Positive Discipline for Teenagers

1

LifeMatters.com

Class Material for the

Parenting Teenagers

Online Class This material has been excerpted with permission from the book

Positive Discipline for Teenagers by Jane Nelsen, Ed.D., and Lynn Lott, M.A., M.F.T.

This material is provided out of our commitment to support your parenting.

It is for your use only. Please respect the copyright of the author.

Positive Discipline for Teenagers

2

3

What Is Your Parenting Style? PARENTING STYLES CAN be encouraging or discouraging. In this chapter we

discuss four parenting styles, three that are discouraging (short-term parenting) and one that is encouraging for both teens and parents (long-term parenting). In The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran beautifully illustrates the foundation for the parenting style that we advocate:

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts, For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. Although the beauty and simplicity of Gibran's poem are inspiring, most parents

do not know how to apply this poem to their own lives. Relax. As you read this book, you will acquire many ideas about how to be a very active, supportive parent who is neither permissive nor controlling. We include many suggestions on "what you can do" in the areas that concern most parents of teens. Everything we teach is based on respectrespect for teenagers and for parents.

The Common Methods of Parenting Teens MANY PARENTS THINK It's their responsibilitypart of their jobs as parents

to control their teenagers. (This is a theme you will hear us repeat many times because it is such a huge mistake.) Parents seem to believe that if they don't make their teens do things for "their own good," then they are being permissive parents. Most parents use some form of punishment as their primary method of control. With teenagers, the most common punishments are grounding, withdrawing privileges, taking away allowances, using physical and emotional abuse, and withdrawing love and approval.

We know many parents won't want to hear this, but any form of control or punishment is very disrespectful to teenagers and extremely ineffective for the goals of

Positive Discipline for Teenagers

3

long-term parenting. It is sometimes appropriate to withdraw privileges from children under twelve or thirteen when the withdrawal relates to the misbehavior, is respectfully enforced, and seems reasonable, by advance agreement, to both parent and child. However, by the time children reach adolescence and see themselves as adults, they won't see grounding or removal of privileges as respectful or reasonable. Instead, you may create the following long-term results.

LONG-TERM RESULTS OF CONTROL AND PUNISHMENT

1. Alienation 2. Permanent apron strings 3. Late bloomers

Alienation When children of controlling parents become adults, they often cannot stand to

have a relationship with their parents because they feel smothered, judged, and obliterated for being who they are. Their parents are very hurt by this, especially because they were trying to do what they thought was good for their children. It's hard for these parents to understand why their children now have such anger and resentment or why they simply withhold closeness.

Permanent Apron Strings Other children never escape the control of their parents. Their whole lives re-

volve around doing what they think their mother or father would want. They often grow up to become approval junkies who find other people to continue the job of controlling them. This can be devastating to marriages, parenting, friendships, and jobs.

Late Bloomers Some children who were raised in a controlling environment later get into

therapy, where they find support in learning to growsupport their parents never offered. These children lack the skills needed to make their own choices and decisions. It takes a while to convince late bloomers that it's okay to be separate people from their parents and to give up their mistaken perceptions of what they need to do to get approval in life.

Any parenting style that does not empower teens to become capable adults is short-term parenting. Successful long-term parenting, however, empowers children with the life skills they need for successto become happy, contributing members of

Positive Discipline for Teenagers

4

society. The purpose of this book is to teach long-term parentingthe kind and firm parenting style.

Parenting Styles Short-Term Parenting Long-Term Parenting

Controll ing/Punitive/Rewarding Permissive/Overprotective/Rescuing Neglectful/Giving up on being a parent

Kind and firm

Perhaps like many parents, you go back and forth from one short-term style to

another. You probably even have moments of kind and firm parenting. As you read this book and try out the ideas, you'll find yourself decreasing the amount of time spent in short-term parenting and increasing the time spent in long-term parenting. You will understand why you do what you do. You will learn what works and what doesn't work when empowering teenagers. First, figure out which of the styles is your present method of operation most of the time.

Controlling/Punitive/Rewarding Parenting Trying to gain control through punishment, lectures, or rewards makes parents

feel that they have done their job. However, this kind of parent usually provides opportunities for children to learn:

1. Might makes right. 2. "I have to give up myself to be loved by you." 3. Avoid contribution unless there are external rewards. 4. Manipulate for bigger rewards. 5. Rebel or comply.

Although this is the most popular form of short-term parenting, parents need to

look at who is learning to be responsible. It is the parent's responsibility to "catch" their children being "bad" so they can dish out the punishments and lectures. It is the parent's responsibility to "catch" their children being "good" to dish out the rewards. What responsibilities are teens learning? Perhaps teens' only responsibility is not to get caught.

If all power is taken away from teenagers, they will never have the opportunity to learn responsibilityor to make their own mistakes and learn from them. In addition, these teens will never have the opportunity to discover and set their own limits. Controlling parents provoke many teens to rebel continuously, making for little familial understanding or happiness. How can teens learn to be responsible if parents continue to take that role? One of the best ways to teach children to be responsible is to be consciously not responsible as a parent.

Example: A parent attending one of our workshops challenged us on the issue of giving up control. He explained that his fifteen-year-old daughter habitually came home later than the curfew he had set for her. The last time she came home an hour late, he grounded her for a week. When he was asked what he thought she learned

Positive Discipline for Teenagers

5

from this, he said, "She learned that she can't get away with this behavior." When asked how he felt about this, he said, "I feel good. It's not my job to be her buddy. It's my job to be her parent."

Further exploration revealed that even though when this father had been a teen he had hated it when his parents grounded him, he now believed as a parent that it was his job to set rules and restrictions and to punish children when they disobeyed. He felt a sense of accomplishment that he had done his job, although he admitted that grounding did not solve the problem. His daughter continued to come home late, and he continued to ground her. Later, he realized that he still hates his father and that being grounded hadn't done him any good. He said, "Come to think of it, I acted like my daughter and continued to de& my father as long as I lived at home. I didn't keep curfew until I left home and felt like getting home early so I could get a good night's sleep. And I still don't want to have anything to do with my father. Good grief, I don't want that kind of relationship with my daughter. Okay. I'm ready to learn alternatives."

Permissive/Overprotective/Rescuing Parenting Many parents don't want to give up their controlling, punitive style because they

think the only alternative is permissiveness. Permissive parenting usually includes overprotection and rescuing. This kind of parent provides opportunities for children to learn the following:

1. Expect undue service from others. 2. Love means "getting others to take care of me." 3. Care more about things than about people. 4. "I can't handle being upset or feeling disappointment." 5. "I'm not capable."

The permissive style of parenting seems to make parents feel that they've done

their job because they protect or rescue their children from pain or suffering. However, this short-term parenting robs teenagers of learning the life skills of self-reliance and resiliency. Instead of learning that they can survive pain and disappointment, and even learn from it, children grow up extremely self-centered, convinced that the world and their parents owe them something and that they are entitled to whatever they want. Thus, permissiveness is not a