Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Modern Family: Season 7, Episode 6, The More You Ignore Me

Plotline: Luke Gets Arrested

At the Dunphy household, the night begins with a call from the police.
Phil: Who’s calling at this hour? (Answering phone) Hello? Yes? (Then to Claire) Luke has been arrested!

The next day starts-off like this.
Phil: Well, good morning, Leonard.
Luke: Leonard?
Phil: I know it’s not my well-behaved son, Luke, who’d never take our car out without a license and get arrested.
Luke: I took the car for a good reason. Sarah Fisher’s cat died, and she was devastated, so I thought she might make out with me. I got caught two blocks away from her house. Everyone is having great luck with girls except for me. And I mean everyone.
Claire: You know, we’re gonna have to ground you, and I was thinking that…
Phil: Oh, we’re doing way more than that. Landon has a $300 fine to work off.
Luke: We could fight that – say the cop was racist. Even if we lose, it’ll start a conversation.
Phil: You made a mistake; you pay the consequences, Levon. Your first job is cleaning out the awesome village I built for my ducks.

Later, Phil follows-up – well, sort of.
Phil (leaving a voicemail for Luke): Just reminding you the duck village needs to be clean enough to eat off of. You hear me? You better not have. You’re not allowed to use your phone. Yep, I’m everywhere.

Guidelines
Like Phil, none of us want to think that our teens will break our rules and our trust in them. But teens are hard-wired to take risks. So regardless of how smart or well-adjusted kids are or how effectively they’re parented, at some time during adolescence they are bound to make some mistakes.

Sometimes teens’ worrisome behavior is due to impulsive, spur-of-the-moment decision making. At other times teens actively seek out risks. For years we’ve believed that teens make these deliberate but reckless choices because they think that nothing bad is going to happen to them. We now know that teens are well aware of their vulnerability. In fact, teens tend to overestimate their risks for many negative outcomes.

A growing body of scientific data suggests that teens take these risks not because they think that they’re invulnerable, but because they engage in too much rational calculation when making these decisions. Consider Luke’s decision tonight to drive the family car without permission or a license. To his rational adolescent mind, deliberating on the odds, it must have seemed like a good bet. He likely reasoned that there was only a moderate chance of getting caught or having an accident, and the potential of the immediate reward – particularly in the heat of the moment – seemed to out-weigh the risks.

In contrast, most adults faced with the temptation of driving someone else’s car – without permission or a license – would likely skip the deliberation and go right to the main point: The risks of an accident or an arrest are not worth quantifying, and it doesn’t make sense to weigh these risks against the reward of brief pleasure. Instead of doing mental calculations, adults go with their gut. They immediately generate a visual image of a potential accident or arrest, experience a physical aversion to that image, and evoke a quick “bad idea” response.

Bottom Line
The dangers are real, but they are not unknown to our teens. So bombarding them with frightening facts won’t help them make better decisions. But getting them to see benefits differently – not just risks – can.

Taking risks will have less appeal for teens if they see greater benefit from alternative, safer, more respectful courses of action. And you want to especially highlight the short-term consequences and benefits as these are the most significant to teens.

Previous posts have discussed the advantages of having a few, simple rules: be safe, be respectful, be in contact. (You can read more about these rules here.) Below are some suggestions for winning your teen’s cooperation for following these rules:

– Consistently enforce the rules with consequences that fit the infraction and make sense to your teen. Kids need consequences to get them to reflect on what they have done. But don’t overkill. If you make the consequence too severe, your teen will become resentful and miss the opportunity for learning and growth. Especially beware of grounding for special events – like prom or an important game they’re supposed to play in. And be sure to provide light at the end of the tunnel by letting your teen know when the consequences will end.

– Give your teen the support needed to learn from their mistake and a way to re-earn your trust. When your teen disappoints you by breaking a rule, it’s important to enforce a consequence to make room for learning to take place. But consequences almost never do the teaching. Your support is needed for that.

Your support will enable your teen to understand why they did what they did and to realize that there were other choices that they could have and should have made. And your support will enable your teen to regain your trust (and with it their privileges). It works best if you explain precisely how they can go about re-earning your trust. “When you show me that …” If you have a strong relationship with your teen, the more you express confidence in their capability of regaining your trust, the harder they’ll work to re-earn it and keep it.

– Gradually let go. This means granting your teen more privileges and freedoms as they earn them by behaving responsibly – choice by choice, decision by decision, action by action.

Connecting Lines:
Our peace of mind is largely based on being able to trust our teens. Because despite Phil’s claim tonight that he’s everywhere, he can’t be. And, of course, neither can we. So we need to do all that we can to encourage our teens to follow our rules.

Appealing to your teen’s self-interest is another way to encourage rule adherence.
Below is a script to give you an idea of what that conversation might sound like.

You: There are only three rules that describe my expectations for your behavior: Be safe, be respectful, and be in contact. I expect you to follow these. Their purpose is to allow me (your parent) to sleep at night.
Them: What do the rules have to do with your sleep?
You: They help keep me from worrying. Parents worry. That’s part of what we do.
Them (rolling their eyes): That’s ridiculous. But if you want to stay up worrying about me, that’s your problem. Not mine.
You: Actually not. When I worry about you, it does affect you. Because when I worry, I don’t sleep as well. And when I’m tired, I’m cranky and more likely to say “No.” So it’s in your own best interest to minimize the things I worry about. That way I’ll sleep better, and you’ll have a better chance of getting to do what you want.

Sources and Resources: Adolescents and Risk: Helping Young People Make Better Choices by Eric Wargo (citing research by Valerie Renya, Ph.D.); Things Your Teenager Won’t Tell You by J. Lippincott and Robin Deutsch, Ph.D.; Staying Connected to Your Teenager by Michael Riera, Ph.D.

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Modern Family: Season 7, Episode 5, The Verdict

Plotline: Luke Volunteers Because It’s Mandatory
From the get-go tonight, Luke drags his feet over the required volunteering. He’d even join Claire for “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” to get out of it.
Luke: I’ll go to work with you, Mom.
Phil: Stop trying to get out of community service. You need those hours to graduate.
Claire: And you’re not a daughter.
Luke: Mom, Dad, sit down. There’s something I need to talk to you about.
Phil: You’re going.

Luke does go – along with Phil and a group of boys, including Manny – but his heart is not in it.
Phil: Okay, men. Gather ’round. Teachable moment. Don’t think of community service as a requirement. Think of cleaning up this park as an opportunity.
Luke: To get hepatitis?
Phil: To make the world a better place.
Manny: That’s why I’m here. I already did my required hours.
Luke: That’s a fancy way of saying you’re a virgin.
Manny: Joke all you want, but this looks good on an application to NYU or UCLA.
Luke: Or KFC.
Phil: Okay, stop trash-talking and start trash picking-up.

Things then go from bad to worse. And it’s not just trash-talk. A car gets trashed – right after Phil gathers everyone around for one last teachable moment.
Phil: I guess the answer is nothing. Nothing separates us from animals. Grow up, Manny. Human beings are basically terrible.

Guidelines
Many high schools – like the one Luke and Manny attend – have made volunteering a graduation requirement since the 1990s when federal laws and funds began supporting it. Yet, when surveyed, most young people say they’re opposed to required community service. And there’s the rub.

Our kids will reap nothing from volunteering if their hearts aren’t in it.

But there are lots of benefits to be had.

It’s good for them. Volunteering can help teens…

– Grow in responsibility because people depend on them.

– See what life is like for others and build a heart for helping others – elderly people, people with disabilities, sick kids, people in financial distress.

– Explore their interests. They may even develop a passion that helps shape their ideas about a career they might not otherwise have considered.

– Build new relationships. When working on long-term projects, these connections often develop into close friendships.

It looks good too. A long-term commitment to a cause or an organization can give teens an edge when it comes to college admissions by helping them…

– Demonstrate a meaningful use of their free time. A passionate involvement in a few activities can show dedication and responsibility. Although challenging high school classes, grades that show strong effort, and solid scores on ACT or SAT are at the top of the college checklist, extracurricular activities including volunteering and community service are also high on the list.

– Write a college essay. Writing about work done based on a cause that matters deeply to them can help students show colleges what they believe in and highlight their character, values, and goals.

– Earn an extra letter of recommendation. A recommendation from a community leader or a supervisor who knows a student well can put a spotlight on a student’s passion, special skills, and positive character traits.

Years ago Ralph Waldo Emerson said: Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. This is certainly true when it comes to service learning. If our kids resent having to put in the time or just go through the motions, they’re likely to get less than nothing out of the volunteer experience.

Most teens could probably care less about Emerson’s words from long ago. But we moms might want to keep them in the back of our minds.

Connecting Lines:
If you have a kid who is dragging their feet about a required service learning project, it might help to remind them that unlike other parts of school, with volunteering they get to pick what really interests them and who they do it with. Your conversation might start something like this: You gotta do it and there are lots of ways to volunteer. So…
What is something you really care about?
What would make it fun? Who would be fun to do it with?
What would make it interesting?
What would make it meaningful?
What would make it count the most on a college application?

For additional help with the picking process, checkout the teen website dosomething.org (click here).

Sources and Resources: The Ten Most Important Factors in College Admissions by Judi Robinoviz; Teen Volunteering at kidshealth.org

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