Happy new year parents and teens, and welcome to 2008. It’s become our tradition to begin each new year with that wonderful cliche of resolutions. As you recover this morning from the annual tape-delayed ball dropping in Times Square, we offer a few suggestions for how to make this year the best it can be at home. Here’s my 2008 list for parents:

Talk. Rather anticlimactic, huh? As therapists we always encourage parents to be good listeners, to dialog with their kids, to be very open and encouraging of conversation. And then the kids sit there. So this year lets resolve to model good communication by not only listening, but also sharing ourselves with our kids. Our adult lives needn’t be an open book, but we can share our ideas, experiences, and viewpoints thus encouraging teens to share theirs. If your teen still sits there, be gracious and thank them for their attention. You’d be astounded at how much they retain in spite of eye-rolls, sighs and intrusive texting. Take their interest on faith, rather than fishing for some minimal cues that you were heard.

Get comfortable with important subjects. We wrote a column in 2007 about the struggles parents still have talking about sex, yet few issues are more important than this one. Young people enter adolescence through puberty and typically leave it in or in search of serious relationships. How one organizes their sexuality from 11 to 21 will generate life-long outcomes, often influencing one’s happiness and fulfillment with a mate and themselves. These issues go far beyond pregnancy and disease to include ethical treatment of others, self-acceptance, and emotional wholeness. We wouldn’t hand kids the car keys before they learned to drive and took it seriously, yet many kids are “driving” their sexuality wildly down the alleys of life.

Take time. I think this one has appeared in every Double Take New Year’s resolution column, and for good reason. Teens and even young adults still need their parents, even if they don’t realize it until their early 20s. Don’t be fooled by your teen’s withdrawal. Find ways to spend time together. One of the best is to get comfortable with your teen’s friends or dating partners and include them in family activities. Another is to schedule dinner at least monthly and preferably each week for one-to-one time. Everybody’s got to eat and this is a good time to create a family ritual of togetherness.

Plan ahead. If you haven’t started practicing successful teen parenting skills by about 7 years of age – maybe younger – it’s going to be a longer and harder road in adolescence. If you’re already behind the curve, don’t give up. But for those with younger kids, NOW is the time to read books, write letters to our column, and otherwise find the best path for your family.

Julia: Here’s my list for teens:

Be more realistic. At the top of EVERY New Year’s resolutions list we find losing weight, contacting that old friend and doing more charitable work. Yeah right, like that’s going to happen. Approaching each year with a realistic perspective could do wonders. This isn’t to say, give up on all resolutions that you’ve ever wanted to achieve, but approach them with an open and honest mind. Set attainable goals so that you feel all the better having reached them. Remember that resolutions are meant to better the person making them, not serve as some torturous means to become what you are not.

Allow yourself to enjoy life. It’s almost become law that teenagers exist in only one form: tired. Something is wrong if you aren’t “tired,” which can mean grumpy, upset, happy and hiding it or genuinely sleepy. Being pressured to react to and reflect other people’s bad moods can put a lot of strain on a person. In adolescence, having a good day in comparison to many other people’s bad days is not something to be ashamed of – it should be celebrated. Find your good moods and hold on to them for dear life, whether from a laugh you share with a friend or a good grade on a paper. Don’t let someone else’s outlook on life (or that particular day) sway you.

Focus more on the grand scheme of things. The average school day seems sectioned out into little chunks, each of which I have to get through to move on to the next. I tend to focus so much on getting through one moment and on to the next that I lose the meaning of what I was doing in the first place. This feeling of “just going through the motions to get through the day” is especially true for those with full schedules. The enjoyment or purpose of what you’re doing can get lost in the actual doing it. Always take a step back and see how you’re doing in the big-picture. Review what you have learned, what you’ve achieved, and what you’ve failed at. If you are doing well, take a deep breath and pat yourself on the back – your hard work is paying off and you can give yourself a break now and then. If you don’t think you’re doing well, make some amendments and get back on track. It isn’t every little assignment, ball game and school play that matters but how you do and how you feel in the long run that counts.

Take more risks. No, I’m not saying go out, drink a six-pack and wrestle a bear, nor am I condoning point-blank defiance of every authority figure in your life. The best kinds of risks are not those that jeopardize your personal safety, but those that jeopardize your current comfort zone and allow you to expand the way you think. Don’t take risks for the sake of bravado or boasting rights. Take them to better yourself and find out what you are capable of. Public speaking is the easiest example of taking a healthy risk, but don’t be afraid to think further than that. Make conversation with someone you don’t know, attempt a sudoku, eat sushi – anything that is new to you, is legal, and won’t harm you emotionally or physically is worthy of trying.

Next week: A mom suggests looking for the positives throughout 2008.

Dr. Wes Crenshaw is a board-certified family psychologist and director of the Family Therapy Institute Midwest. Julia Davidson is a Bishop Seabury Academy junior. Opinions and advice given here are not meant as a substitute for psychological evaluation or therapy services. Send your questions about adolescent issues (limited to 200 words) to doubletake@ljworld.com. All correspondence is strictly confidential.