rules Archives | Page 2 of 9 | Parenting Today's Teens | Radio Show & Podcast

Ending Family Chaos – Rules

Most of us work for companies that have a policy manual. We follow the policies, since they are a requirement of enjoying the financial benefits and privileges of employment. From that we know what to expect, how to act, and how not to act if we want to keep our jobs. Likewise, the rules within your family Belief System will help each family member know what is expected of them, how to act, where the lines are drawn between right and wrong behavior, and the consequences for stepping over the line.

Rules are expectations and guidelines placed around our behavior, in order to support our family boundaries and beliefs.

So, how do we go about creating and implementing rules that will effectively guide our teen for their own good, and for the good of our entire family?

Rules Are For Your Child’s Own Benefit

Rules for your home will most likely fall into three main areas of concern, which are foundational to all other character issues. They are honesty, obedience, and respect.

Rules should be relevant, attainable and beneficial, not a source of shame, frustration, or failure. 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 question is, “How much will this rule matter after I am gone?” The second question is, “Will this help build my child’s character, and cause him to become more mature or responsible?”

If not, then you probably need to rethink the rule and your motivation for wanting to make it a rule.

Rules also 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).

Finally, rules often need to evolve over time, as lessons are learned, and kept in line with the growing maturity of your teenager. Out of date, irrelevant or demeaning rules will lead to animosity, loss of respect and rebellion in your teenager. They can also lead to consequence confusion, since outdated rules are often not enforced. Regularly update your rules and restate them to your teenager, awarding them with freedom and added privileges for the progress they make.

Rules Are Enforced Through Reasonable Consequences

For teenagers, the loss of a privilege can be a powerful consequence. Sometimes they don’t realize how many privileges they enjoy — at least, not until they lose them for a time.

It brings to mind when we had several teenage boys living with us in our own home years ago. Based on the worsening condition of their bathroom, I could see that they needed help with exercising more self-control. So, I told them, “Guys, from now on you need to clean your own toilet and keep your bathroom clean. If not, you could lose it.”

Unfortunately, they ignored the rule and the mess got even worse. The once pearly white toilet bowl turned shades of brown.

So, one day I just took the entire toilet out! I literally removed it from the house. By that time, the toilet needed to be replaced anyway, so I thought not having it for a while would be a good learning opportunity for them.

When they got home from school there was nothing but a little hole in the floor where the brown toilet used to stand, they said, “Where are we supposed to go?”

I said, “aim well – I’m sorry, the rule is that you need to clean your toilet and keep your bathroom clean. If you won’t clean it, you can’t have it.”

After a few days of not aiming all that well and the stench becoming unbearable, they came to me asking, “What do we need to do to get our toilet back?”

I said, “Well, I appreciate you coming back and asking. The thing is… you can have your toilet back, but to make sure you have learned this lesson you also have to clean the toilets in the whole house for the next couple of months.”

They readily agreed, and I installed a new toilet. They cleaned all the bathrooms for a few months, and learned the importance of taking better care of things. The most important lesson for them was that when you break a rule, you pay the consequences.

The consequence in my example may sound crude, but it got the point across. After that, they kept the bathroom clean and they listened more carefully when I announced other important rules.

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.

Keep Rules Within the Context of Relationship

When you line out 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. Rules are not just about having your house operate well and the chores done. In the “toilet” example I gave, I saw it as a major opportunity to teach these boys an important life principle, not just make that side of our house smell better. It is a lesson they still recall today.

Above all, keep in mind that your relationship with your child is more important than any rule. Don’t tie rule keeping or rule breaking to your love or acceptance of them. Let them know that you will continue to love them, even when they mess up.

Continually say, “There is nothing you can do to make me love you more, and nothing you can do to make me love you less.”

When they break a rule (and they will!) show your deep love for them by refusing to let them off the hook. Teenagers mostly learn from consequences. When they are known in advance, it shouldn’t damage your relationship when they are handed out, since the teenager accepted the consequences at the same time that they chose to step over the line.

ASSIGNMENT: This week, line out some rules for your home, and begin to think about consequences. 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. Examine how your rules support your boundaries and beliefs for the way your home should run. Call a family meeting and work on the rules together, so everyone is part of the decision-making.

The next article I’ll tie it all together – Beliefs, Boundaries Rules, and Consequences, and hopefully, if you have done your homework, you will have the beginning of a wonderful new tool for preventing chaos in your home.

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 – Boundaries

In the last blog I wrote about the first step in developing a Belief System for Discipline for your home — to identify your basic beliefs. The next important step to avoid family chaos is to evaluate your personal boundaries and how they relate to your beliefs. Boundaries define you. They are the fence posts placed around your behavior, or the delineation of how your beliefs are to be lived out. They are the “I will” and “I will not” statements that are the basis of your daily living and interaction with others. When they are defined, they help everyone in the family take responsibility for their own behavior, make their own choices, and know if they are headed into dangerous territory.

Let me give you some examples of how boundaries support your beliefs…

If an important cornerstone of your Belief System is honesty, then an umbrella family boundary in that regard would be: We will be honest – and expect everyone in our family to be honest. For example, consider something gained dishonestly. What does your family do when a cashier returns too much change? Do you make it right, or do you keep the change? Or, how about when something of value is found in a parking lot? Do you keep it, or take it to the lost and found department? If you believe in honesty, your boundary is to seek to live honestly at all times- it is a clear line that is not to be crossed, even by keeping a lost or dishonestly gained item. It also means you will not accept dishonesty from others in your relationships.

Another good example of a boundary that supports the same belief in honesty might be: I will seek to honestly admit my mistakes and make things right whenever possible. That means, for example, that if I ding another’s car in a parking lot, I’ll leave my name and phone number if the other driver cannot be found.

Boundaries ensure each family member takes responsibility for themselves and their own actions.

A second example might be if you believe that respect for one another has merit, then your boundary will include showing respect to those you live with, and teaching family members to respect those outside the family as well. Being respectful means: not taking things without asking, not talking badly about another, not leaving a mess, not calling names or mouthing off. On the positive side, being respectful means: celebrating one another’s successes, helping each other out when it’s needed, asking permission before using something that is not yours, or standing up for other family members. You fill in what you consider to be respectful and disrespectful practices.

Boundaries help us set thoughtful limits to our own behavior, ensuring right behavior in the heat of the moment.

And, as a final example, perhaps you believe that dinner-time is an important time for building family togetherness. A boundary in that regard could be: I will plan and implement dinner for the family every evening, and expect them to be there whenever possible. Thinking a bit ahead to creating a rule that goes along with your belief and boundary: “No one is to make conflicting plans for dinner time, nor accept phone calls or visits from friends during that time.”

Boundaries are about every member of the family, not just about you or your teen. They help us learn when to lovingly say “yes” or “no” when someone or something wants our time, our energy, our money, or our attention.

Sometimes boundaries need to be adjusted as your family grows up, in order to be more age-appropriate, or honed to address a specific problem. Boundaries are not rules, which will be discussed next week. Boundaries apply more to the person, and how you will function within your relationships. They help you take responsibility for your choices, and empower you to set limits with others.

NEXT: We’ll learn about Rules… the management tools that help us accomplish living according our beliefs.

In following articles I’ll also discuss consequences for the times when the rules are broken. You’ll see that laying down rules without your teenager understanding the basic beliefs behind the rules, nor defining specific boundaries and consequences, is simply asking for trouble and growing frustration. You’ll also see that allowing your teen to face the natural consequences for breaking the rules is the number one way to help them learn how to honor your beliefs.

The four-step plan to end family chaos in your home:

Reveal your BELIEFS >> define BOUNDARIES >> establish your RULES>> enforce the CONSEQUENCES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Setting Boundaries With Your Teen

I really like homemade waffles—especially when they’re topped with real butter, Canadian maple syrup, fruit, a pile of nuts… and more waffles. I’m serious as a heart attack about that. But while I love waffles, I hate waffling. And I’m pretty sure God is not big on that either. In James 1:8, we learn that a “double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” And in Matthew 5:37, we read: “Let what you say be simply ‘Yes’ or ‘No’; anything more than this comes from evil.”

This holds true for how we parent our children as well. That’s why when you set boundaries for your kids and teens, you had better make sure that you stick to your guns on whatever boundaries and rules that you’ve set for your family. This includes implementing pre-determined consequences for breaking those rules.

Rules Rule!

No one likes the word “rules.” It sounds—well restrictive. Yet who would argue the need for rules in a court of law, a school classroom, or just about any sport? Without rules, it would be an “anything goes” free-for-all! I’ve got to tell you… I hate stop signs and traffic lights… but I wouldn’t want to live without them.

Raising a family requires rules, too. Children need and want boundaries. The world makes more sense when they know what’s accepted and what’s not. Children feel safer when boundaries are explained and defined. And they find comfort in the consistency of parents who stick to their game plan.

If You Don’t Make the Rules, Someone Else Will

Make no mistake; you absolutely, unequivocally need a parenting game plan. Because if you don’t have rules in place, the world will. And without your rules to follow, they will follow the culture or a peer group that could lead to life-shattering issues. The culture is constantly telling our children they aren’t enough, trying to get them to eat, drink, party and even spend their way into acceptance. Kids often lose their true selves due to social pressures, opting to morph into whatever is popular or acceptable to their peer group. Many teens end up in a personal identity crisis in high school or even middle school, medicating with alcohol, drugs, sex, and other addictions.

So, how do you as parents keep your children from falling prey to these challenges to their true identity? It takes lots of prayer, unconditional love and clearly defined rules. Rules with relationship—because rules without relationship cause rebellion. And the most important relationship your child can ever have on this earth is with you. You—not their peers—need to be their most important role model. They need to have your love and acceptance, and home has to be a safe place for them to land each day after school. They need to know that your rules are designed for their best and that as their parent they can trust and rely on you at all times. And they need to see you living out your life and your faith in an authentic way. You can model being true to yourself, giving them the courage and permission to be real and true to themselves. Your home will then become a place that builds intimacy through love, humility and honesty. With this model, you’ll have a lot less need to exert external controls. Why? Because they’ll want what you have.

Rules for Cyber City

But until they are adults, your children need you to keep external controls in place. As I already stated, kids needs boundaries to feel secure. Take the area of setting boundaries for social media use—a big concern for parents today, and rightly so.

How many times have we heard news stories about pre-teens and teens getting into trouble on the Internet via some form of social media? Increasingly, this trouble is turning deadly. It did for Amanda Todd. At age 15, Amanda committed suicide after years of cyber bullying. She was just eleven-years old when it all began. First, she became a victim of a Facebook predator/blackmailer, and then fellow classmates bullied her—both verbally and physically. Inappropriate photos of herself— that she posted in an impulsive moment —followed her everywhere. No matter how many times she changed schools, she could not escape the torment.

In a televised interview with Amanda’s mother, it was clear that she had no clue as to what her daughter was up to all those years. There Amanda was, alone in her room with unlimited, unrestricted, 24/7 Internet access. She would stare into the video cam with endless fascination and at all hours of the night. When her mother told her that she couldn’t have the video cam, she whined and pouted to the point where her mother finally waffled and gave in. “I lost that fight” she later lamented with deep regret in her voice.

When I was Seventeen, I “Unfriended” My Parents

Honestly, it is all so preventable—if as parents you set boundaries and rules early on for your teens. And then stick to those rules. Drawing lines in the sand, and re-drawing them, and re-drawing them again is pointless as your teen will use your weakened resolve against you. Whatever respect you might have had from them, can be lost completely.

The following is just one example of how an increasing level of earned trust, in the form of setting boundaries, might go down in the area of social media use. (You can read more examples in my book, Tough Guys and Drama Queens.)

When you’re 12 years old, you won’t be able to have a social media page—be it Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or whatever.
When you’re 13 and 14, you can have an account, but you can only check it once a day for 30 minutes (not 30 minutes for each one). We’ll have full access to all your posts, tweets, etc. You must “friend’ us on your Facebook so we’ll know what your posting.
When you’re 15, you can spend one hour a day on social media as long as it doesn’t take away from family time, completing your homework, or keeping you up so late that you can’t get up on your own in the morning. Oh … and we’re still watching!
When you’re 16, no more than two hours on social media and make sure that your language is appropriate.
When you’re 17, it’s all yours. We’re no longer watching. You can “unfriend” us.
When you’re 18, I hope that you’ll accept my “friend” request.

My purpose here in giving you this example is not to turn you into a clone of myself and my own parenting style—rather to give you an idea, or model of what it might look like. I can only tell you that these boundaries have worked well for myself as a parent.

Well Behaved Kids or Healthy Adults?

But again, you need to first have a well-defined worldview. Only then can you add clear boundaries and subtract strictness. In other words, your goal is not to have well-behaved kids, but well-adjusted and spiritually mature adults who have learned how to flesh out their faith in a rapidly changing society. You want them to shine as lights in a dark world. And the only way they can do this, is if you (1) allow your children to be exposed to opposing worldviews while they are still under your influence, (2) to lovingly speak truth to them when they’re exposed to error and (3) to be a strong voice of reason and wisdom.

In short, if you do your “God job” as a parent right, you’ll make that “forbidden fruit” (worldly enticements) as appealing to your teen as a rotten banana—because, after all, home and hearth is where the homemade waffles are!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR