Positive Discipline for Teenagers

Because the use of logical consequences has become one of the more popular parenting methods today, it may be difficult to accept what we have to say about using them with teenagers. You probably won’t like hearing that most logical consequences are usually ineffective with teenagers. Because the main life tasks for teens involve testing their power, they see the use of logical consequences as a method to control them.

What Is Follow-Through?

Follow-through is a respectful, four-step approach to parenting teens that teaches cooperation, life skills, and responsibility in spite of resistance. It works whether you are trying to move your teen away from the computer, to join the family, or to keep up responsibilities to themselves and the family. The key is that follow-through involves you, because you are the only one who does the follow-throug

Giving up is another common form of neglect. Instead of controlling, parents simply try to ignore their child’s behavior, hoping fervently that it will go away by itself. It usually doesn’t. No matter how often teenagers say they want to be left alone, in reality they need and want some guidance. They still need a copilot. Even though they act as if they would like to throw you out of the plane, they feel abandoned if you go. What they want is a copilot who treats them with respect through kind and firm parenting.

Permissiveness, overprotection, and rescuing may make you appear to be a saint—your teens may even love it. But these parenting styles don’t help your teens learn to fly on their own.

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 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.

SEVEN TIPS FOR CREATING A CONNECTION WITH YOUR TEEN

1. Get into your teen’s shoes and empathize.
2. Listen and be curious.
3. Stop worrying about what others think—do what is best for your teen.
4. Replace humiliation with encouragement.
5. Make sure the message of love gets through.
6. Involve your teen in focusing on solutions.
7. Make respectful agreements

When controlling parents criticize, scold, lecture, correct, demand, use put-downs, and express their disappointment, young people do not feel supported or loved. Teens experience their controlling parents’ love as conditional. They believe that the only way their parents will be “on their side” is when they do exactly what their parents want. This creates an existential crisis. How can they do what their parents want and discover who they want to be? (Normal rebellion is not against parents but for themselves

1. If you are arguing, scolding, lecturing, and shaming with no success, you might have a child who has just become a teen. Put on your “Isn’t this interesting?” hat and sit back to watch for the signs.
2. Find out what your teen’s issues are instead of assuming they are the same as the ones you had when you were a teen. Times change.
3. Remind yourself that your teen is growing up, not a grown-up.

Keep in mind that teenage rebellion is usually temporary (one to five years). However, if you do not understand that rebellion is part of individuation and you instead make it an issue, the rebellion may extend into adulthood. When parents are using kind and firm methods, rebellion is less likely to be extreme

Usually, the way kids act around their parents does not represent how they really feel. When we work with teens, we often ask them for four or five adjectives to describe their parents. Their choices are usually incredibly encouraging.