Growing pains advice for parents

Parents may identify with Harry Enfield's Kevin the teenager

Parents in Perthshire are being offered novel classes in how to reconnect with their teenage sons and daughters.

The project aims to try and put mothers and fathers in their children's shoes through a series of exercises to help avoid and deal with confrontation.

The seven-week course, which shows parents how to keep communicating with their kids, has already met with some success from participants.

It also aims to help parents understand that confrontation is not unusual.

Chris Forber, one of the community workers running the course, spearheaded by Perth and Kinross Council, said teenagers will be teenagers.

He said: "I think in the main parents are finding that they are arguing a lot with their kids and that's creating a lot of tension.

"They want ways of handling that a little bit differently than they are at the moment."

Positive feedback

The classes, which act out a series of all too familiar role-play situations for the parents, also asks them to recall what they got up to in their teens - helping them to realise that their own son or daughter's behaviour is not really that different.

Parent Christina Currie took the course after encountering problems with her teenage son.

She said: "We were at the stage where communication was getting harder and things were kicking off and we were maybe not speaking for days."

And enrolling on the course brought positive feedback from her son.

"He said I don't shout as much as I used to. We still have our moments, but I do think I definitely benefited."