Parenting Today's Teens

Cry for Help Sometimes bad behavior from a teen is actually a cry for help. Kids can use misbehavior as a way to draw attention to their deeper issues.  And sometimes they don’t even know why they are doing it. One girl we recently worked with was having great difficulty dealing with being the only adopted child in the family, and having trouble fitting in with her siblings, so she terrorized the whole family. I’m not excusing her bad behavior, but before we could help her, we needed to understand why it was happening.  Only then could we pull the thorn from her side and help her heal.  Recognizing and dealing with the deeper issue helped change her whole outlook on life and stopped the misbehavior.