Put Your Teen at an Advantage by Parenting Like a Proactive Consultant
Posted on March 28th, 2012, 0 CommentsWhen our kids become teens it’s time to give up our role as their managers and start parenting like proactive consultants. To be successful at our new job, we need to stay connected to our teens. Because if they are to learn how to make good decisions and do the right thing, they need our input more than ever.
Sounds easy enough. But there’s a catch. Teens see their job as extending away from us and getting to do what they want to do. And because their brains are wired to reward risk taking and to underestimate bad consequences, for them, getting to do what they want to do really boils down to dealing with us, their parents.
How we respond to this challenge depends on the parenting style we use. Whether we take a micromanaging boss, a permissive friend, or a proactive consultant approach, our parenting style forms the mostly unconscious stance we take when we interact with our teens. And as the curfew example below shows, our stance affects how our teens think and act in response.
Teen: There’s a party I want to go to on Saturday night. It’s going to be awesome!
Parent: You know the rules – parents have to be home and you have to call in if your plans change.
Teen: That’s fine. But the party is after the game. So can I stay out until 1:00?
Micromanaging Boss Stance
Parent: What?! 1:00 in the morning? That’s after the city curfew! Absolutely not!!
Permissive Friend Stance
Parent: I don’t know, sweetie. That’s pretty late. Let me think about it.
Teen: C’mon. This is a big deal. Everybody is going. And I really want to go. Pleeeeease!
Parent: All right, I’ll let you go. But you’ve got to promise me that you’ll come straight home after the party.
Proactive Consultant Stance
Parent: I don’t know, sweetie. That’s pretty late.
Teen: C’mon. I’m a good kid. You know I almost always get home by my 11:30 curfew.
Parent: That’s true. But there are reasons why you have an 11:30 curfew – most of them having to do with your safety.
Teen: Yeah, but remember the couple times you’ve let me stay out past my curfew? I handled everything just fine. I think I’ve earned this by following the rules and being responsible.
Parent: I’m willing to think about it. But if I let you stay out that late, I still need to be a responsible parent. And 1:00 is after the city curfew. So what are you willing to do to assure me that you’ll stay safe and follow the law if I let you stay out that late?
Teen: How ‘bout this? I’ll check in at 11:30 just so you’ll know I’m okay. Then instead of driving home after the party, I’ll get a ride with Sam – he always gets picked up by one of his parents. That way I won’t be breaking the city curfew law. And I’ll even come home two hours early on Friday night so you won’t have to stay up late on both nights.
C’mon. You know that’s a pretty good deal for you. And I won’t mess-up. I promise.
When we fear that they will go in the wrong direction, it’s natural to respond by trying to hold on to them tighter. When we worry, all of our instincts tell us to become a micromanaging boss. We give lots of warnings, lectures, and restrictions. Under this regime, teens learn that to get to do what they want, they have to outwardly acquiesce and then sneak and lie to get around us. And if they run into problems, they’ll be reluctant to seek our input. Instead, they’ll have only their own instincts (and those of their like-minded friends) to guide them.
Sometimes, to avoid becoming a micromanaging boss or to steer clear of all the battles, we overcompensate. We so value the close connections that we’ve established with our teens that we turn into a permissive friend. We become reluctant to set and enforce limits, putting few demands on our teens’ behavior and giving them more freedom than they’re ready for. Under this system, teens learn that if they pester us long enough, we’ll say yes to just about anything they want to do. And if something does go wrong, they don’t get a chance to learn from their mistakes. Instead, they let us worry about the consequences. After all, we let them do it – not because they’d earned the privilege with their past behavior but just because they really wanted to.
Neither the micromanaging boss nor the permissive friend styles of parenting get the level of control right. Micromanaging bosses stay involved but act like they own the controls with their default set on no. Permissive friends stay connected but surrender control entirely, saying yes even when the answer should be no.
Proactive consultants stay connected to their teens and gradually relinquish control as their teens earn more freedom choice-by-choice and deed-by-deed. When proactive consultants have to say no, they shift the conversation to why. By sharing their reasons for saying no, these parents let their teens see how their brains work. And by sharing their concerns they are helping to train their teens’ brains.
Parenting like a proactive consultant is a lot of work. It is much easier to be a micromanaging boss or a permissive friend. But a huge body of research says the effort is worth it. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that teens with parents who act like proactive consultants are at an advantage. These teens are more open to their parents’ influence. They get a better chance to hone planning, negotiating, and problem solving skills. This adds to the teens’ self-assurance and ability to withstand stress and negative influences. And these teens learn that past behavior matters – something that all kids need to learn.
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Are You Playing Favorites?
Posted on December 5th, 2011, 0 CommentsThe countdown of days left for holiday shopping has begun. I, however, have typically paid more attention to another kind of count at this time of year. Not wanting to buy a lopsided number of presents, I’ve focused on the gifts per child count. And surely, some of my concern about present parity had to do with a worry about appearing to play favorites.
Jeffery Kluger, author of the new book Sibling Effect, claims that 99% of parents have favorites and that the other 1% is lying. But I have a hunch that in a good number of these cases something else might be going on.
Do you worry about playing favorites? How about your parents – did they have a favorite child?
How we were parented matters because we bring our growing-up experiences with us when we raise our own kids. If we think our parents got something wrong, we’re determined for it to be different for our kids.
My mother ran our household, and she ran a tight ship. As different as my siblings and I were, my mom believed “fair” meant treating all of us the same – the same rules, expectations, punishments, and rewards.
As you’ve undoubtedly guessed, I was determined to do it differently. I strived to take my kids’ individuality into account and to give each of them what they needed.
Both my children were equal parts bright, curious, and independent. Both had potential to be difficult. But their needs were definitely different. And although I can honestly say that I did not have a favorite, truth be told, one of my children was much easier for me to parent than the other.
My daughter’s ability and curiosity were expressed through academics, dance, and art – even at a very young age. And she seemed to have been born with more than her fair share of delayed gratification and self-regulation. Thus, before she was four, she’d convinced me that the best thing I could do for her was to stay connected to her while staying out of her way as much as possible. Although doing both those things simultaneously could have been hard to do, it wasn’t difficult for me because I had a good model for doing it: I could pretty much raise her the way I wished that I’d been raised.
My son, on the other hand, was impulsive and loved the adrenaline rush that comes from trying new things and taking risks. I used to joke that he must have been hiding when delayed gratification was handed out. Although it took me a bit longer to figure out his needs, by the time he was seven he’d convinced me that the best thing I could do for him was to stay connected to him while staying in his way as much as possible. I didn’t have a good model for doing this, and my son proved to be much more challenging for me to raise than my daughter.
In fact, in almost every family there is one child who is more challenging to raise than the rest – especially during the teen years. When this happens, it is not about favoritism. And it’s usually not about the parent or the teen. It’s about the goodness of fit: how well a particular parenting style meets the needs of a particular teen.
The next posting will explore what parents of teens need to know about goodness of fit.
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