Evaluating the importance of the teen/parent relationship

Teen-parent relationships are just as important, if not more so than they used to be in years gone by, given the much increased and varied range of problems a teen can and will encounter in todays society, and yet less and less are teens relying on or interacting with their parents these days.

The reasons for this are many, with increased independence for teenagers in general, and technology allowing them to communicate with anyone at any time, they are forced to socialize with their own families a lot less than they used to be purely for communication and geographical reasons. many more teens also have part time jobs these days, which means they spend less time at home anyway, as well as their social lives being more active than in yesteryear. Today parents too have less time to interact and maintain close bonds with their teens because of work constraints and longer hours etc, meaning the parent teen relationship is usually the first to suffer.

Teenagers who have closer bonds with their parents and families have lower rates of thins like underage sex, teenage pregnancy and drug addictions. They would also more likely go to their parents if they had a problem, and trust their parents judgment more in helping them overcome problems. Teenagers who do not have such a close bond with their parents however will be more likely to turn to gangs to find that similar feeling of family and belonging, as well as getting in more trouble with the law, and feeling they have to sort out their problems themselves rather then turning to their parents for help, which would often be the best course of action to take.

forging a strong relationship with teenagers will also help them to become better parents themselves when the time comes, and will help them to better bond with their children, from learning a lot of the lessons of child raising form their parents and following by example of how they were treated.

Because of society being so focused on everything at speed and being in a hurry these days as well as increased technological impact on how we live our lives, teen parent relationships seem to be suffering, and show no signs of getting any better, but are still of the utmost importance, and should be improved on at any cost.