How can parents help their children go through puberty smoothly?

Adolescence is really an awkward period, wandering between being a child and an adult. It takes time and experience to successfully transition into being an adult. After 30 years, the Friendship Youth and Girls Growth Group has helped children learn how to get along with adults, share correct gender concepts, and accompany them to make career plans when they feel anxious about the future.

Xiaoya, who had excellent grades since childhood, was considered a smart child by her teachers. However, during adolescence, she chose to isolate herself because she didn't know how to get along with her peers. Looking back, I had a lot of worries in my heart: how to be friendly, how to refuse others? Will I have no friends if I refuse others? What if the topic I talk about is boring to others?

In fact, a child’s IQ is not necessarily equal to EQ. Under the guidance of the Youyuan tutor, Xiaoya began to learn how to protect herself and say no. When she began to understand how to deal with her emotions and communicate with others, the fear and hesitation gradually disappeared. She no longer blindly suppressed her emotions. Letting emotions find an outlet and understanding and calming them down is the right direction.

Huang Lunfen, deputy executive director of the Friendship Foundation, said that in fact, in the process of building self, I am just a stepping stone in the eyes of my friends. I will eventually realize what I am doing and what I really want. This ability to observe myself is the key to developing self-identity and self-trust.

When it comes to teenagers' worries, the relationship between the sexes often makes boys and girls at this stage feel at a loss. In the Friendship Foundation's groups, counselors will use the design of programs to take children to experience the relationship between the sexes, interpersonal relationships and self-management.

Teenagers’ confusion and uncertainty about the future often arise at this stage. They don’t know why they should study so much, why they should learn to be independent, and they don’t know where their future should go.

The counselors at Youyuan will also guide everyone to think in groups and discuss with the children what their future career plans should be and how to maintain a positive attitude.

The growth group for boys and girls in Youyuan is a safe platform for cultivating self-reflection. Through sharing with each other, they experience the interaction between themselves and others, and under the guidance of professional teachers, they reflect their truest desires. Deputy Executive Director Huang Lunfen pointed out that through companionship, children can learn to be strong, learn to coexist with authority (teachers and elders), learn to be gentle, and respect relationships between the sexes; learn to trust, not to pre-set positions, and learn to judge good and evil; learn to think, and learn to face their own future.