Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Haley Goes to Jail

Season 4, Episode 7

The Framework

The episode opens with the kind of call every parent dreads – a middle-of-the-night call from the police:

Claire: Hello. Yes, this is she … Oh, God! Haley has been arrested!

Immediately, Claire jumps onto a roller coaster of bad feelings. And while on that emotional ride full of confusion and panic, and well before she has all the facts, she begins putting together a plan to solve Haley’s problem.

Early the next morning Claire, Phil, and Mitch (enlisted to lend his legal expertise) head to Haley’s campus to rescue her from what they believed were underage drinking charges. En route, with some time to reflect, Claire seems to realize that Haley needs to share some of the worry about what she has done:

Claire: My daughter’s been arrested for drinking. I would like her to sit in jail and think about that. As a matter of fact I might stop and do a little outlet shopping. Who wants a pair of last year’s sunglasses, eh?

Upon their arrival, however, they find that things are even worse than they’d thought: The charges are more serious than they’d assumed and, after only a matter of weeks at college, Haley is in danger of suspension. The parents bail Haley out of jail, and once again begin to take charge of the problem. Surprisingly, it’s Phil – generally more of a likeable friend than a father figure – who puts his foot down. He scolds Haley for being reckless and making excuses instead of taking responsibility for her actions and gives her specific instructions on how to dress and act at the upcoming suspension hearing. But just when it seems that Phil is going to completely takeover the rescue mission and leave little or none of the worry or work for Haley to deal with, Claire steps in to hand some of the responsibility back to Haley:

Haley: Where are you going?
Claire: To get [your dad] a waffle.

At the hearing Haley admits to her wrongdoing and some other unrelated acts as well. Suffice it to say that the sum of her confessions gets her kicked out of school. And as Claire and Phil help Haley pack-up her belongings, it’s tempting to wonder if perhaps the parents got the problem sharing balance wrong. Perhaps they should not have gone off for waffles, leaving Haley to prepare for her hearing alone. But when the dorm room is empty except for the furniture and it’s time to depart for home, there’s this exchange:

Phil: Where are the keys?
Haley: There right there on the makeup table.
Claire: Oh, honey, that’s a desk.

So perhaps things did turnout for the best after all.

Flipping the Frame: My Notes

Tonight Claire and Phil faced the unsettling fact that while they’re still responsible for Haley (the police called them), they’re not in charge – at least not totally. This is not unique to the Dunphys. Virtually all parents of teens face this fact sooner or later. And their dialogue as they approached the police station depicts the ambivalence we parents typically feel when our teens mess up:

Phil: We’re going to walk in there as a family and show we support her no matter what.
Claire: We may be supporting her for the rest of her life.

Phil’s right. Of course, we don’t want to be too hands-off when our teens mess up and leave them with only their own inadequate judgment to guide them. But Claire has a point too. If we expect our teens to eventually become self-reliant, we can’t let our fears about what the mess up might do to their future cause us to become too hands-on either.

When we takeover our teen’s problems, they miss out on the chance to develop the important life skills of decision-making and problem solving. And not letting our teens experience any of the negative consequences of their actions, means that they miss out on key feedback that can motivate them to learn from their mistakes. Plus if our actions tell our teens that we’ll do all the necessary worrying, they’ll come to see this as our job. They’ll come to believe that we have to figure out how to get them out of their problems –that that’s what parent are for – and that they have absolutely nothing to worry about.

The BottomLine

Haley: I don’t know what the policy is… but I think I broke it – twice.

When our teens mess-up (and they’re bound to), it’s important that we strike the right balance. Of course, we don’t want to abandon them just when they need our sturdy presence more than ever. But it’s not in their best interest for us to take total control of the situation either. Instead, our teens need us to be a guide worth following – someone with the authority to set limits and make and enforce rules as well as someone they can look to for direction and back up.

And our teens are counting on us to get the balance of support right. Because when we find appropriate ways to influence and guide them, their bad decisions can become some of their best opportunities to gradually learn self-reliance and develop their own inner voice, which will remind them of their values and help them make better decisions.

Flipping the Frame: From My Life as a Parent

This episode brought back memories of my son’s eighth grade sneak out. Like Claire, I got a middle-of-the-night call from the police along with the feel-bad roller coaster ride of emotions. That night it dawned on me that I was no longer totally in charge. I realized that I was going to have to change the way I thought about my role as a parent. Successfully parenting my son – now that he’d become a teen – would require his cooperation. And getting his cooperation would depend a lot on me.

Flipping the Frame: Your Parenting Experiences

• Did this episode bring back memories of the time you came face to face with the fact that you were no longer totally in-charge of your teen? If so, what happened?

• How did you handle the situation? Did your hyper-vision about the future cause you to jump in and take control of the situation? If you had it to do over, would you do anything differently?

• How did the incident change your relationship with your teen – in terms of your trust, your expectations, your monitoring of your teen’s behavior and how you held your teen accountable?

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The last post discussed why teens lie and the importance of teaching our teens about the worth of honesty. But research documenting both the pervasiveness of teen lying as well as the reality that teens lie even though they believe that it is morally wrong makes me think that our teens might need something more from us.

Researcher Nancy Darling found that 98% of teens lie to their parents about some things – things such as:
– What they spent their allowance on
– Whether they had started dating
– What clothes they put on away from home
– What movie they went to and with whom
– Their alcohol and drug use
– Hanging out with friends that their parents disapprove of
– Whether chaperones were at a party
– Whether they were in cars driven by drunk teens

While some of these lies are certainly more serious than others, they share one thing in common: They all have to do with teens deceiving their parents so they can do what they want to do.

The other option open to teens as they battle for independence is, of course, arguing. But the research shows that the average teen is much more likely to lie rather than argue about a rule – 244% more likely. Researchers, however, have also found that there is significantly less lying in homes where there is more protesting and arguing.

So you just might need to argue more with your teen.

Now, I have to admit that I did not like arguing with my kids when they were teens. It often left me feeling disconnected from them and inadequate as a mom (not to mention as a debater). Apparently I’m not alone. Researcher Tabitha Holmes, who did extensive interviews with mothers and their teens, found that nearly half of mothers feel that arguments damage their relationship with their teen.

Yet, Holmes found that the vast majority of teens think that fighting can make the relationship with their mother stronger. Teens said they see arguing as a way to get their views heard and as a chance to hear their parents’ perspective. For teens, it’s not how big the fight is or even how many fights that is important. Instead, what matters most to teens is the quality of the disputes and how they are resolved.

I never learned to like arguing with my teens, but I did find that when I changed how I thought about our arguments – when I began thinking of them as a chance to model how to communicate when you disagree – things went much better. And when I took a couple minutes to think about what I wanted most – for myself, for my teen, and for our relationship – before jumping into the fray, sometimes these disputes even left me feeling more connected to my teens.

Arguments can strengthen your relationship with your teen if:

– You calmly listen to them, acknowledging when they make a good point.

– You take their interests and perspectives into account before making a decision, and you sometimes budge a bit, letting them use responsibility to negotiate to “yes.”

For example, a teen asking for a later curfew might get to “yes” with “If you let me stay out 30 minutes later, I’ll text you at my regular curfew time just to check-in. How about if we try that for a month before you make a final decision?”

– When saying “no,” you have good reasons for denying their requests and take the time to explain your decision.

Battling for independence is at the top of the teen agenda. By giving our teens an appropriate avenue for disagreeing and a model for how to do it, we are giving them an acceptable way to stay true to their mission to extend away from us. Doing so can also help us stay true to our mission as parents to stay connected to them so that we can guide them to wiser decisions and safer actions.

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