Teenagers are challenging to manage, as their surging hormones and ever-changing moods make them unapproachable. As a parent, you must ensure your child is well-adjusted and gets the best skills to handle adult life. How do you know if teens are adjusting well and have what it takes to make a well-rounded grown-up?
Seventeen Signs of Well-Adjusted Teens
Raising teenagers is not for the faint of heart. They love you one minute and refuse to speak to you the next. Parenting is hard, even on a good day.
However, you must ensure that your child is armed with the skills they need to take them from childhood to running their household. Here are seventeen traits that reveal well-adjusted teens.
1. Well-Adjusted Teens Know Their Strengths
Does your teen know their strengths? Can they solve math problems quickly, or are they a shoulder to cry on for their friends? Identifying and cultivating these strengths can put them on the right path for their career and life.
2. Understand their Limitations
While finding your strength is easy, it’s the limitations most people don’t want to admit. Does your child understand their limits, and are they working towards conquering their shortcomings? Some things can’t be defeated, so your child must learn to have a good relationship with themselves to find their boundaries.
3. Well-Rounded Teenagers Do Not Find Fault with Others
The sign of good raising is a child that accepts others. When people stop viewing the world through socioeconomic standings and things like skin color, you learn that everyone is equal and deserving of the same love and respect.
Parenting that teaches your teen to treat others equally is a positive step in the world. Does your child view everyone on the same plane as themselves?
4. Has a Realistic Perception of the World
Many teens struggle with their perception of the world around them, and reality usually hits them hard when they’re on their own. As parents, you must ensure that your child has a true sense of what life is all about, and they need to be ready for the changes that will occur.
5. Has Good Communication Skills
When your teen can effectively communicate with others, it signifies good parenting. They have no problem telling you how they feel or what’s bothering them. They aren’t inhibited by poor social skills that make communication a challenge.
6. Well-Adjusted Teens Feel Comfortable in their Surroundings
Like people of all ages, teens thrive when they’re in their comfort zone. An article published by the Association of Psychological Science states that they are more empathetic when home relationships are secure. If you create an atmosphere of support and trust, your teen is more likely to confide in you.
7. Takes Responsibility for their Actions
When teens grow up learning that it’s acceptable to blame others for their offenses and shortcomings, their adult relationships may be toxic. However, it’s a well-adjusted young person who can own their faults, ask for forgiveness, and make amends. They soon realize that with more privileges comes more responsibility.
8. Knows How to Communicate Effectively
Teens are well-known for mumbled one-word answers, slumping, shoulder shrugs, and eye-rolling. While some of it can be chalked up to awkwardness and angst, some young people haven’t learned to communicate effectively. If your high schooler has good conversation skills, it will serve them well in the future.
9. Develops Their Own Beliefs and Morals
Children usually learn their morals, beliefs, and traditions from parenting and other adult models. However, adolescence is the time when they test these standards for themselves. It’s normal for young people to accept some beliefs and discard others.
10. Well-Adjusted Teens Can Set and Achieve Goals
During infancy and childhood, parents and other caregivers set the goals for their little ones. They record each milestone and help the child learn more and develop age-appropriate skills. By teaching your child how to select, achieve, and celebrate small goals, they learn to expand their aspirations.
Most teenagers aren’t mature enough to make adult decisions, so yours will still need your guidance. You can see how well they set goals and follow through from puberty to late adolescence. They’ll ultimately fail from time to time, but you’ve taught them to get back up and try again.
11. Displays Gratitude
Parenting also includes the role of teaching and modeling good manners. Two of the first polite words your kids learn are “please” and “thank you.” It’s a satisfying feeling when you still hear your teenager being mannerly and showing their gratitude.
During their times of darkest turmoil, gratitude can lighten their path. They know how to count their blessings and not take others for granted. Appreciation and other positive attitudes provide riches of the soul that money can’t buy.
12. Lives a Life of Passion
Socrates explained that it’s not worth living if your life isn’t carefully examined. In other words, you discover your passion and try to live daily with a purpose. Well-adjusted teenagers are insatiably curious and want to gain more knowledge and skills for their future.
Rare is the young person who has their life plans chiseled in stone. They may have a profound interest today that changes tomorrow. It’s why so many first-year college students change their majors a few times.
Your teen’s goals may be vague initially, but maturation and experience will help them narrow their focus. However, their basic passions will usually follow them for the rest of their life. These things bring them joy and make them want to wake each morning ready to start the day.
13. Cherishes Time with Family
Sometimes, it may seem that your adolescent has morphed into a brooding cat. They only slink out of their bedroom long enough to eat, hiss at you, and return to hiding. A study published by the National Library of Medicine suggests that teenagers may benefit from spending a little time alone.
Most importantly, your high schooler still enjoys being with you and the family. You have meaningful conversations and do fun things together. These are the times that create forever memories.
14. Well-Adjusted Teenagers Are Thick Skinned and Can Roll with the Punches
It’s only human to want to shelter your children from all the hurts and disappointments. While you’re usually even-tempered, you become a ferocious grizzly if anyone dares to threaten your young. Consequently, you can’t always protect them and must teach them how to be resilient.
Have they asserted their rights against bullies in school, and have they dealt appropriately with disappointment? Teaching resilience is one of the best skills you can offer your teen. Life can be challenging, but it’s your job to show them how to be strong and survive.
15. Doesn’t Give in to Peer Pressure
Since the beginning, kids have indulged in risky or forbidden actions. Of course, there’s safety in numbers, so they urge those in their group to do the same. Most adolescents face peer pressure to try addictive substances or promiscuity.
Bravo to your young person who dares to say “no.” They don’t need to prove themselves to anyone by making poor decisions. When they’re adults, they’re still more likely to refuse to bow to peer pressures and negative consequences.
16. Avoids Unsafe or Dangerous Activities
Haven’t you ever done something silly as a kid and ended up paying for it? Or perhaps it was something that could have hurt or even killed you. If that didn’t become a pattern in your life, you’ve lived to teach your teenager to learn from your mistakes.
Well-adjusted high schoolers value their lives and avoid dangerous activities to show off. You’ll also notice that your kid tries to drive carefully and is concerned about safety rules. Daredevils may occasionally impress, but the most significant impression they’ll give is using good judgment and avoiding catastrophe.
17. Good Impulse Control Is a Key Trait in Well-Rounded Teens
Grocery store marketers have a good reason for stocking the checkout lines with snacks and glittery toys. They hope something will attract your little angel’s eyes, and it must go into the cart. Or else a temper tantrum worthy of a Hollywood award will ensue with everyone in the store watching.
They call these “impulse” buys because children and some adults can’t resist them. Maturation and parental instruction help kids develop impulse control. When your adolescent adjusts well, they will use better judgment and not make as many snap choices.
Final Thoughts on the Behaviors Well-Adjusted Teens Will Display
Teenagers are not perfect, and you cannot expect them to be. They can be resilient in an ever-changing world with good parenting skills and self-confidence. There’ll be a mixture of triumph and disappointment, but you’ve raised them to rise above each time as it’s the sign of well-adjusted teens ready to face the real world.
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