If you have an adolescent in your home, you know that each day will be different. Their moods are unpredictable and they have a difficult time staying on one topic. They are just not the same person you have been raising the past 10 years.

Although challenging for parents, this period of time in your child’s life is one of the most exciting. Their brain is changing moment to moment as developmental surges propel them toward young adulthood.

What can you do to help your adolescent make the most of this important transitional time in their life?

I have three suggestions:

• Don’t fight the changes that are happening. They are on the pathway to becoming adults and what you are witnessing is an emerging adult personality. Embrace who they are becoming.
• Give them room to grow. Continue to guide them as they make choices, but give them opportunities to test their ideas. Although it is a little scary to give them more freedom when they seem to be making choices based on emotion and not good judgment, this is how they grow.
• Their brain is exploding with new creative ways to experience life. They will want to try new things and make plans, some of them really crazy, for their future. Encourage their creative thinking. Try to stay up with them and make opportunities possible when you can. By joining in, you are saying “I believe in you!”

Albert Einstein said “Creativity is intelligence having fun.”

Adolescence should be the most fun time in your child’s life. They can dream as big as they want. They can fall in and out of love on an almost daily basis. They can take chances. All of this makes adolescence fun because you are still in the background, inspiring, loving and encouraging them.