Parenting Teenagers (from Dr. James Dobson)

1. The adolescent years represent a transition period that will soon pass.

2. Don’t be discouraged when the storms are raging.

3. Pry open the door of communication.

4. Keep them moving.

Not only should adolescents be busy doing constructive things, but they desperately need personal connectedness to their family. Every available study draws this conclusion. When parents are involved intimately with their kids during the teen years and when their relationship leads to an active family life, rebellious and destructive behavior is less likely to occur. Drs. Blake Bowden and Jennie Zeisz studied 527 teenagers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital to learn what family and lifestyle characteristics were related to mental health and adjustment. Their findings were significant.

Adolescents whose parents ate dinner with them five times a week or more were the least likely to be on drugs, depressed, or in trouble with the law. They were more likely to be doing well in school and surrounded by a supportive circle of friends. By contrast, the more poorly adjusted teens ate with their parents only three evenings a week or less. What Bowden’s study shows is that children do far better in school and in life when they spend time with their parents, and specifically when they get together almost everyday for conversation and interaction.

This is one of the most effective tools for helping your teen through the dangerous years of adolescence. And, yes, it works with strong-willed children, too.

Use incentives and privileges to advantage. One of the most common mistakes parents of rebellious kids make is allowing themselves to be drawn into endless verbal battles that leave them exhausted but without strategic advantage. Since it is unwise (and unproductive) to spank a teenager, parents can manipulate environmental circumstances when discipline is required. They have the keys to the family automobile (unless the teen has her own car, taking away a prize bargaining chip) and can allow their teenager to use it. They may grant permission to go to the beach or to the mountains or to a friend’s house or to a party. They control the family purse and can choose to share it or loan it or dole it or close it. They can ground their adolescent or deny use of the telephone.

Now, obviously, these are not very influential motivators and are at times totally inadequate for the situation. After we have appealed to reason, cooperation, and family loyalty, all that remain are relatively ineffective methods of punishment. We can only link our kids’ behavior with desirable and undesirable consequences and hope the connection will be enough to elicit their cooperation.

Despite what the perception may be, teenagers desperately want to be connected to their parents during the tumultuous years of adolescence.

Let me share an experience from my own life that I included in my book Bringing Up Boys. When I was sixteen years old, I began to play some games that my mother viewed with alarm. I had not yet crossed the line into all-out rebellion, but I was definitely leaning in that direction. My father was a minister who traveled constantly during that time, and Mom was in charge. One night, we had an argument over a dance I wanted to go to, and she objected. I openly defied her that night. I said, in effect, that I was going and if she didn’t like it, that was just too bad. Mom became very quiet, and I turned in a huff to go into my bedroom. I paused in the hall when I heard her pick up the phone and call my dad, who was out of town. She simply said, “I need you.”

What happened in the next few days shocked me down to my toes. My dad canceled his four-year speaking schedule and put our house up for sale. Then he accepted a pastoral assignment seven hundred miles south. The next thing I knew, I was on a train heading for Texas and a new home in the Rio Grande Valley. That permitted my dad to be at home with me for my last two years of high school. During these years we hunted and fished together and bonded for a lifetime. There in a fresh environment, I made new friends and worked my way through the conflict that was brewing with my mom. I didn’t fully understand until later the price my parents paid to do what was best for me. It was a very costly move for them, personally and professionally, but they loved me enough to sacrifice at a critically important time. In essence, they saved me. I was moving in the wrong direction, and they pulled me back from the cliff. I will always appreciate these good people for what they did.

Be willing to take whatever corrective action is required during the adolescent years, but to do it without nagging, moaning, groaning, and growling. Let love be your guide! Even though it often doesn’t seem like it, your teen desperately wants to be loved and to feel connected to you. Anger does not motivate teenagers. That is why the parent or teacher who can find the delicate balance between love and firm discipline is the one who ends up winning the heart of teenagers. The adult who screams and threatens but does not love is only going to fuel teenage rebellion.

(The remainder of this article can be found on Dr James Dobson's website Family Talk - 4 Tips for Parenting Teenagers)

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