Session 14/21

Parenting and guiding teenagers from childhood to adulthood

Competences to be exercised:

• Understanding the common challenges of puberty for both teenager and family
• Managing control versus the need for independence: contracting instead of controlling
• Planning and practicing open dialogues with children and teenagers about puberty
• Using your own life experience as a resource

Theme of the session
In this training session you are going to discuss and plan how to support and guide children in their transition from childhood to adulthood, meaning the process when a child becomes a teenager and later an adult and starts living his/her own independent life.

Aims of the session
The goal of the session is to understand and manage the changes in family life when a child becomes a teenager, and also how caregivers can support the transition from childhood to adulthood. Caregivers often experience problems with authority, when teenagers seek independence. And many African teenagers experience a difficult conflict in our rapidly changing world: Who am I, and what am I to do in this life? In order to support teenagers to find an answer to these questions, the aim of this session is to:

• Prepare children for puberty through dialogue
• Find a balance between control and involving the teenager in contracting
• Build a strong relationship in order to support the child’s transition from childhood to adulthood