Improving Social and Emotional Behavior

By: Christine Cadena

As we try to teach our young children about morality, many more teens are engaging in promiscuous behavior at an earlier age than their parents once did. For some teens, the engagement of promiscuous behavior may be something as simple as the first kiss. In movies and on television shows, the images are forever etched in our minds when a couple engages in that first kiss. Sending signals and messages that something profound has just happened, many young children find their first kiss is often not as magical as what they have seen on television. Even still, it is a memorable event. For many teens, especially those around age 14, the first kiss is expected to occur. It is, however, also expected that parents protect teens from engaging in activity beyond the first kiss.

If your child has engaged in a first kiss as a teen, as a parent there is no reason to be alarmed simply by this action. For many child psychologists, if the child has reached age 12 to 14, it is expected the first kiss would have occurred by this time. The casual kissing on the mouth is an acceptable behavior for teens in this age group and generally does not lead to other physical activity.

The basis on which many child psychologists limit their concerns over a teen's first kiss lies in the underlying emotions that generally accompany this event. When asked, many teens in this age group indicate their first kiss was usually filled with guilt, anxiety and fear and often did not elicit any feelings of satisfaction or pleasure. AS a result, many teens do not expand on the first kiss and engage in activity beyond this.

With this knowledge, many parents still find they are fearful of their child's first kissing experience. For fear the teen may be acting in a promiscuous way, engaging in kissing activity at a young age, parents worry the activity may lead to more sexually advanced activity. Providing the teenager is close to 14 years of age when the first kiss takes place, many child psychologists view this as a normal progression of maturity and does not raise significant concern or alarm.

If, however, your child is under age 12 and is found to be engaged in kissing activity on a regular basis, there may be cause for concern. Often mimicking what is seen in movies or on television, many young children, under age 12 who engage in regular kissing activity, report they are looking for that magical moment and have become desensitized by their actions. For children younger than age 12, this type of activity should be addressed by a child psychologist in order to prevent future complications with promiscuous behavior.

While there is no scheduled time in which every child will become sexually or romantically mature, for many teenagers the natural progression begins around age 14 when that first kiss takes place in the time period shortly after reaching this age. When your child engages in a simple first kiss at 14, or an age thereafter, there is generally no reason for concern as this behavior will not lead to much more than a kiss.

Anger Management for Teens

12 Calm Down and Get a Grip Anger Management Tips for Teens

From Mike Hardcastle

I get mad. You get mad. Your Mom gets mad. Your Dad gets mad. Hey, even God gets mad. Let’s face it, at one time or another EVERYBODY gets mad! Anger is a normal human emotion and it is the way that your subconscious mind releases mental and emotional pressure but sometimes this normal psychological function can run amok and lead you astray. Getting angry is normal, letting anger get the best of you is not. So how do you know if your anger is getting out of control and what can you do about it if you’re raging? Surprisingly enough recognizing and managing anger is relatively easy, here’s how!

Your anger is out of control if…

• you find yourself getting angry at everything that inconveniences you, annoys you or otherwise gets in the way of what you want to be doing,
• it leads you to act out aggressively or violently as in yelling, ranting, hitting, shoving or plotting revenge,
• it consumes you long after the event has passed, if you dwell on the things that make you angry then you’re in trouble because normal anger is only a temporary emotional response to unsettling eternal stimuli,
• things that didn’t used to make you angry are suddenly major issues worthy of a rant, this does not apply to times when you have suppressed normal anger only to times that anger really isn’t merited, for example when somebody gets a higher grade than you or when a person is taking too long in the bathroom,
• you find yourself doing self destructive things to cope with your angry feelings, such as reckless driving, hazardous recreational activities, physical fighting, drugs and alcohol or, unsafe or random sexual activity.

You can manage that anger by…

• recognizing the difference between an annoyance or inconvenience and a bona fide reason to get mad - somebody hurting you, hurting somebody you care for or damaging your property are all good reasons to get mad; somebody “disrespecting” you, getting in your way, slowing you down, being luckier than you, or doing something better than you do it are not reasonable causes of anger,
• taking a deep breath, stepping away from the situation and asking yourself “Why am I really mad?”, often people misdirect anger caused by a valid yet bigger issue on to everyday annoyances and inconveniences,
• know your triggers, if there are certain things that you know bother you or that you can’t accept know what they are, take steps to avoid them, and play out an appropriate reaction in your head when you're feeling calm to train your mind to react that way when the problem arises in real life,
• plan your time wisely, one of the most common anger stressors is poor time management, when you’re in a rush and something slows you down even more you are very likely to react in anger, the simplest way to avoid this is to exercise effective time management,
• exercising regularly, it’s true that exercise is an excellent way to de-stress body and mind, people who exercise regularly are less likely to overreact to annoyances and inconveniences,
• talk it out, reacting in anger often causes the reasoning center of the brain to shut off for a time and the way you can turn it back on is to talk rather than act out when anger takes hold, it may sound crazy but taking a few minutes to gather your thoughts and speaking them out loud can do wonders to diffuse an angry situation.