Are You Letting Your Teen Grow Up?
A teen’s job is to struggle for their independence. They struggle to take it from you, their parents. The hard part of the struggle is the struggle. Some parents aren’t giving independence away for free and this is for good reason. You’ve seen them eat dirt at three because their friend told them to. You have your doubts about them taking their independence too far and hurting themselves or someone else. This all may be true, but that isn’t that the point?
The point is to take it too far? Take the risk? At times they must take it too far to understand what their limits are. And who would we have become if we never tried to be all those impossible careers we thought we might be in junior high? The basketball players, musicians, explorers and actors and yet some of us became those people because we dared to think that we could despite the better judgment of our parents to do something more certain or more stable.
For those parents who made mistakes they wouldn’t wish on their enemy, haven’t you learned something even if it was the hard way? If you think back did you seem like you would have learned it the easy way?
Your teen needs to forge their own path. If you clean up the road so well they don’t realize there are trip hazards they will have no confidence to pick themselves up when they finally fall and they will need you forever. The only way they learn how to be resilient is to make mistakes and learn from them, but they need to be allowed to do things where they may make mistakes. They can only learn these lessons when allowed to socialize, have a later curfew as they prove responsible, or give you the well thought out plan for their road trip. It really is better they make these mistakes under your roof, supervision and guidance. They need your guidance not your protection.
When you use the mistakes of yesterday to prevent them from doing things today, you tell them that they should lie to you if they want to have any experiences you don’t approve of. These experiences aren’t necessarily bad, just difficult for you, the parent. This can set off a cycle of trust and mistrust and that is not a good foundation for the parent-teen relationship.
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A good job Doc. My mum needs to read all of these articles. more like “Why Teens Lie”
Mistakes, accidents, stumbles, falls – all part of life for everyone. I am 47 years old and I am STILL making them! I think, too, that rather than point out your teen’s previous mistakes, stumbles, whatever we call them – it is also important to share our own with them. When I tell a story of something that went terribly wrong, or some situation when I’ve been embarassed or said something rash and out of line at work, I think I am showing my teens that those things are going to keep happening. How I react to my own mistakes and shortcomings is an example to them. Do I give up or do I figure out how to “fix” a situation? Do I hold grudges? Do I forgive and forget? Do I dwell on it for days and days?
When our teens stumble, and they do, I try to relate it to something I’ve done and how I resolved it – always telling them that MY way may not be THEIR way.
What is funny is how we all make mistakes growing up, but what you all forget is our parents gave us freedoms because we were honest with them and fessed up when caught and owned up to what we did and took our punishment. We respected them. These days there are more excuses than ever and kids never own up to what they do wrong. We called our parents, and we loved and appreciated them. Today, kids are too grown and want too much freedoms to make mistakes like drugs, drinking, fighting, bullying, and sex. Granted that stuff was there when we grew up, but it was not prevalent and the thing to do behind your parents back. Everything is relative and today with internet and social networking capabilities the focus is all on phoniness and trying to get over on your parents. WE wanted to have fun and did not harm anyone and we cared about feelings. Kids don’t give a damn about their parents, don’t appreciate how hard they work but yet want everything handed to them without hard work. Lessons are learned from hard work and common sense not stupid ass or smart ass attitudes thinking you know something and screwing up your life not just your the moment in time. Focus and concentration on education is gone. It is sad times. I agree about freedoms, but do your work and respect and then you can be trusted. Kids are going to lie even in the best households that have everything as close to perfect. IT is in their very nature and part of growing up. Bringing up the past and not dwelling on it but using it as history of events and consequences only teaches them right from wrong. If you think for one moment a child will get it the first time around then you are crazy. You have to remind them over and over again as life will remind them with its harsh coldness. Come on now, when they live at home, that is the time to explain and try to reason with them even though they think differently. Eventually and enough experiences screwing up over and over it will sink in. You cannot learn by constantly falling…you fall some you get back up. You cannot get back up without a support system that does teach you through their experiences and history. The problem also with just explaining your experiences kids thinks oh if they did it, it must be okay for me. You know how many times I have heard that. It is amazing that they only say this during rebellion and not during the good times and educational experiences. Excuses, I say. When it is convenient, that is when it will be used against you. Children need to suck it up and own up. Back in the day parents, friends parents, teachers did not put up with smart asses and stupid behavior. Yes, I said stupid. Kids are taught right from wrong and to listen to and constantly act like each other and against parents is counter-productive and parents not disciplining and constantly letting their kids know what they do wrong and give consequences we are a generation of its not my fault, it was not me…..look at politicians, parents, bosses, etc….we are the role models and spoiling them doesn’t help either. Since when did kids control the house because they want their way without hard work? Since when do we relinquish everything and spoil them rotten to the core where they have lost all sense of humanity and feelings. Most kids don’t give a damn and will hurt anyone that gets in their way. It’s our fault…and if you let them just run wild and free totally without rules, guidance and history, you are setting them up for failure later on. You let them stumble….key word stumble, not fall flat on their face to self destruction where they become undereducated, uncompetitive, emotionless human beings. Care enough to give them age appropriate leeway and let them grow further and further over the years. There is a balance and it’s is sites like this that rationalize why teenagers lie….and make up stories….But I guess we all have our opinions and there is not perfect way. It is a matter of what you want for your children. Nobody wants lies, but lets face it, they will anyway especially when they give no reason whatsoever in their history to trust them. Why now? Trust is earned as well as other things in life. Let’s get real you need to learn the fundamentals of life…first then you can take chances. Enough said for now.