‘It seems that rather than being a bad thing, your offsprings’ feisty ways may suggest a bright future’
IF your house is rattling with doors slamming and the air is thick with words we cannot share in a family paper, perhaps you are suffering from teenage row syndrome?
This affliction tends to get worse at different times of year, especially school holidays, so now is peak season.
If it may endanger your life, or the lives of others, to suggest someone in your house aged 18 or under assists with the household chores through the long, hot summer, it can be hard to keep a cool head.
But panic not. It seems that rather than being a bad thing, your offsprings’ feisty ways may suggest a bright future.
Teenagers who regularly clash with their parents are more likely to have given time to a charity or humanitarian cause, a study from Wales claims.
The survey of 13 and 14 year-olds, carried out by academics at Cardiff University, showed those who argued “a lot” with their mother and father, compared to those who “never” argued, were also more likely to have been involved with a human rights organisation in the past 12 months and to have contacted a politician or signed a petition.
At the very least that shows they’re engaged and interested in the world around them, even if not all politicians are the best role models these days.
Professor Sally Power, of the Wales Institute of Social and Economic Research, Data and Methods (WISERD), who led on the study, said: “Traditionally, rows between teenagers and their parents have been seen as an unwelcome and stressful part of growing up.
“In actual fact, our research indicates arguments may be one route through which young people acquire skills of debate that enable them to have higher levels of civic engagement.”
The research also revealed that girls are nearly twice as likely to have arguments with both their mother and father over their clothes.
Girls are also more likely to have arguments with their mother over household chores.
If it’s boys you live with then they are twice as likely to argue with their mothers (but not their fathers) about politics.
Boys are also more likely to have arguments with their mothers over homework.
And it can even be a matter of background. The researchers found that white teenagers were more likely than those from BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) to argue about chores and money. But BAME respondents were seven times more likely to argue about religion.
As a mother of three I can testify to another finding – that mothers are more likely to argue with their children than fathers and 83% of teenagers questioned said they never argued with grandparents.
I’m not convinced this is because fathers are less argumentative, but those I know tend to take a ‘watch and see’ approach to clashes between kids and mothers before deciding whether to join in.
The nightmare scenario is if parents and kids play one another off on each other, which never has a good long-term outcome.
Generally speaking, massive rows are not a great thing but families are bound to clash, and learning how to get your point across effectively and reasonably is part of growing up.
Most adults still haven’t mastered it, so maybe a bit more practice with the teens is no bad thing?
In actual fact, our research indicates arguments may be one route through which young people acquire skills of debate that enable them to have higher levels of civic engagement PROFESSOR SALLY POWER