Talking to my teenager
Context
Parenting psychology, for most of its history, has referred to the relationship between parents and adolescents as an important component of society.
Parents play a key role in adolescent development, but sometimes lack the environment to understand and help the adolescent child.
Common practices of parents as mentors in the lives of adolescents in EU countries have focused on early life, in which children develop attachment styles towards mentors. Our specific module discusses the critical moment of adolescence as an important second step in structuring the identity and personality of adolescents.
The project "Talking to my teenager" aims to share experience and practices between partner organisations in Romania, Italy and Cyprus in order to create an optimal approach to communication between parents and teenagers, while promoting better cooperation and communication between partner organisations.
Psychological research has shown that risky behaviours increase during adolescence. The role of parents in identifying risky behaviour is essential for its early prevention. By implementing our project we want to educate parents to prevent teenagers' main risky behaviours.
Recent changes in society and the way we communicate have increased bullying at school and have attracted the attention of researchers in this field. Recent meta-analyses have clearly shown relationships between bullying and suicide. Eurostat has calculated that the suicide rate among 15-19 year olds is 4.29 per 100 000 in the EU-28.
Our project includes countries where this risk is higher (Romania: 5.64) and countries where this risk is lower (Italy: 2.47 and Cyprus 1.91). However, the issue is crucial in countries such as Italy, ISTAT (Italian Institute of Statistics) reveals that early depression is on the rise in Italy, even if the average at the moment shows a better situation compared to Europe. In particular, Italy, Cyprus and Romania share the problem of high NEET rates, this is consistently seen as a factor relating to lower life satisfaction.
Youth in Europe Report: A Eurostat statistical report reported 6362 deaths in the 15-19 age group due to external factors, most of them related to psychological and behavioural problems.
- Drug addiction causes 1.6% of deaths due to external factors
- Suicide and self-harm = 23.23%
- Dangerous sexual habits = 1.91%
- Alcohol and tobacco use = 67.35%
Alcohol and drug use is often linked to specific problems at home, at school/work or even through pressure.
Prevention of bad habits (alcohol, drugs, tobacco, excessive eating). The percentage of early smokers is still too high in Europe in 15-19 year olds (Eurostat, Health Interview Survey: EU 18.4%, Italy: 17.4, Cyprus: 25.2) Overweight and obesity in 15-24 year olds (Italy 12.6; Romania: 12.5; Cyprus: 16.9). Young people (15-19 years) reported at least one drinking episode per year (Italy: 27%, Cyprus 18% and Romania 26%).
Objectives
The parent-adolescent relationship takes place only by establishing communication between them and by the specific interactions of each family.
Target group
Parents are the ones who lead the children on the path of life, always guide them to make the best choices in life for them, not just draw their route, and they are by their side, for better or worse.
The objectives of our project can be summarized as follows:
- Instruct parents to be effective mentors for their teenage children
- Encourage parents to detect, understand and prevent risky behaviors (smoking, drugs, unsafe sex, the effects of psychological disorders, etc.)
The main target group of the project consists of parents of teenagers, representatives of parents from the Parents Association of the Technological High School No. 1 Alexandria, as a partner in the project.
As indirect beneficiaries of the project will be members of the consortium partners, representatives of other associations of parents, adolescents, professionals in the field of education and social field. The products of the project will also be disseminated to NGOs and public institutions at local, regional, national or international level.