to avoid these mistakes in the future. Try not to blame everything that goes wrong on other people or circumstances.
- Use problem-solving skills to deal with challenges or conflicts in a calm and productive way. Getting upset and angry when a problem comes up encourages your child to respond in the same way.
- Show kindness and respect in the way you speak about and behave towards other people.
- Be kind to yourself, and treat yourself with the same warmth, care and understanding you’d give to someone you care about.
Your influence on pre-teens and teenagers
You’re an important influence on your child, along with your child’s friends and peers. But your influence on your child is different from the influence of their friends.
Your child’s friends are more likely to influence everyday behaviour, like the music your child listens to or the clothes they wear.
As a parent, you influence your child’s attitudes and values. This might include your child’s attitudes and values about things like diversity and identity, relationships, health, education, technology and so on.
And the stronger your relationship with your child, the more influence you’ll have, because your child will be more likely to seek your guidance and value your opinion and support. In fact, if you have a strong relationship as your child becomes a young adult, they’ll probably end up with values, beliefs and behaviour that are similar to yours.
Pre-teens and teenagers need you to stay in touch with them and what they’re up to, even if they don’t show it. You can take an interest in what they’re doing with their friends without invading their space if you balance your child’s privacy with monitoring and trust.
Ideas for influencing pre-teen and teenage attitudes
Attitudes to identity and diversity
When your child has healthy attitudes to gender and anti-racist attitudes, they understand that people have similarities and differences and that everyone deserves to be treated with care and respect. This means that your child is more likely to behave in safe, respectful and nonjudgmental ways at school, on sporting fields, in workplaces and so on.
You can help your child develop these attitudes by embracing diversity in your family life, role-modelling healthy attitudes, and encouraging your child to call out sexism and racism.
Respectful relationships
You can help your child to choose and build respectful relationships by role-modelling respectful and caring behaviour in your own relationships. And if you find yourself in a disrespectful relationship, model positive ways to manage that – for example, by being assertive, talking with the person involved or seeking professional help.
You can also stand up for yourself in a respectful way. This can be as simple as politely saying no to others. For example, ‘I can’t work late today because I promised to help at my child’s soccer game’. This helps your child learn important skills and ways of relating to others.
Alcohol and other drugs
You might worry about how your child will manage when peers are experimenting with alcohol and other drugs. But it’s not just friends who influence your child in this area – you also have an influence.
You can try to discourage your child from trying alcohol by talking with your child about alcohol and other drugs, the effects they have and the risks involved.
The way you use alcohol and other drugs also influences your child’s attitudes and behaviour, so you can be a role model for safe habits. For example, think about the different messages you might send by drinking occasionally and in moderation, compared with drinking daily or heavily.
Healthy lifestyle
You can model healthy food choices and healthy physical activity for your child by eating well and exercising regularly yourself. You could involve your child – for example, by swimming together or going for a family walk.
You can also try to avoid making comments about your body – and other people’s too. This sends important messages to your child about body image and acceptance.
Attitude to learning
If you make education seem interesting and enjoyable, your child is more likely to have a positive attitude to school and learning. For example, you could learn a language or a craft like knitting or painting, or you could read about an unfamiliar topic. And why not spend some time reading for pleasure? It’s a great way to encourage your child to pick up a book.
Technology use
Your technology use influences your child’s attitude to digital technology. You can have a positive influence simply by making regular, screen-free time for your own activities and family activities like walking, reading, eating and just talking. And if you’re positive and respectful in your social media posts, this sends a powerful message to your child too.
You have an indirect influence over your child’s friendships. You shape your child’s attitudes and values, which in turn shape their choice of friends. Teenagers, like adults, choose to be friends with people who are like them.