SingleDad.com contributor Sarah Newton asks How do you have a relationship when you barely know yourself? How can teenagers make these relationships more successful and not feel pressurized to do something they may regret later. How will you support your daughter?
There is no doubt, being a teenager is a challenge! You are expected to make so many big decisions and yet you are barely an adult. When you think about it, most of the important decisions we make about our lives are made when we are in our teenage years and barely know ourselves.
How do you have a relationship when you barely know yourself? How can teenagers make these relationships more successful and not feel pressurized to do something they may regret later. How will you support your daughter? What does she need to know about herself?
1. Values — what does she enjoy doing, what is she passionate about, what does she believe in, what is important to her? How does this fit with her new boyfriend, where may they have problems?
2. What standards does she hold about how people should behave and act? How do her standards match with his?
3. Where does she want to be in life? Where is her future and how does that fit with her new boyfriend? If she has bags of ambition and wants to travel the world, while he wants to work in the local supermarket, what sort of life will they have?
4. What does she respect about him, what are the things that she really admires in him and why? How can she get more of these qualities in her life? If she had them would she still want him? Quite often we can be attracted to someone, not for who they are, but for a quality they have that we want, be it freedom, rebellion, security, who knows? She needs to know this though.
5. What does she need and expect from a relationship, can he give her this? If not, then he needs to hit the highway, baby!
6. Are they equally matched personality-wise; this book can really support them in seeing if they are a good match and what they can do to improve the relationship.
7. What are the things that she does not like about herself, the dark bits, how might these interfere with her relationship and how can she apply strategies to deal with them?
8. What things is she passionate about, what does she believe in? Does he share the same beliefs? Where may these cause problems?
9. What are the bad bits about her boyfriend, what doesn’t she like? Can she really deal with them?
10. Do they laugh, can they have fun together, can they get over arguments quickly by not taking themselves too seriously? After all, isn’t that what a relationship is all about?
Richard “RJ” Jaramillo, is the Founder of SingleDad.com,
a website and social media resource dedicated to single parenting and specifically for the newly divorced, re-married, widowed and single Father with children.
RJ is self employed, entrepreneur living in San Diego and a father of three children. The mission of SingleDad is to help the community of Single Parents
“Make Life Happen…Again!”
