Tips for Raising a Teenager With Individuality

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Parenting a teenager is a major challenge and presents one of the most important times to foster a healthy, well-rounded, and independent personality in your child that will carry over to adulthood and prepare them for a successful life. Figuring out how to impart a true sense of individuality to a teenager that will help them navigate the world is a challenge that every parent faces.

What every parent wants is to create a strong sense of self and individuality in a teenager without them losing sight of the values they were raised with or the fact that humans are social creatures, and we do rely on each other. Bringing their truest self to light in a way that their uniqueness shines on its own, illuminating all of their most positive qualities while still enabling them to relate well to others is the goal, and in this article, we’re going to look at the best parenting tips to do so.

How To Bring Out Your Teenager’s Individuality 

Let Them Find Out What They Don’t Like

One of the best ways to figure out who we truly are and get in touch with our individuality is to first find out who we are not. Before we can become fully realized as individuals, we must come to a firm understanding of our likes and dislikes, what we want to do and don’t want to do, and what is easy or natural for us versus what is challenging.

The way to enable this is to let your child experience and navigate failure. By giving them more freedom in life, even the freedom to fail, they learn how to do so without giving up or getting discouraged. Many parents these days don’t allow their children to know the innate human experience of failure, which stunts their individuality and doesn’t prepare them for adulthood.

Encourage Curiosity and New Experiences

From the time they are an infant to the day they step out the door on their own as an adult, encouraging curiosity and exposing them to new experiences is one of the most important ways you can encourage their individual nature and personality to blossom. You should expose your child to as wide a range of arts, sports, and other activities as you can. 

Get them used to getting outside their comfort zone. Take them to a pottery class or painting class, let them explore a passion for photography or a musical instrument, take them to different sports exhibitions, and encourage them to try out whatever activity they are interested in. Nurturing these interests by providing a helping hand and the tools necessary to get started is an excellent way to encourage individuality in a teenager.

Practice Conflict Resolution Strategies

The developing child’s parents are the two main role models in their life.  This reliance and seeming dependence can lead to times when the teenager will push away, creating conflict, as they call into question the parent’s role as both caregiver and rule giver.  This is natural, part of growing into adulthood, and learning to manage it effectively is a key part of raising a well-rounded and healthy adult.

To raise an independent but emotionally healthy teen, managing conflict resolution is going to be a major factor.  Luckily, there are some simple, effective, and helpful strategies that you can follow.  Some of the best ones are:

• Stay calm during disagreements, giving them a reasonable role model rather than anger or yelling.
• Use “I feel” statements or fact-based statements about the behavior, rather than accusatory or derogatory language.
• Listen to their point of view and let them express themselves.
• Make it clear that your priority is their safety and well-being, and if you must simply say no, explain it in a way that emphasizes this outlook of concern for them and their future.
• Practice negotiation, as being reasonable and letting them have a small concession when appropriate will demonstrate good conflict resolution strategies for their adult life.

Don’t Try to Live Through Them  

This is an important one - when going through the process of letting them find their interests, avoid pushing your own interests or the ones you want them to be into forcefully on them. This will lead to resentment, and have the opposite effect you intend.  

Instead, think of yourself as the chef at a buffet. You present lots of options and let them select what sounds fun or exciting to them. If you have a hobby or interest you want them to be into, demonstrate how relaxed and fulfilled it makes you feel, rather than forcing them to participate in something they are ambivalent about.

Stop Living for the College Application  

The final piece of advice here is this: continually reminding them that they need to build up a strong resume and do all the right hobbies and activities to get accepted to a good college won’t foster individuality. Instead, try and encourage them to live in the moment and explore what they are naturally drawn to and attracted towards.

When you focus solely on the college application, or doing the “right” hobbies and activities, you’re teaching them that the only thing that really matters is how other people perceive them. Of course, every parent wants their child to get into good schools, but it’s equally as important that they go off to college with a firm sense of self and know who they are inside.

Play Towards Their Strengths

One helpful tip is to recognize the difference between extroverted hobbies and introverted hobbies. If your child is introverted and uncomfortable around large groups of people, they can still develop a strongly individualistic personality by engaging in individual hobbies, like music, art, or computer programming.  

As their parent, you know their strengths and weaknesses better than anyone, so try to nurture the strong points of their personality and encourage them to take those interests to the next level.

Raising a teenager is a difficult job, that’s just a fact of life. However, the best thing you can do for them is to prepare them to be on their own in the world, and following these steps will provide a firm foundation for that goal.