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The Three Cs of Raising Teens

One of the biggest challenges parents face as their children become adolescents is finding the balance between freedom and control of the teen. It is natural for a teenager to want to exercise more independence in making decisions as they near adulthood; it is also natural for parents to fear that if they give too much freedom, their child will get into trouble.

The mistake many parents make is expecting this to be a cut-and-dry process. When the teen is given freedom, he or she is going to make mistakes. This does not mean they no longer deserve trust, just that you need to find the new boundaries and work with your teenager to maintain communication and make your expectations clear. One of the reasons this process becomes so murky is because parents often don't set specific consequences for when the child breaks rules. They simply say: "If I give you this freedom and you abuse it, there is going to be trouble!" What does this mean to a teen who is heady with new-found freedom? It is simply too vague. Teens need to be given some new freedoms as they leave childhood, but they also need specific and clear guidelines for their behavior. Teens have a unique ability to "not hear" your warnings. When they don't heed them, they claim they didn't realize it was that big a deal.

A tough but loving parent understands the changes a teen is going through, supporting and encouraging them, while at the same time setting guidelines to keep them from getting into trouble as they experiment with their new-found independence.

As a parent of an adolescent, you must be caring, consistent, and clear.

Caring

One of the most common struggles between parents and adolescents comes when communication turns into battles for power and control. Ego and pride rule over fairness and judgment. The parent says, "I'm going to put my foot down." The teen storms out and slams their bedroom door. If your communication with your child has degenerated into shouting matches and power struggles, you will need to re-assess how you approach your teen. Sometimes this gets harder before it gets better. If your response to your teens behavior is consistently negative and filled with criticisms and comments on how disappointed you are, chances are the lines of communication have broken down. You are now warring parties who cannot find a common ground. The more the relationship has deteriorated, the more work you will have to do to repair it. You cannot, as the parent, expect an adolescent to take the first step. As the adult, you are the one in charge when it comes to this relationship. The first step is to watch comments such as: "You are such a disappointment to me," "How can someone so smart be so stupid," "Why did I ever think I could trust you?" "What is wrong with you? You act like a crazy person!" These comments inflame hostility. They are comments about character rather than behavior. Direct your comments to the behavior you want to change, not to the character of your child.

Consistent

Parents can create the problem in the first place through inconsistent messages. They back down because they don't want to deal with the tension; they set rules then let them be broken, then suddenly bring down an iron fist; they flip between paranoid suspicion about their child's activities to abject resignation that it is 'out of their hands' until the situation is too hot too handle.

Set rules. Set consequences. Be specific.

If you tell your child that the curfew is 10 pm, do not decide 10:30 wasn't so bad, so I won't punish them this time. Next time you can bet your child will push it to 11 pm. Teens will push the limits until they meet a wall. If you keep moving back the wall and resetting the rules, the teen has no way to truly measure their behavior against your expectations. Suddenly you get enraged when they come home at midnight and tell them they can't go out at all. You are punishing them for being normal teens: they reacted to your unenforced rules by assuming you weren't really that concerned.

Clear

If you set a rule and set a consequence, you have to be as clear as possible. Make the rule specific and the consequence as clear as a judge would if they ended up in court over it.

Good rule/consequence: On school nights you must be home by 9 pm. If you are home later than 9 pm, you will not be allowed to go out on a school night again for 2 weeks. When I say 9 pm, I do not mean 9:05 pm, so plan accordingly to give yourself enough time to be home when you are supposed to be.

Bad rule/consequence: You need to be home at a reasonable hour on a school night. If you aren't home at a reasonable hour you'll have me to answer to.

Good rule/consequence: If you use illegal drugs, I will immediately take away your car privileges for one month. If I find drug paraphernalia in your belongings, I will consider that illegal drug use. If your friends bring drugs into this house, I will consider them yours. Tell your friends it is not welcome here.

Bad rule/consequence: I better not find out you've been smoking pot, or there are going to be some real changes around here!

Reinforce these rules and consequences by asking your child if he or she understands them. Ask them if they have any questions about what you mean, and if they think they need clarification. This way they cannot wriggle out of the consequences by claiming they didn't know what you meant.

Another thing: do not tell your child these things flippantly and in passing. These should be one-on-one conversations with intent, not off-handed remarks.