When Rose Kyomugisha’s daughter hit adolescence, she found herself questioning her parenting skills constantly. Her once sweet and obedient daughter was now an unruly child. 

She had taught her to be polite and respectful, but this was not the person she had become. Her upturned personality disconnected their mother-daughter relationship. "My daughter was a very open person but this changed too. She mostly wanted to spend time on social media and she never wanted to spend time with me or her siblings. It’s like she hated us,” she says.

Kyomugisha says though she knew parenting would become harder when her kids grew up, she never expected it to be this tough.

For most parents, teen years are one of the most challenging times in their parenting journey. Experts say, because it’s a period of intense growth, physically, emotionally and intellectually, it’s understandable that it’s a time of confusion and upheaval for many families.

As a parent, Jeff Ntambara says whereas raising children is hard, raising a teenager is even harder.

Certain factors such as peer pressure, drug abuse and social media have made raising teen children even tougher these days, he says.

"At this age, most children think they can be independent, and as a parent you want to show them the right path, but even though what you do is for their own good, you risk losing that close bond with your child,” he says.

Ntambara, however, recommends parents to be vigilant and strive to be a strong pillar, especially at such a crucial stage in their children’s lives.

"Kids at this age can be mean and resentful but as a mother or father, do what you can to maintain a close relationship with them. Be strong and compassionate and keep communication as open as you can. Be tough but also be lenient when need be,” he recommends.

Difference in generations

Counsellor Damien Mouzoun thinks that one of the challenges of parenting today is the disparity between generations. 

Our parents’ generation is certainly different from our generation and usually, there is a lack of interactions between these two generations. Speaking from the experience of Rwandans, this lack of interaction between generations has led to many issues where one generation feels misunderstood or judged by the other and the other generation feels overlooked and disrespected, he says. 

Although there are some classes meant to help out with parenting, Mouzoun believes parenting requires beyond being taught what to do and actually practising what you learnt and being able to adjust your practices along the way. 

"Usually, the practicality part is what brings in other things like culture, traditions and others. Traditions can last for a long time but they evolve with time. If you learnt to practice a tradition 10 years ago and still adopt the same practice 10 years after, it might not have the same impact or influence, not because the tradition is wrong (which can also be the case) but because the time is different and so are the realities of that time,” he explains.

He, therefore, stresses that the disparity between generations which is caused by the lack of interactions is what he finds to be the biggest challenge of parenting today. 

For the case with social media, Mouzoun encourages parents to introduce their children to the life outside these platforms and emphasise strongly on that life. 

"Some teenagers have bubbled themselves so much in this social media life that they think it is the only world everyone lives in today. Parents being providers of their children, consciously or unconsciously lead their children in this state through the lifestyle they choose to offer them or expose to them.” 

He believes that if parents could try their best in helping their children explore all aspects of life without any aspect being emphasised more than the other, it would help them develop into responsible citizens as they will have the ability to understand life and its realities and not be biased. 

As a way of handling the struggles that come with parenting teens, the counsellor recommends making time for children and being willing to listen and understand them as parents. 

"Sometimes parents treat their teenage children as adults who no longer need much of their attention and that should not be the case. Every child needs their parents’ attention at every stage, especially when they are in that stage where most of the decisions that will shape their lives are most likely to be made from.”

Olive Rutayisire, a mother of two teenage boys, says what has helped her go through this tough transition is allowing her sons to express their individuality.

She says, giving them space to be their own individuals allows them to make mistakes and learn from them, hopefully. 

"Not that this works all the time, but it also helps me to take some pressure off me. I believe that sometimes as parents, we want our children to be exactly how we want them to, but this is not possible. Our children, though ours, cannot be like us. We, therefore, need to give them space to build their own personalities, but with guidance of course,” she says.