What Kind Of Parent Am I? Part 4 of 4

Congratulations, the quiz is now over, and you have probably found yourself somewhere between all three parenting styles. The good news here is that all three have something to offer, and there will be times when you'll need to be the too hard parent, the too soft parent, and the parent who is "just right". But the time has definitely come when you have to share some of the control for how your teen lives their life. Paradoxically, that actually gives you more control that just being in control. Does that make sense?? Ok, so to do this, it means giving your teen more responsibility for making their own decisions, and acting more like a coach than a commandant. The issue here is that your teen isn't very good at this decision making thing yet, and here is why.

The frontal cortex of your teen's brain is still in the formative stage. This is the part of the brain that is responsible for decision-making. It is not that your teen can't make decisions (though it is a painful process) it just doesn't come naturally. The impulsivity we know and love in our teens is an example of where they live. Teens live in a feeling brain, hence the doing without thinking, and adults live in a thinking brain. How many times have you said or screamed at your teen after a particularly challenging incident: "What were you thinking?" This is what I mean, they were not thinking... they were feeling. This is why it is so so important to give your teen every opportunity to make and be responsible for decisions. We need to get them to start exercising that thinking part of the brain. This is how brain connections are made.

Here is how. I have developed a system that will give you a road map for helping your teen make decisions and take ownership for their actions. Think of this as the GPS of parenting. 

I call it "the four questions". Like a portable GPS that can be moved from car to car, these four questions can be plugged into most situations with your teen that require expectations and consequences, ie homework, curfews, going out with friends, etc etc. Take for example the issue of curfew, always a sensitive topic. Here is how a conversation usually goes: "What time do I have to be home?" your teen asks. " You, thinking you are being generous say 10:30. And the argument begins. Your teen whines, and finally explodes with a "nobody else has to be in by 10:30", and you being the responsible parent retort with a " Its either 10:30" or nothing and you can stay in for the night..period." So the door slams with your teen behind it. At 10:00 the phone rings with a lovely, loving voice on the other end: "Hi, the movie just got out, and everyone wants to get food, can I go, I don't think I can get home before 11:00?" You are so impressed by their politeness and that they called, you acquiesce, with an "OK honey, see you at 11. And there you have it, your kid has played you. They knew all along that they would end up staying out later, and have now learned that all they need to do is call and sweet-talk you and the deed is done. If you use "the four questions", you can avoid this pitfall.

Teen asks: "What time do I have to be home?" (Insert any issue of your choosing here)
Question 1: "What time do you think you should be home" (put your teen in the position of saying something first) Chances are they will answer with something not as outrageous as you would have thought)
Teen answers: 11:30
Question 2: "What do you think I am worried about if I say yes to 11:30?" (Here is where your teen has to do some thinking. They know you very well, and will probably say something like;" you think if I say 11:30 I'll end up coming in later.")
Question 3: "Yes that does worry me, how are you going to make me feel OK about this?"( Here is where they now become responsible for making a plan)
Teen answers: I promise I will call you a half hour before I come home, just to let you know that I will be there at 11:30.
Question 4: "What is the consequence going to be if you don't follow through on your plan of calling and/or coming in on-time? ( Here is the most important question, because now your teen has to come up with his/her own consequence. So that when the time comes when he doesn't follow through on one of these plans it is his/her own consequence.

The benefit of going through all this is that the plan has been thought through and executed by your teen. So when your teen follows through on this plan you can congratulate them, and if they don't there really isn't much you have to do. The consequence is already in place, and all you have to say is "sorry it didn't work out for you tonight, I guess we'll be hanging together next Friday night since that was what you said you would do if you didn't follow through.

The most important thing to remember is that just because you are sharing the control here, doesn't mean that your kid will come through 100% of the time. Because of course they won't. In the meantime they are learning how to come up with their own plan, and their own consequence. As a result, they will be much more likely to take ownership and responsibility for making it happen.  You get that in order to teach them how to make decisions and be responsible that you have to put them in the position to practice this. Remember, practice makes perfect!

What Kind Of Parent Am I? Part 3 of 4

Today's installment  is the "just right" parent. Just like in Goldilocks And The Three Bears, we have the parent who is too "hot", the authoritarian parent, the too "cold" parent, the permissive one, and now we have the "just right" parent the authoritative one. This parent gets that their teen is becoming their own person. This parent understands that the goal of parenting a teen is to gradually, over the 6 years of teendom( ages 12-18), first to share control and then finally to cede control over the lives of the teen as they leave the nest. The teen years are a training ground for adulthood. Learning to make safe and healthy decisions about relationships, life's temptations, education and career take practice. Practice makes perfect.  An authoritative parent understands that part of practice includes making mistakes. An authoritative parent understands that their kids are not supposed to be mirror images of themselves. They get that their teen has a unique personality and temperament that needs to be respected, supported and nurtured, even if that means adjusting their own expectations of who they hoped this growing child would become.

An authoritative parent understands that a teen still needs structure in their life to be successful, but rather than imposing one, works with their teen to develop one together. Understanding that getting a teen to "buy in" and take ownership of rules and expectations means you have to include them in the planning and implementation of them. This takes time, and I know, it is so much easier to just say nothing as with the permissive parent, or just do it for them, as with the authoritarian parent.  Keeping the ultimate goal in mind really helps. All parents want their kids to be successful adults. If we overprotect or under protect  our kids, they will be dependent on us for life. And by the way, you are going to want them to be able to take care of you someday, so you better get crackin!

Tomorrow: Tips and strategies on sharing control

What Kind Of Parent Am I? Part 2 of 4

In today's episode of What Kind Of Parent Am I, we look at the permissive parent. In this style of parenting we might hear things like: "no problem, okay, see you whenever, sure, have fun, love you."This all sounds so nice, so loving, so calm, where's the problem in that?  Here is the problem, the teen in this situation is not required to think, to assess, to plan, to be responsible to anyone but him/herself. Adolescence by nature and definition is all about self-centeredness. We know that a certain amount of this self-centeredness is natural and normal, but if we add to it, by not presenting alternative perspectives we create narcissistic adults, as in "I want what I want when I want it!"  More importantly these teens are often engaged in dangerous and risky behavior because they live in a world with no boundaries. Expectations from parents may be inconsistent or non-existent. For example I often work with parents when their teen's behavior has become out of control. In many of these families there are high expectations when it comes to academic performance by no expectations around behavior. So kids "get" that if they do well in school, the rest of their life will be free from restraint.  It is an unspoken quid pro quo.

Here is what I think contributes to parent permissiveness. Many of us hate hate hate conflict. We will go to any extreme to avoid argument and disagreement. So rather than say "no" or "we need to discuss this" or "I need to hear your plan before I make a decision" this parent goes right to the sure, love you place. Parenting an adolescence requires conflict, welcomes conflict, and invites conflict. This is how we make our teens use their new developing brain to learn how to make decisions. We disagree, we argue, we force them to think, to weigh options, to plan and to decide.  So if you are uncomfortable with conflict, learn to wallow in. The worst that can happen is that your teen might momentarily hate you. But they' will get over it, and when they become young adults will thank you for helping them to become thoughtful and responsible people.

Additionally the conflict-avoiders also to to be the kinds of parents who want their teens and their teens friends to think of them as the cool parents. They want their kids to want to hang out with them, and to use their house as "the house". This often means turning a blind eye to situations that other parents aren't comfortable with like "sex, drugs and rock and roll." The permissive parent's house tends to become the "safe house" for their kids and kid's friends. Let me just say that you can still have a great relationship with your kid and kid's friends without being an enabler. Your primary job is to be the bouncer not the party host, and I mean that both literally and figuratively.

Another contributing factor in permissive parenting is allowing our own needs and wants to take priority.  I have a very vivid memory of being out to a lovely restaurant with my husband. We were seated next to a group that consisted of two couples and their collective four children. The couples were enjoying their cocktails and conversation with each other leaving their young kids to fend for themselves. The kids, bored at this fancy restaurant entertained themselves by kicking our booth, and throwing over napkins and food. The parents were oblivious to it all until management changed our table, and my wonderful husband gave them "a little feedback on parenting." Though this story is about younger children, fast-forward to this family 5 years later. Parents still have a busy work and social life, and are excited now that their kids are teens they can leave them to their own devices, no babysitters needed. These teens are often left unsupervised for evenings, maybe even weekends while parents attend to whatever it is they want or need to do. Without sounding preachy here, OK I am preaching here, parenting does require sacrifice. So many parents I know spend most weekend nights babysitting their home, not their kids. They "get" that though their kids don't need babysitters anymore, their house does. Leaving an empty house is a public invitation to party. Also when you are available to your kids, it makes them feel secure that if they need you, they can have you. Teens need to feel that they are still your first priority, and that you are always looking out for their safety and well-being.

Stay tuned for part 3: The authoritative parent.

What Kind Of Parent am I? Part 1 of 4

I thought for the next three blogs, I would do a primer on the three major parenting styles, kind of like those quizzes you can take in magazines. Rate your marriage or your sex life, or are you a half -full or half-empty kind of person?  You know the ones where you get a "1" for the answers that make you sound the most sane, and a "5" for the ones that make you sound crazy. I don't know why but I love those quizzes. I think because I am always looking for ways to evaluate how I am doing in life. Am I OK? yes! phew!! Or, oh god, is it really that bad, oy vey!

Understanding your parenting style might help you to understand your relationship with your teen. Parenting a teen is not the same as parenting a younger child. It requires a different set of skills: an ability to be flexible, but not too flexible; understanding, but not a push-over; willing to take a stand and set limits, but not like a marine sergeant.  Let's see how you roll.

Lets start with the "authoritarian" parenting style. You might hear things from this parent like the old favorite: "it's my way or the highway", or "my house, my rules", and lets not forget, "if you don't like it, then get out." Clearly this is a parent who likes to be in control. When you are this type of parent and you have young children it works well. Young children love rules and structure. They love to please mommy and daddy, and are all around lovely little beings to have around. The problem occurs in adolescence when your teen is not so motivated to please and follow your rules. Since they are biologically driven to start to fend for themselves, being told the what, when and how to do things goes against the natural order of the developing teen.

 If you have parented this way in the past, you will have a rude awakening. Things can go badly in two possible ways. First, if your teen is somewhat passive, quiet in nature, or has a really good understanding that you need to be control, they will tend to yes you to death, looking like the pleasing child they have always been, and fly under your radar by excessively lying. Rather then incurring your wrath they will try to avoid it. They learn some valuable lessons here in manipulation. They learn just how to play you so that you feel the illusion of being in control, but basically have figured out to do exactly what they want to do, just behind your back. The worry here is that your teen never comes to you for help because they anticipate that you won't really want to listen. The danger is that they could be in an unsafe situation and rather than come to you will risk themselves rather than risk getting in trouble with you. Not a great gamble.

The second scenario with the authoritarian style of parenting occurs if you have a teen who is feisty in nature. Now that they are bigger, and they think smarter than you, they will fight you every step of the way, which often becomes all out warfare. "You can't make me, and you aren't the boss of me" are daily mantras. In this situation, you have run out of ideas. You have taken away everything you can, phone, computer, car. You have grounded them for months at a time, but rather than taming the beast that has become your teen, it has enraged him/her, like King Kong being assaulted by all those airplanes. The danger here is that your teen now has nothing left to lose, the relationship is damaged. In this situation, the teen is feeling their power. Their ability to challenge your authority, and drive you completely insane is intoxicating. The balance of power in your relationship has shifted, and they are loving it.

Give yourself a 5 if this is your style of parenting. Stay tuned tomorrow for part 2: The Permissive Parent.

You Can't Make Me!

 On last night's local news there was a story about a local high school that has scheduled a mandatory meeting for parents of kids who participate in school sports. The agenda for this meeting is a new drug/alcohol policy for the school. The school stated that parents must attend the meeting in order for their child to be eligible to participate in his/her chosen sport.  Apparently during the fall there had been a number of serious drug/alcohol incidents with this town's high school students. The principal, looking out for her student's safety decided one way to get parents attention to this matter was to make a meeting about this issue mandatory, knowing that usually when meetings like this are scheduled only a handful of parents attend. And the parents that do attend, make it feel like you are "preaching to the choir".

By the reaction of the parents in this town, you would have thought that the Principal was mandating them to attend a full day event, no food, no bathroom privileges, strapped down to a chair! Hello, it was an hour! Comments like the adult version of "you can't make me" were bountiful. Even the kids, who will also have to attend their own mandatory meeting understand the importance of this meeting. One student commented that it would help parents to see what the issues are and be able to help the kids better. But the parents, not so much. The biggest objection seemed not to be the subject, but that they were being told what to do, and they didn't like that. Hmmm, sound familiar?

 First of all, it would seem to me that the most important issue here is the safety of our teens. Getting information to parents is not an easy task. Parents are busy people, working, and taking care of families, and it is often very difficult to motivate parents to come out at night for a meeting. I think sometimes we all need a kick in the pants to do something when really what we want to do is get in our jammies and lie on the couch. The school thought this topic was important enough to do the kicking. Second of all, and I think more importantly, parents are models. Your teen is watching you very very closely on just this kind of issue. When a request like this comes up, whether by a school, an athletic or arts group, a religious organization, and you bash the request as being stupid, you send a message to your kid that you shouldn't have to do something you don't want to do. You model dismissiveness. And the next time your kid is required to do something he/she doesn't want to do, watch out for backlash. " Why should I have to, you didn't when the school said you had to!!

Thirdly, when a school says, we have some safety issues with our kids around drugs and alcohol and we think it is so important that we are "making" you come. Take heed. If you dismiss this, the message your kid gets from you is that drugs/alcohol is no biggie. How much more meaningful it would be to say, "I get there is a lot of drugs/drinking at your school, I need to get as much information as I can to make sure we can help you stay safe." When you take this issue seriously, so will your kids.

When my daughter was in high school, some years back, they also had a mandatory meeting for all parents on drug and alcohol safety. As a parent rep I had a list of parents to call to remind them of the importance of coming to this meeting. One of the parents I called, was quite clear on her intent not to attend, saying" I don't need to come to this thing, my kid doesn't do any of that stuff". Talk about the head in the sand approach, as it turns out her son was one of the bigger druggies in the school. All the kids knew it , and so did the parents.

Some things in life are stupid, many things for that matter. But as a parent, one of your jobs is to prepare your kids to have to "suck it up" sometimes. And the way you do that is not just by making them do things they don't want to do, but by showing them through your own actions. Doing things you don't want to do, not with resignation and negativity, but with an openness to potentially learning something new.

New Years Resolutions

Happy New Year! On your way to the gym, and after you have only eaten healthy food in order to lose 10 pounds, and when you have cleaned out your closets and gotten rid of all your non-essentials, and when you have finished your salad, no dressing for lunch, and then walked for 30 minutes instead of having a hostess cupcake(does anyone eat hostess cupcakes anymore), and then did everything on your "to-do" list at work or at home before your kids come home, and made sure that you accomplished everything on your new years resolution list, then take a deep breath and say thank god this day is over.

The problem with New Years resolutions is that we make too many of them, and then never really follow through on any of them. The same thing also happens with parenting. I might meet with parents for an hour, and in that time we come up with a game plan that includes a number of strategies to improve whatever situation brought them in to see me. I always caution them to pick one issue, and one strategy, stick with making that one change, integrating it into their parenting bag of tricks before they take on something else. Imagine trying to teach you dog how to sit, come, and roll over all in the same training session. Eventually they just look at you, with that adorable cocked head, and know you are absolutely crazy. Teens are the same way. If a new regime takes over, and you start changing all the rules at the same time, your teen will look at you with that adorable cocked head, and say,"What are you crazy?"

Perhaps over this vacation, you have had time to reflect on your relationship with your teen, or thought about some areas you think you need to help your teen with. Maybe you want to be less negative and focus less on what they don't do and more on what they can do. Maybe you are worried about homework focus and cell-phone use, or their organization and time-management issues, or their attitude and how they talk to you. I am sure there are a million things that could go on this list. Pick one and only one, and then think of a simple strategy to address it, and then follow through on it, consistently!

Teens hate change. They resist it, and will fight you every step of the way. This is not really their fault. So much of adolescence is about change; changing bodies, changing moods, changing relationships, changing expectations. They are so overwhelmed by all these changes, which for the most part are out of their control, that they tend to hang on to those things that have become almost ritualistic whether they are good for them or not. So before you institute any changes in rules, or expectations first make sure you acknowledge with them that change is hard. You can say: "I've been thinking about ________________, and it seems like we need to work on this. I know you are used to ________________, and doing it a different way will be an adjustment, I get it. Lets figure out a way together to make it work.  Including them in the strategy building helps them to take ownership of it. Nobody likes to be told what to do, especially teens. The key here is not the choosing of whether or not there will be some change but how it will make it easier for them to be successful at adjusting to it.

The Twelve Days Of Vacation

On the twelfth day of vacation my teenager gave to me

the back to school of "leave me alone, I'm getting up"

11 moans of vacation is to short 

10 straight hours of sleeping

9 texts of "can I stay out a little longer" 

8 different plans for New Years Eve

7 hours of playing video games

6 kids sleeping in the basement

5 minutes of peace

4 hugs and thank you's for great gifts and dinners

3 ride requests

2 loads of laundry 

and a morning free of "get up you're going to be late."