Roxane Lehmann, Ph.D.

Last week I took part in a panel discussion aimed at reducing teen drinking and drug use. One of the questions dealt with how we can underscore the important role of parents in preventing teen risk-taking without blaming them if their children use or begin to use.

Truth be told, how we parent does matter. Study after study supports this notion. So when our teens mess-up, we often do feel that we are to blame. After all we’re in-charge. Aren’t we?

Pondering this question caused me to think back to how my parenting job changed over the course of my kids’ growing-up years. When my children were very young, I was in-charge. I decided what they got to do, when they’d do it, and who they’d do it with. I was their manager. But my parental control shrank as my children got older and became teens. It had to.

Attempts to maintain tight control – with too many restrictions, warnings, and punishments – can keep teens from learning how to make good decisions for themselves. Plus this type of micromanaging can invite rebellion, causing teens to dedicate all of their energies to out-maneuvering us and eluding our checkpoints.

On the other hand, becoming too hands-off also puts teens at risks. In fact, the more teens feel that they’re truly on their own without their parents’ supervision and guidance, the more susceptible they are to all the major risks – to drinking, drugs, early and unprotected sex, anxiety, depression, and even suicide.

So while we’re still responsible for our children when they become teens, we’re no longer in-charge. At least not totally.

When parenting teens, it makes more sense to think about our power (and responsibility) in terms of influence rather than control. This means our job description needs to change. It’s time to give up our job as our kids’ managers and become their consultants. And not just ordinary consultants – we need to be proactive consultants.

As a proactive consultant, you still make rules, set limits, and enforce consequences – especially when it comes to your teen’s safety and health. But as a proactive consultant you no longer make all the decisions. Instead your new job is to stay connected to your teen and keep the conversations going so that you can collaborate with them and guide them – by helping to manage the risks you can’t eliminate and by helping to train their brains so that they can learn how to make good decisions for themselves.

There is a huge body of research showing the relationship between parenting styles and teen behavior. (A good overview of the protective effects of good parenting can be found here.) But it is not a perfect one-to-one relationship. We cannot be with our teens at every minute. At the end of the day teens will make their own decisions – including decisions about whether to drink or use drugs. Our job is to influence our teens’ decisions by making it harder for them to make bad decisions and easier for them to make good ones.

Parents who think, talk, and act like proactive consultants (termed an authoritative parenting style in the research literature) have lots of influence over their teens’ decisions. The next blog post will take a more detailed look at how these parents go about their job.

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We’ve just completed a major renovation at our house. The other day as I was re-shelving my books, I ran across a copy of the The Free-Range Mom. Remember her? A few years back she was dubbed “America’s Worst Mom” after she let her nine-year-old son ride a New York City subway alone.

Free-Range Mom’s parenting philosophy promotes things like doubling recesses, letting kids drop activities they don’t like, letting them play, and telling them, “It’s okay to fail, at least a little bit.” She wants parents to relax – but only after they’ve removed those bragging stickers off their cars.

More recently there was another mom generating lots of buzz: the Tiger Mom. Her parenting style includes banning things like sleepovers, play dates, T.V., computer games, and any instrument except the piano or violin. She demands that her kids get all As and that they be #1 in every academic class.

The Tiger Mom and the Free-Range Mom couldn’t be more different. Except for one thing: They are both crystal clear about their purpose as a parent and what they’re hoping to accomplish. And this clarity about what they value lets both these moms be a strong influence in their children’s lives. So while we might disagree with their goals or their tactics, we can still learn something from these moms.

Research shows that when parents stay connected and talk with their teens they can make a big difference, including with the major risks associated with alcohol, drugs, and sex. But it’s easy to become so busy dealing with all the daily decisions about curfews, parties, and out-of-town concerts that we fail to step back and get a good look at the big picture. And without the big picture of what we value and hope to accomplish, our responses are often rote, knee-jerk reactive, or just plain wishy-washy.

Taking time to give some thought to questions like the ones listed below can help clarify what’s most important to us as parents and, thus, help us be a stronger influence in our teens’ lives.

– What values or standards are at the core of how you live – your choices, decisions, and actions?

– What attitudes do you want to instill in your teen?

– What decisions would you like your teen to make about friendships? About schoolwork? About teenage sex? About alcohol use? About drugs? About following the law?

– What do you want most for yourself, for your teen, and for your relationship?

Being clear in your own mind about your purpose as a parent will help you communicate your ideas and reasons for your decisions convincingly to your teen. And having this big-picture view will help you be the calm, sturdy presence your teen needs – even when (especially when) they roll their eyes, let out one of those heavy sighs, and tell you how totally unfair and out-of-touch you are because “Everybody else gets to do it.”

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