One of the more entertaining moments of my parenting experience has been helping my children learn to ride a bike. Although each of them took to two wheels in their own unique way, my assistance always involved the dilemma of when and how to let go, when to hold them up and when to let them fall. One child would get mad at me for holding on, another hardly needed help at all. One would yell at me for giving intentionally vague answers to her repeated queries to whether I was holding on or not, and one will never let me forget that I steered him right into a bush! By the fourth child I was ready to search the yellow pages for Riders Training Classes!
The transition to young adulthood is never quite the same for everyone and parents often live with a subtle terror as they experiment with how much freedom and control to let their children have.
Teens need parents to uphold a clear but evolving set of boundaries. It is important to maintain important family rules and values, but also to encourage increased competence and maturity. The trick is finding the appropriate balance of personal decision-making and problem solving with guidance and limits.
One of the classic
Calvin and Hobbes cartoon strips has Calvin soberly addressing his parents who are reading on the couch, "What assurance do I have that your parenting isn't screwing me up?" For those of you with your own not so little Calvin the Center for Health Communication at the Harvard School of Public Health has issued a concise report compiled from more than 300 reviews of research on teen development,
"Raising Teens: A Synthesis of Research and a Foundation for Action." The Harvard Project found that the manner in which parents contribute significantly to healthy adolescent development fall into five general categories: love and connect, monitor and observe, guide and limit, model and consult, and provide and advocate.
Two principles emerged in the research as influencing the effectiveness of limit setting. The first is that parents should combine rules and expectations with respect and responsiveness. In other words, "love and limits" need to go together; neither is nearly as effective without the other. Adolescents benefit from parents explaining the reasoning behind their rules and listening to their opinions and beliefs. At times this can be a difficult conversation. Teens vigorously question rules and limits as they struggle to achieve a sense of identity, apply abstract reasoning and redefine their personal relationships. As one author has said, "There's nothing wrong with teenagers that reasoning with them won't aggravate!" Yet the process of providing and discussing limits based on protection and guidance more than punishment and power helps your teen to grow in maturity.
The second principle in regards to effective limit setting is to combine firmness with flexibility. Rules concerning safety and security of your teen and family need to be firm, yet others should flexibly allow for your teens increasing competence and decision-making capacity. Let them learn from their mistakes. The mantra I encourage parents of adolescents to chant is "Choose your battles wisely." In the overall scheme of life, some things are not worth the fight.
The following strategies should help you learn to loosen up but not let go:
- Maintain family or house rules, upholding some non-negotiable rules around issues like safety and central family values, while negotiating other rules around issues like household tasks and schedules.
- Communicate expectations that are high, but realistic.
Choose battles and ignore smaller issues in favor of more important ones, such as drugs, school performance, and sexually responsible behavior. - Use discipline as a tool for teaching, not for venting or taking revenge.
- Restrict punishment to forms that do not cause physical or emotional injury.
- Renegotiate responsibilities and privileges in response to your teen's changing abilities, turning over some areas to the teen with appropriate monitoring.
Each child enters adolescents a little differently, but there are a few general principles that can increase the odds of launching your child as a caring, competent young adult. It involves a delicate balance of increasing freedom and decreasing control. Sort of like helping them learn how to ride a bike. It may include a few bumps and bruises but it really is an exciting time . . . just watch out for the bushes!
Orginally posted at www.coloradodads.com