The Accidental Parent, Part VI
(If you’re tuning in for the first time, read the background post, The Accidental Parent: What I Learned from 37 Years of Mistakes.)
By the time you have teenagers, most of your dreams for an Ivy League Football Captain or a Big Break in Hollywood have been tempered a bit by reality. When your child reaches the age of fifteen, you feel pretty much like a bystander trying to keep the rebellious little fool from making the same mistakes you made at that age.
You didn’t make any mistakes? Remember your freshman year in college?
Oh, sorry, didn’t mean to make you blush.
Your child is about to make many of the same mistakes. Let him/her*. When they turn sixteen, they will be gone more than they’re home. You have brief windows of opportunity to help them—make it count.
You’re no longer protecting a child from a cruel world. You’re teaching a young adult how to independently navigate that cruel world.
Here are a few handy tips that might work for you:
1) Adopt a consultant’s attitude: “Our experience shows that clever people do this while simple-minded people do that. Which option do you think works best?” My experience shows that saying, “If you do X, you’re grounded” leads to a grounded child and a parent-as-prison-guard. Not fun. As I’ve grown older, I’ve changed to a proactive plan. “Your friend Mary stayed out past curfew, what punishment do you think her parents should give her?” Or, “What advice would a good friend have given Bob before he put a cherry bomb in the Hamilton’s mailbox?”
2) Not every child succeeds. You can’t make him/her succeed. Some kids have to fail first. And some kids are hell bent on failure. Some kids succeed beyond your wildest dreams. And some kids head off in directions you never thought possible. Your ability to control their direction is extremely limited by the time they turn 15. I put my oldest daughter into a private school with a rigorous academic program. I pushed her very hard. Her grades were good. But her interest spiraled downward. It was not her thing. Eventually, and despite my repeated protests, she became a happy and successful beauty salon owner.
3) Listen to your teen. They might have confused ideology, but you can’t guide them if you don’t know what they believe about big issues like politics, sexuality, morality, abortion, education, marijuana, alcohol, sex, divorce, marriage. Religion. Ask them. Try to stay calm.
4) Don’t argue with a teenager, they don’t have the logic circuits for it. They respond to emotional appeals. They also appreciate being asked to take a stand. “In college, my friend Mary (had/didn’t have) an abortion, a decision she regretted because ___. What do you think she should have done and how would that have affected her life?” Try to stay calm.
5) Keep your mouth shut. What you don’t say has a bigger affect than what you do. You know the old saying, “The two keys to success are: 1) don’t tell them everything you know.” Try it on your teenager. Ask him/her, “What do you think of (insert today’s headline here)?” Listen to him/her, then walk away. They will be interested in your opinion, play hard to get and they’ll hear it better.
6) Don’t manipulate your teenager with money. There are lots of ways to manipulate people. No one likes it. Money is the biggest mistake. If you shower it on your children when they’re good, it teaches them only to manipulate you into giving them money. They’re pretty crafty little devils—you’ll be making a monster. You will fund college (best you can). You will fund Friday night out with the friends. You will fund clothes. None of those things should be based on behavior. Other things (makeup, xbox, gasoline, luxuries), are better funded by a combination of allowance and work outside the home. When a teenager works for someone else, they learn that pay, frugality, value, and attitude are interwoven. I cheerfully underfund anything my children want to do.
7) Then how do I control behavior? You don’t. They do. Try to set a good example.
8) Find religion. Buddhists, Muslims, Atheists, Christians, Jews, Hindus, etc (try not to judge) all have wonderful, welcoming communities. You don’t even need to believe in them to become part of their communities. The point is not the religion as much as the community. When something in your family goes terribly wrong or wonderfully right, having a community built around something larger than the Home Owners Association will make your journey feel better.
9) Charity. Your children will respect that you built a house with Habitat for Humanity (or carried water for those who did) even when they don’t respect you in the least. Not only does it feel good to help other people, but everyone respects that quality in others.
10) Laugh. Why not?
The best parenting advice I’ve ever heard came to me from a janitor at my engagement party. He said, “Remember, if everything goes right, the kids will leave you and the wife won’t.”
Peace, Seeley
* Car crashes, unplanned babies, addictions—I know, all kinds of things can go wrong, but what can go right will surprise you.
