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Parenting Differently Than Your Parents Did

Student Story: Caleb

Being “relational” with your kid doesn’t mean you should become their best friend! This weekend on Parenting Today’s Teens, Mark Gregston argues that there’s a way to connect more without sacrificing your authority as a parent. Learn how discipline and training can actually strengthen your relationship with your teen as they mature.

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The Difference Between Rule-making and Ruling

Some parents mix the idea of rule-making with ruling their home. Reasonable rulemaking and proper boundaries will help a teenager mature into a confident adult, while living under a “ruler” can lead to frustration, rebellion and eroded self-esteem. Which kind of home is yours? One that has rules or one that is ruled?

Rules for your home should fall into three main areas of concern, which are foundational to all other character and maturity issues. They are honesty, obedience, and respect. After all, isn’t the ultimate intent of creating and enforcing rules in your home that of keeping a child’s poor choices from consuming him and destroying his relationships with others?

So, when you think about the rules that govern your home, you might want to ask yourself two questions. The first is, “How much will this rule matter after I am gone or when the child is out on his own?” The second is, “Will this help build my child’s character and cause him to become more mature or responsible?” If the rules for your older teenagers are not centering on character, then you’re most likely ruling your home instead.

“Ruling” works and is necessary when kids are younger, but as your children reach the teenage years they naturally begin weighing decisions on their own. When they choose to break the household rules, they need to deal with the resulting consequences. Teenagers understand consequences. That’s how they learn, not from lecturing or parental anger.

When a teenager butts heads with a “ruler,” conflict and frustration will result. The only thing they’ll then learn is either how to better hide their improper actions or how to scream louder than the ruler does. Neither of these modes is productive and can also lead to a legacy of poor parenting.

Rule-making in Your Home

Rules need to make sense. We can all think about rules set down by our own parents that made no sense at all and others that were beneficial to us (even though we may not have liked them).

Rules also should be relevant, attainable and beneficial, not a source of shame, frustration, or failure.

And rules need to be communicated in advance, right along with the consequences for breaking those rules. Think of it this way. If no one knows the rules, then your teenager will have to learn them by trial and error and will constantly get into trouble. Likewise, if consequences for breaking the rules aren’t known, then a teenager has no way to weigh those consequences against whatever pleasure they find in breaking the rule. This balancing of actions versus consequences is a critical skill for adolescents to learn and exercise.

Finally, rules need to evolve over time, as lessons are learned, kept in line with the growing maturity of your teenager. I’m not talking about “giving in.” I’m saying that out-of-date, irrelevant or demeaning rules will lead to animosity, loss of respect and rebellion by your teenager. They can also lead to consequence confusion, since outdated rules are often not enforced. So, regularly update your rules and restate them to your teenager (before they break the rule, not after), awarding them with freedom and added privileges for the progress they make.

Rules Are Enforced Through Reasonable Consequences

Consequences for teenagers should never hurt physically (other than aching muscles from work assignments). They should never be demeaning or undermine the child’s self-esteem. For teenagers, the loss of a privilege is the most reasonable and powerful consequence. Sometimes they don’t realize how many privileges they enjoy — at least not until they lose them for a time.

Think about some reasonable consequences for your home. And keep in mind how important it is that they are communicated well in advance so the teenager doesn’t attribute the consequences they receive to your poor mood or a bad day. When they break a rule they should know exactly what the consequence will be. And just like laws in our society, parents need to build in progressively stronger consequences for rules that are broken again and again (since the initial consequence was obviously not enough of a deterrent).

Setting up rules and enforcing consequences — more than any other thing you manage as a parent — is the best way to help your child learn right from wrong and to change from selfish to unselfish thinking.

Don’t Cut Off Your Relationship When They Do Wrong

When you line out the rules, make it clear that they are developed in the context of longing for your child to do well in life, more than a selfish need for you to be in control or your home to be pristine. Above all, keep in mind that your relationship with your child is more important than their breaking any rule.

Don’t correlate your teen’s rule-keeping or rule-breaking to your love or acceptance of them. Regularly let them know that you will continue to love them, even when they mess up. Express your sorrow when your teen experiences consequences, but take care not to express your disappointment in them. There’s a big difference between those two sentiments. One is caring and the other is destructive of your relationship.

The Parent’s Admonition: “There is nothing you can do to make me love you more, and nothing you can do to make me love you less.”

When your teenager breaks a rule (and they will!) show your deep love for them by refusing to let them off the hook. Teenagers mostly learn from consequences. So avoid taking the consequences away or lessening them. When consequences are known well in advance, it shouldn’t damage your relationship when they are handed out. Surely, your teenager weighed the consequences at the same time they chose to step over the line, and chose to do it anyway!

HOME ASSIGNMENT: If you have teenagers in your home, line out some rules for your home, and begin to think about what consequences to apply. Decide things like: who pays for what, what time frame is expected for certain things like curfew and chores, what you expect from them for school and grades, work, their spiritual life, their friends. Address issues like respect, honesty and obedience, with clear rules — no lying, no cheating, everyone gets respect. Call a family meeting and work on the rules and consequences together, so everyone is part of it. You’ll be surprised. Your teen will often suggest penalizing bad behavior with consequences more severe than you were thinking.

Remember, “ruling” your home is not a good measurement of the effectiveness of your rulemaking.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mark Gregston is an author, speaker, radio host, and the founder and director of Heartlight, a residential counseling center for struggling teens located in Longview, Texas. He has been married to his wife, Jan, for 40 years, has two kids, and four grandkids. He lives in Longview, Texas, with the Heartlight staff, 60 high school kids, 25 horses, his dog, Stitch, two llamas, and a prized donkey named Toy.

His past involvement as a youth pastor, Young Life area director, and living with more than 2,800 teens has prepared Mark to share his insights and wisdom about parenting pre-teens and adolescents. You can find out more about Heartlight at HeartlightMinistries.org. You can also call Heartlight directly at (903) 668-2173.

Mark is also the host of the radio program Parenting Today’s Teen; heard on over 1,600 radio outlets nationwide. Visit ParentingTodaysTeens.org where you’ll find more parenting resources and find a station near you that carries the daily 60-second features or the 30-minute weekend program. Download the Parenting Today’s Teens App for Apple or Android, it’s a great way to listen on your schedule.

Ending Family Chaos – Consequences

“A sensible person learns by being corrected.” — Proverbs 19:25

If I asked, “Does your teen seem sensible?” Most parents would look at me cross-eyed, or ask me if I’ve lost my mind. Of course my teen isn’t sensible! Teens are wired for chaos and they spread it everywhere they go, including your home.

Our job as parents is to help our teenagers become sensible, as well as responsible and mature. The best way to help our teen move in that direction is to allow consequences to teach them when they make bad choices.

Teenagers won’t learn just from parental warnings. Most of us have tried that without much success. And unfortunately, one or both parents all too often cave in. We step in to lessen the consequences when Johnny or Julie gets in trouble. Each time we do so, a valuable lesson isn’t learned and a mistake is apt to be repeated.

If you rescue an angry man once, you’ll just have to rescue him again. — Proverbs 19:19

The point is, teens learn best by making mistakes and suffering a bit from the consequences. They remember the lessons when there are consequences because they are then able to figure it out for themselves.

It reminds me of when we recently were with some of the kids from Heartlight having a blast in the woods annihilating one another with paintballs. The kids especially loved plastering me. But when we finished, I was surprised to see that one of the boys refused to clean his paintball equipment.

I said to him, “You played paintball. We had a good time. And you know the rule for the course — everybody cleans their own equipment.”

“Well – I am not going to do it,” he said, and then further unleashed a verbal tirade.

I remained calm, and said to him, “Now, we have another problem. In addition to breaking the equipment cleaning rule, you are also being disrespectful to me.”

So, I laid down consequences for his disrespect and his refusal to cooperate. He would be required to do a specified amount of yard work and lose his extra privileges for a time. And he would still have to clean the paintball equipment and apologize for mouthing off.

After a couple of days raking pine needles, he came to me to apologize. As I got the equipment out for him to clean, I brought the lesson home and reaffirmed him saying, “You are a good man. But you need to work through the way you respond when you are angry. It is killing your relationships. Your friends and others will not put up with it. I want something better for you. And by the way… this lesson is not about cleaning the stupid paintball stuff — this is about helping you be successful in life.”

But because of the consequences, he already knew that. Time and work had allowed him to figure out a very important lesson, not just about being responsible for things, but about being responsible for his own behavior.

Give Them Something That Can Be Taken Away

You may ask me, “How do I know what kind of consequence to apply?” I tell parents that one way is to give them something they want. But teach them they could lose it if they don’t follow the rules. And when they don’t, then take it away for a time.

When thinking about consequences, it helps to know what your child values. If they don’t value it, they also won’t learn from losing it. Is it time with friends, text-messaging, car privileges, the cell phone, music, the computer, or after-school events? By the way, should I need mention it, consequences for teenagers should never involve physical pain (other than some aching muscles from hard work).

Make the consequence relate to the privilege. A simple example might be: “If the car isn’t home by curfew tonight, then you won’t be able to use the car tomorrow.” If he continues to miss curfew each time he is given car privileges, then don’t let him drive for increasingly longer periods. And don’t even offer rides to school. Let him take the bus, so he learns from it.

Most of all, keep it calm. Keep anger and that “I’m disappointed in you” statement out of it altogether. Even side with the teen in how sad you feel that they have to experience the consequence. Our goal with consequences is to make the teen angry at himself or herself for knowingly doing something stupid, not angry at you.

Implement Change One Step at a Time

Letting your teen know what will happen well in advance is a key part of the learning process. Decide ahead of time what the rules and consequences will be so they don’t sound arbitrary or derived from anger when they are applied. Clearly communicate them to your teen.

If you haven’t done such a good job of communicating rules and consequences up until this point, then start by letting your teen know you’ve blown it when it comes to certain areas of discipline, and you will be making a change that affects everyone soon. Give them time to adjust to the idea that discipline is going to be different, before you let them know exactly how it will look.

Then, call everyone together and work out your ideas for rules and consequences together. Your teen may surprise you and come up with even stricter requirements than you originally planned. And, when it comes time to give a consequence, your teen will already understand exactly what to expect, and exactly why to expect it. In fact, they will tell you what their consequence is, because they weighed it in their mind and deliberately chose to accept it when they broke the rule.

Working out consequences well ahead of time helps everyone remain calm when your teen experiences the consequences related to breaking the rules.

Take Seriously Your Role of Managing Consequences

Some parents are surprised by the concept of “managing consequences.” They manage their budget. They manage their calendar. They may even manage employees. But most have never heard of managing consequences.

But I can’t emphasize it enough. This is one of the most vital things you’ll do in parenting adolescents. If you want your teenager to become responsible and mature, you have to let them take responsibility for their actions and feel the sting of consequences.

Let Your Teen Feel the Full Force of Being Caught Committing Illegal Acts

Illegal behavior calls for consequences that get your teen’s undivided attention. Such consequences are often out of your control anyway, but they shouldn’t be lessened in any way by you. I’ve known some parents who are quite justified in their desire for their drug-abusing teenager to be caught by the police before they sink even deeper into that lifestyle. And refusing to bail a teenager out of jail or delaying that action a day or two is another example of allowing natural consequences to take their course. An appearance all alone before a judge and being processed into jail has a way of catching a teen’s attention and changing their behavior like nothing else can. A key point is to let your teen know in advance that you won’t bail them out if they are at fault.

Tough and Tender

There are two sides to consequences — the tough side that says to your teen, “I will allow painful consequences to take place in order to teach you when you do something wrong.” This is a big shift from parenting younger kids, when our main goal was to prevent our children from getting hurt simply because they don’t know any better. And the tender side which says, “I will always love you no matter what you do and it truly hurts me to allow consequences in your life.”

Your teen wants a taste of the character of God. They want to experience the strength of a warrior and the tender, caring side of somebody promising to help them get through their difficulties. So, even if you are dealing with painful consequences, make sure your teen knows you love them, no matter what they’ve done.

Consequences, when applied correctly or allowed to happen naturally, change your child’s thinking. They teach adolescents how to think or act differently the next time.

This concept is among the most important I can teach you today. So, take time to call your family meeting and begin developing, communicating and enforcing this incredibly effective tool and responsibility of parenthood.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR