COMMON GROUND

Offering skills to parents—and teens—to support trusting family relationships

Of all the societal changes that have affected adolescents in recent decades, the most significant may be the loss of regular, meaningful relationships with the adults in their lives. It is important that teens have a constellation of adults who exhibit care and compassion even when their home lives are problematic.

Modern-day parenting advice

We created the COMMON GROUND parent-teen relationship building course to teach positive parenting skills promoting mutually respectful relationships. Our course includes the following parenting advice:

• How to create bonding experiences with teenagers;
• How to teach peace by modeling calm pro-action instead of loud, aggressive reaction;
• How to be both kind and firm through establishing interdependence;
• How to provide a “safe” emotional environment to assist teens to cope with strong feelings in a healthy way;
• Win-win problem-solving;
• It is more important to be CLOSE than it is to be RIGHT.

We are strong believers in systems theory. We believe that an approach that addresses the key players in the system is crucial to healing. We bring the parents and teens together to a common ground, so that each party owns their part in creating the trust and safety needed to heal and grow as a bonded team. In short, our parenting advice is all about nurturance.

The key to building strong parenting skills

We know from our work with teenagers that being heard is crucial to healing in a relationship. We teach parents, teachers, social workers and psychologists—as well as the general lay person who wants to mentor a teen—to really listen to teenagers. We slow the relationship down and teach the participants to hone in on what is really being communicated as well as what they are saying. We teach them to reflect to the teenager what it is they have heard and to withhold judgment.

Adolescents today need adults who are willing to get beyond those barriers and begin in safe places—schools, neighborhoods and congregations—with plenty of other adults and kids around. Teenagers’ major task is to achieve autonomy from their parents, but the latest research indicates they need parents and other adults in order to make that transition a healthy one. We invite parents, teens, professionals who work with teens, and lay people who care about adolescents to take a look at COMMON GROUND, our theory-based psycho-educational parent-teen relationship training and the other information we offer you here on this site.

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We believe we have something of interest for you if you are:

• a high school counselor
• a teacher
• a therapist
• a minister/youth minister
• a nurse
• a primary practice provider
• a social worker
• involved in criminal justice
• the parent of a teenager
• a significant adult to a teenager
• a teenager interested in helping teach Common Ground