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Yeah but teenagers should be bovvered

IT'S very easy to laugh at Little Britain's Vicky Pollard with her "yeah but, no but" or Catherine Tate's aggressively cool "not bovvered" Lauren as the familiar faces of teen behaviour in 2006.

But living with your teen today may be no laughing matter, as thousands of parents around Greater Manchester will swiftly attest. And youngsters don't have to be on the verge of receiving an Anti-Social Behaviour Order or needing a social worker to be driving you mad on a day-to-day basis.

But what can you do when your home is a battleground and conversations always seem to lead to conflict?

The good news is that there is help on offer for both parents and youngsters. The bad news is that, as a parent, you might be to blame.

Ged Pandolfo from charity DePaul Trust believes that changes over the years in the role of parenting are highlighted by a current social climate that encourages children to "challenge accepted knowledge and authority".

The national charity which works with homeless and disadvantaged young people has successfully piloted two courses supporting parents and their teenagers as Reconnect Manchester.

In fact, so successful have they been that they have now been awarded £85,000 from the Parenting Fund to run a further nine courses around Manchester over the next two years.

The 13-week Strengthening Families Strengthening Communities programme will be held in areas like Moss Side, Collyhurst and Wythenshawe, and the charity is still identifying other venues where they would be particularly valuable.

"The problems seem to start between 14 and 16, although it's getting younger," says Ged, a father himself. "It is when a child moves into adulthood that they become challenging of parental authority and the problems seem to start.

"Many years ago, it was expected that children automatically obeyed their parents but that has changed. Now, in many families they only talk to each other when a parent wants a child to tidy his or her bedroom, for example, or the child wants some money.

"This is not really communicating, and we try to change that. We encourage individual parents to spend time with individual children, doing something together - going for a walk, baking, anything really that involves an amount of time to establish communications between them."

Behavioural specialist Lorrine Marer has a more radical view. She insists that children cannot be to blame when it comes to teen turmoil because what they are exhibiting is "learned behaviour". She says: "They didn't slide out of the womb like this, so of course they have learned it."

Lorrine is about to change the way we look at our children through a new TV series, The Teen Tamer. It started this week and is likely to be compulsory viewing for many families each Wednesday (Five, 9pm).

She is a Mancunian who used to live in Prestwich in the days when she was PA to the executive producer of Granada's World In Action programme. She moved to London with the job 29 years ago -" I've still got the accent even though the vowels have softened a bit," she says with a raucous laugh that a Salford docker would have been proud to own.

Lorrine, now 51, became interested in children's behaviour when she was searching for help with her own two sons' challenging behaviour. "I couldn't find much so I looked into it closer," she recalls.

The result was that she made herself an expert in the subject and now specialises in children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). She eventually approached organisations to see if her expertise was useful; "one person told the next and it just grew."

She came to the notice of Channel Five about two years ago, worked with them and was then approached about a new series which she tackled with her trademark vigour. In the show, she marches into family homes to tackle manipulative minors and poorly-performing parents, although it is plain she has some sympathy with both.

However, no softly-softly approach is on offer, and it will be interesting to see how they all fare when Lorrine and the cameras are long gone. "It is never the kids who are the problem," she says. "It is a teen's job to challenge and it is the parents' job to meet the challenge."

To do this, she believes that it's very important to start setting rules and boundaries early, talking to children and allowing them to take responsibility for their decisions and choices.

She is regularly faced by "people who are completely overwhelmed with the situation", and advocates "talking less - not asking stupid questions like `do you want a smack?' Of course they don't want a smack ... would you?

"Or saying things like `If you do that again, that's it'. What on earth is `it'? Pointless saying that.

"We need to stop saying such silly things that undermine the situation straight away and actually start talking to our children properly. We need to praise them for what they do, and listen to them."

Lorrine is much in favour of asking questions of our teens, like "What do you think will happen if ...?" and getting them to take responsibility for situations and for their own actions.

She is definitely not in favour of "rescuing" them. "You know, when they say `I can't find my shoes' or `I don't know where my English book is'," she says. "They have their own responsibility towards society."

Parents need to have a kind of blinding revelation moment and then move away from the negative behaviour and dialogue.

"Consistency is the most important thing," adds Lorrine. "It's like going to WeightWatchers - there's no point in losing all that weight and then just going back to your bad habits. You've got to make it a life choice, and that's what this is."

Although by no means all teens pose such end-of-tether situations to parents, a high percentage do, and an alarming number of them come to the attention of the police by transferring their sullen tantrums and un-bovvered behaviour on to the streets, where it can swiftly move into ASBO territory.

Greater Manchester Police, however, are taking a pro-active line and setting up a day of workshops and activities at Dunham Massey Hall in Altrincham for parents and their unruly teenagers.

This will look at elements like peer and social pressure and parental accountability, and it also offers a unique chance to sit down with both sides to discuss why children are causing problems in the community and to stress the consequences.

Manchester Council runs parent survival classes to help strengthen relationships with children, boost confidence as a parent and improve children's behaviour.

Experts there are also developing a teen survival course to help parents improve communication and relationships and improve conflict in the home.

The private sector, too, sensibly recognises the often urgent need for outside help. Sonya Shellard signed up for a business coaching course and has ended up creating, with colleague Kim Morgan, Next Generation Coaching which offers a programme in Woodford, Cheshire, to benefit all families.

She says: "We just want people to enjoy their life to the full and feel more relaxed and in control of their family life."

It is, however, unlikely that Vicky Pollard and Lauren would either understand or endorse those sentiments!

For more details on the DePaul Trust courses, ring 0161 232 0604. The next one is to be held in Hulme on September 20,

To find out more about Manchester Council classes and courses, call call the Children's Information Service on 0800 083 7921

For further details on Next Generation Coaching visit www.next generation coaching.co.uk

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