Parenting a teenager is never easy. They often vacillate between wily independence and the little child you have tenderly protected and nurtured for years. Teenagers seek freedom and new experiences, but just as quickly run back home to parental safety when things go wrong. It’s no surprise that parents often struggle to find the right balance between providing support and encouraging their teens toward independent accomplishments.
Unfortunately, a parent’s tender protection is not always beneficial in the teen years. Overdoing certain actions can hinder your teen’s development and their ability to become a capable, responsible, and confident adult. Now is the time to ensure that your adolescents in high school learn important life skills. To do that, it’s time to explore the 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager.
Why It’s Important To Stop Doing Certain Things for Your Teenager
Parents often forget that teenage years are when their child must learn to do things for themselves. From the turmoil and vulnerability of a kid in their tweens must grow into a strong, independent adult in just a few short years. The 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager define methods of overparenting that aren’t doing your teen any favors.
Continuing to do everything for your child and shielding them from all harm can eventually hinder their growth, preventing them from building self-esteem and learning important life lessons.
If you value your child’s mental health and long-term well-being, you must start by understanding the impact of overparenting. It’s time to wake up to the fact that allowing them to face challenges on their own is important for their growth.
The Consequences of Doing Too Much
When you do too much for your teen, they never learn how to take care of themselves. Overparenting can result in dependency, creating young adults who turn to you for every issue and prefer to talk to you rather than developing their own problem-solving skills. Even worse, an overparented teen never has a chance to go through the emotional growth that allows them to live confidently alone, watch out for themselves, and forge their own path as adults.
Preparing Teens for Adulthood
As your teen enters middle school and then high school, your role as a parent evolves. Where before your role was to protect and guide, it now becomes preparing your teen for adulthood. Just remember that by their last year of high school, they should already know how to handle college applications and demonstrate the maturity needed to make important life decisions.
Fostering independence and responsibility will help your teens navigate adulthood successfully. They need to be able to do their own laundry, cook basic meals, and handle little things on their own. But it’s also normal for parents and teens both to have a hard time with this transition. By avoiding the 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager, however, you can start together on the right path.
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8 Things You Should Stop Doing for Your Teenager
What shouldn’t you do for your teen? What are the 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager? On one hand, as a parent, you would do anything to help your child—and why not? It’s natural to want to support them in every way possible. On the other hand, you know they’ll live a better life if they learn independence, because you can’t be a full-time problem-solver for them forever. Even if it requires facing a few challenges, making mistakes, and struggling to learn things on their own. Let’s dive into the 8 things you should stop doing for your teen this school year so they can learn these important life lessons while still in a safe environment.
1. Stop Solving All Their Problems
Teens need problem-solving skills because they will be facing challenges alone in just a few years. The only way to grow those skills is to handle problems on their own. This is why it’s important for parents to let teens face challenges and come up with their own solutions.
You can offer tips, encouragement, and even provide resources. But when your teen brings you a problem (or you detect a problem with parent-sense), it’s important that your teen be the one to find the solution. Please keep in mind that you should always:
- Be someone they can talk to;
- Ask your teen “What will you do about this?”;
- Guide your teen toward good options with gentle suggestions;
- Let your teen know they can ask for help if they know the solution.
2. Stop Managing Their Time Completely
Too much time management is one of the most important of the 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager.
Your child may have excelled when you planned all their activities and classes before. But who will plan for them when they are adults?
Instead of taking over this year, teach your teen time management skills. Ask your teen what they want to do and help them build a schedule. Remind them to keep their commitments,then equip them with an alarm clock and show them the tools you use for time management.
Teens need to learn how to manage their own schedules and responsibilities. Mastering time management will help them in academics now, in their future career, and in effectively pursuing their own personal goals.
3. Stop Handling Their Conflicts
Your teen should be able to handle their own interpersonal conflicts. They are not a small child facing playground disputes anymore. Believe it or not, teens practice conflicts and conflict resolution with each other. A lot of that drama is an important part of the learning process, as long as your teen keeps a cool head.
Parents can support teens as they handle conflicts without getting directly involved. Here are some recommendations for your teenage son or daughter:
- Provide advice;
- Listen to your teen when they need to vent;
- Point out alternate ways to look at the situation;
- Encourage your teen to be calm, kind, and rational in their conflicts;
- Guide your teen toward resolutions, but let them take the lead.
4. Stop Doing Their Chores for Them
We know, doing chores on behalf of your children becomes second-nature. But think of it this way: Doing chores is now an important “class” your teen must pass in order to be an independent adult. Before you send them off to college or let them “live the dream” of moving into an apartment with friends, first they need to be able to:
- Cook a meal (safely!);
- Do their own laundry;
- Do the dishes;
- Clean a bathroom;
- Keep a living area reasonably clean;
- Manage a weekly routine of chores.
These are the bare minimum life skills for a young adult. Teens who do chores learn responsibility and contribute to family life. But most improtantly, chores are an essential preparation for living independently. Doing the chores for your teens is one of the 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager because they absolutely must learn to do chores for themselves.
Before you pick up that laundry on “autopilot” again, just stop and imagine your teen’s young adult life if they don’t learn the basics!
5. Stop Making Every Decision for Them
You don’t feel comfortable letting your teen make decisions. They are wild and irresponsible and, if allowed, they would eat ice cream for dinner and try to jump off the roof with their skateboard. We know that teen decision-making is scary. We know that your baby had a good life while you were guiding their every step. But it’s time to stop.
You need to let teens start making choices (and learning from them) precisely because they don’t know how, yet. Kids learn from that first too-much-candy stomach ache. They learn from the scraped knees from falling off their bike. And they learn the hard way that it’s not fun to stay up late on a school night. But that doesn’t mean they won’t do it once in a blue moon. And yes, that’s ok.
But they also learn that they really like that extra-curricular activity they chose by themselves. They learn that they have new interests and favorite classes. They learn how good it feels to make a decision and have it be the right one.
It’s important to let your teens start learning how to make good decisions of their own accord by offering guidance while allowing independence.
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6. Stop Monitoring Their Every Move
In the age of social media, stranger danger, and tracking apps, we know it’s tempting to monitor your teen’s every move. In fact, parents often feel even more compelled to closely monitor teens who are entering whole new realms of potential risks.
However, it is also extremely important to build trust by allowing teens to have their personal space. Parents must walk a fine line of setting boundaries without being overbearing so teens have time to figure certain things out for themselves.
- Let your teen close their bedroom door;
- Give them hours of personal time just to “do their own thing”;
- You can put limits on their apps and social media use, but don’t “snoop” on every comment and post they make;
- Make it clear you’re available to talk, but don’t push too hard;
- Remind your teen that they are valuable and lovable, but don’t insist on meeting every crush right away.
7. Stop Shielding Them From Failure
Another very important of the 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager is shielding them from failure. We mentioned earlier that teens need the freedom to make bad decisions and learn from them. This is true on a larger scale, as well.
Failure is a crucial part of learning and personal growth.
- Maybe your teen isn’t going to win the state competition, but they will grow stronger from trying and they might rank higher than expected.
- Maybe your teen’s Halloween costume idea sounds like a hot mess, but it’s their hot mess to try, and maybe they’ll improvise something better at the last mint.
When you see looming failure, step back and be supportive instead of preventing the failure from happing.
Be supportive and encouraging. Allow natural consequences to happen and provide comfort if your teen gets upset. But at the same time, encourage optimism and creativity in the face of failures. After all, the real value of experiencing falure is the ability to get back up and make the best of the situation.
8. Stop Hovering Over Their Social Life
The last of the 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager is social hovering.
Trust your teen’s judgment in their friendships and relationships. Teens need the ability to make and break friendships, and they gain necessary social skills from the experience. You never know when that “darling” childhood friend might have become the school bully, or when a “nightmare” kid from four birthday parties ago is now the best friend your teen could have.
Parents and teens both benefit when parents take a step back and let teens manage their own social lives. The best thing you can do is support your teen and assure them that they deserve good friends who value them – whoever those friends might be.
👉 After you discover the 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager, it’s also important to learn about keeping them safe in relationships. Check out our article “Teens Dating Safely: Essential Advice for Parents” for vital tips.
How To Transition From Overparenting to Empowering
The hardest time for parents is often when their precious baby is not a baby anymore. As soon as a child enters their teens, suddenly independence and self-directed skills become the most important things for them to learn. They need to make good and bad decisions and learn from both. They need failures and successes, and to believe in themselves after both. They need to learn life skills and guide their own social journey, and know that you support them – but that they can’t lean on you forever.
The 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager highlight why it’s not healthy to do everything for your teen. Now that you understand why each type of independence is important, it’s time to empower your teen to become an amazing young adult.
Practical Steps to Letting Go Gradually
The good news is that you don’t need to let go all at once. In fact, your teen probably doesn’t want you to! Teenagers may talk a big game about independence, but they’re just now learning to fly, and they appreciate the loving support they have always relied on you for.
Letting go gradually is a process of giving your teens freedom while letting them know you’ll be there if they fall.
- Start giving your teen choices when you would normally decide for them;
- Ask your teen if they want to pick a new extracurricular activity this/next year;
- Trade chores for more independent free time;
- Let your teen plan their own birthday party with a budget this year;
- Introduce check-in texting if your teen wants to go out with friends or stay out late;
- Begin teaching your teen to drive.
Set Clear Expectations
One of the best ways to slowly introduce more independence (and life skills) is to set clear expectations. Establish clear, age-appropriate rules with your teen and trade those rules for guidelines as they get older.
- More privacy if school work is always done on time;
- Approved outings with friends if chores are complete;
- Gradual reduction of social media and app restrictions;
- Clear schedule expectations for school days and family obligations.
Encourage Open Communication
Last but never least, always maintain open lines of communication. Let your teen know that even though you are stepping back from guiding their life, you are always available for support and advice.
This assures teens that they are safe to try new things and take risks, knowing you will help them if things go too wrong. They are less likely to rebel in dangerous ways and more likely to ask you for advice if you give them this type of balance in freedom and loving support.
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Watching Your Teen Grow Into a Responsible Adult
As a parent, it can be hard to let go when your teen begins to need independence. However, the ultimate reward of adhering to the 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager is watching them grow into a capable and responsible adult.
We all dream of seeing our children become confident, happy, and independently successful. As you might guess, the first step on that path is learning independence. By allowing your teen to do more for themselves, you can help them learn the skills they will need to thrive. As a parent, you can prepare your teenager for adulthood by gradually shifting from overparenting to empowering.
Now is an important time to reflect on your current parenting style. Whether you see yourself in all 8 “don’ts” or just a few, consider how making small changes to support your teen’s growth can help them become responsible adults.
Now that you’ve learned about the 8 things you should stop doing for your teenager, you might have more questions on parenting. Reach out to Sophie, our AI parenting expert, who is here to help you find the best strategies and solutions.
References
Bezdek, G.K & Telzer, H. E. (2017, December 20th). Have No Fear, the Brain is Here! How Your Brain Responds to Stress. Frontiers. https://kids.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/frym.2017.00071
Dubovitskaya, T., Oskolkov, I., Lukyanova, R., & Ivanova, O. (2020). The Culture Of Clothing And “I” Image Among Adolescents. Humanistic Practice in Education in a Postmodern Age, 93. European Proceedings of Social and Behavioural Sciences 422-431. https://doi.org/10.15405/epsbs.2020.11.44
Kolk, S. & Rakic, P. (2022). Development of prefrontal cortex. Neuropsychopharmacology 47:41–57; https://doi.org/10.1038/s41386-021-01137-9
Sussman, S., Pokhrel, P., Ashmore, R.D. & Brown, B.B. (2007). Adolescent peer group identification and characteristics: A review of the literature. Addictive Behaviors, 32(8), 1602-1627, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.addbeh.2006.11.018
