Teen-A-Pause: Consciously Parenting Your Teen Whilst Reparenting Yourself

Mums Tips

Parenting Skills

Published on Monday, 10 August 2020 11:30

Last Updated on 20 July 2020

Monica Costa

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What’s the recipe for successful parenting in the twenty-first century? I have always tried to make sense of this without a definite answer. I often feel as a mum I have failed in my goal of having the perfect family, a caring child and a happy life according to what media showcases as happiness. But when children reach the teenage years, we are confronted with so many dilemmas and frustrations which can prevent us from fulfilling our potential especially at the time when as a mother we are reaching the menopause and facing middle life crisis. 

Teenage mental health is at a crisis point, particularly now as teens struggle to cope with the new normal and parents struggle getting through to them. Experienced Psychotherapist and author Emma Disney releases a new guidebook, Teen-A-Pause: Consciously Parenting Your Teen Whilst Reparenting Yourself  in which she provides tips on how parents can take “A PAUSE” to empower themselves to learn the language their teenagers are speaking. 

Disney’s book remind us mums and dads to become more aware of our children’s fast-paced, evolving world. Communication is constant, social media likes and influencers are accessible and impacting life and every day can be lived virtually through technology.

In this warm and wise book, Disney embellishes her experience as a psychotherapist and parent by providing learning lessons to help parents understand the teen they are raising.  

I found this manual practical including space to write my notes while reading. It is helpful to make me reflect about my own teenage years, and learn a new approach to the parenting relationship challenges through the adolescent years, the teenage brain, teaching resilience and emotional stability and the importance of surviving through teenagers’ struggles and learning how to thrive by the obstacles they face. 

In Chapter 4, for example, Disney showcases various personality types and the impact on relationships. She provides practical tips on how to deal with the different personality traits. 

Teen-A-Pause made me realise that it is vital to make the time to ‘unlearn’ everything that prevents me from being the most authentic, happy and calm me, so ‘un-becoming’ everything that no longer serves my life, whilst supporting my teenage son on his journey to ‘becoming’. 

The author also helps parents throughout her book by teaching them how to be the best parent they can be by empathising with the teenage world they have never known. Disney also focuses on essential topics such as the impact the adolescent years have on parents, staying in-line as a parent in today’s world, taking “A PAUSE” to parent with more emotional intelligence and awareness and helpful resources parents can utilise. Additionally, parents will learn how to support emotional intelligence.

Disney shines a light on how parents may need to heal emotional and mental wounds that date back to their adolescence, and in Teen-A-Pause, the psychotherapist and author illustrates how. She also shows teens the mental and emotional support they need to understand the importance of feelings, change, self, resilience, responsibility, consequences, choices, power of their mind and thoughts and the impact on the quality of relationships.

Life as a parent is a journey, and parents must take “A PAUSE” to discover how to become the most authentic, calm, and loving self in a way that will enrich their lives and their teenagers’ lives. 

Emma Disney has been a psychotherapist for the past twenty years specialising in working with teenagers; and their mental health and emotional well-being. She is passionate and experienced with mental health, raising awareness, understanding and education, sharing this through social media, mylifeme1 and her blog, www.mylifeme1.home.blog.

Teen-A-Pause: Consciously Parenting Your Teen Whilst Reparenting Yourself is available at the Balboa Press Online Bookstore, Amazon and Barnes & Noble – ISBN: 9781982281557 (softcover).

 

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