When you're busy raising teenagers, one of the most important things you want to do is make sure that your discipline is consistent. Otherwise, any methods of disciplining will not be effective. If you forbid something, do not allow your teen to get away with it one day and punish your teen the next. To make sure that you enforce the rules consistently, you should consider creating house rules.
Keep Your Teen's Safety in Mind
The most important rules you want to set are rules that involve safety, such as a curfew. Teenagers are more likely to engage in risky activities when they believe no one is watching, which is more common late at night. Also, you don't want your teen out driving late at night until he or she has more driving experience.
Set Healthy Habits
It's important to set healthy habits early on in your teen's life. For example, you'll want to get your teenager in the habit of working hard and prioritizing some activities over others. A common mistake is for parents to not require that their teens engage in household chores.
Limit Screen Time
If you notice that your teenager is spending a lot of spare time using his or her electronics, try to encourage other activities so he or she learns about other ways to spend spare time. The Internet can be very addictive for generation Z and it's important to limit screen time.
Emphasize Self-Care
As a parent, you'll need to establish rules for self-care from the moment your child is able to hold a toothbrush. Even as a teenager, you will need to establish rules for engaging in regular exercise, healthy eating and good sleeping habits. There are many bad habits your teen can get away with when he or she is young, but these habits become harder to break as he or she becomes an adult if they aren't nipped in the bud.
Limit Time Spent with Certain Friends
One of the most challenging issues to overcome is when your teen is friends with someone who is a bad influence. Preventing your teen from seeing a friend may provoke rebellious behavior. However, one way around this is to limit the amount of time that he or she spends around friends who are a bad influence. But make sure to make it clear why you are concerned about the behavior of your teen's friends.
Look into women, parenting, teen life coaching programs for more help.