Teen Talk, January 19, 2012 – Teens and Discipline
Question:
I am very blessed with two profoundly different teenagers, a seventeen year old girl and a fifteen year old boy. Discipline is a challenge because my son is very dutiful, he just can’t seem to get his clothes in the hamper, and my daughter on the other hand is very independent, bright, but constantly pushing the limits. So discipline for me is always a bit of a challenge. Please give us your comments on discipline in general and how you approach it with parents.
Answer:
Finding a balance in your family with two very different teenagers certainly can be challenging. It means sensitivity to the uniqueness of each personality and creating an environment that does not lend itself to constant punishment but teaching as well. So where do you start?
1. Involve you teens in the conversation well ahead of time working out rules and potential consequences before these infractions appear.
2. Be respectful when having this conversation with teenagers with regards to discipline. You want to avoid humiliating your teen and remember, when developing consequences and discipline, be careful about inconveniencing yourself. If you create a consequence that is too tough, remember you are going to be the one to manage the discipline and consequences of it.
3. Be clear about your expectations and what that means. For example, sometimes you have to give specific examples including, “after the movie I expect you to be home, that does not mean in two hours or three hours, it means between 11:30 and 12:00”. If you give some teens wiggle room like the seventeen year old, you are likely to see her wiggle.
4. Creating a hierarchy of infractions is another way of approaching discipline. For example, hanging out at places you don’t approve of, or harming others is going to lend itself to extreme consequences, whereas lesser infractions like not getting your clothes cleaned just means that you simply will wear dirty clothes. In other words, you will assume responsibility for the natural consequences of your behavior.
5. Grounding is a term that most certainly needs to be defined. Grounding typically is defined by removing your teen from a specific event or setting, and when this rule is established, a consequence should be clear. In other words, “you will not spend time with your friends for the next two weeks”. When a curfew is broken, this is one of those consequences that should be identified up front.
6. Define what grounding means in your household. Ask yourself these questions; does it mean a period of time without school events, without phone calls, without text messages, without social networking, without the computer? Or are some activities okay. For example I have had some parents come in and say well what about church activities as opposed to school activities?
7. When you use grounding as a consequence, make sure that you don’t ground for extreme periods of time. I’ve had families that have grounded youngsters for a year and what they found at the end of that year was that the teen, in short order, participated in that same behavior. 2-3 weeks is probably long enough to get your message across.
8. Grounding experiences should be learning experiences and not punitive ones. Remember that you want these experiences to be ones that they learn from and not necessarily feel continually punished. Remember parents, the operative word here is reasonable. You never want to say, “You are grounded for life” or “you will never see the light of day again”, this consequence will bite you.
9. It is important to provide opportunities to adjust rules and consequences. There are occasions when teens really need the opportunity not only to readjust the rules but to consider ways to let them earn off a particular consequence. Often times parents will come up with an alternative way to help reduce the time frame for the consequence, again this is collaboration.
10. Timing of consequences is essential. Adults and teens differ in their perception of time. As an adult, we’re told to get a project done in two months and we get right on it. Teenagers tend to be deadline driven.
11. Remember, our goal is to send clear messages, manage and guide our teenagers and provide a framework for life. This is part of the framework we talked about when we started the Teen Talk series.
This information provided by Jane Marks & Associates.
