Putting the parental “N” word back into use. Tough Love Parenting. Learning to say NO to your teenagers.
After the Thanksgiving Holiday we are all back to our individual lives, having had to suffer through the enforced ritual of togetherness imposed on us in our family gatherings or at the holiday dinner table. Those of us of more advanced age who were faced with teenagers (and their permissive parents) at the holiday table were sure to be dismayed by the lack of any semblance of polite behavior among our nation’s youth and of the self imposed impotence of parents.
Their teenage heads bowed over their tiny screens, their thumbs feverishly working the micro key board, not one of these kids paused to look up from the rectangles of blue light to greet a new arrival, to thank the host, to nod a “thank you’ to the server, or utter any signs of gratitude or appreciation for the many delicacies placed before them-the result of hours of hard work. Not one of them manifested even a passing interest in giving up their digital activities (either passive mouth-gaping observation of some electronic game or feverish text-messaging) for actual interaction or communication with the live people sitting next to them around the table. They apparently preferred the digital world— and no one in the room had the authority or temerity to alter their impolite behavior. What will become of these individuals?
Their parents, if they were not themselves occupied in a similar manner, were unable to alter their child’s behavior to a more socially acceptable one. A parental request such as: “Johnny please put that phone away” was generally met with a muffled child-grunt, but no change in behavior. Any further, more direct and firm parental requests would be dangerous to the parent’s reputation. Since it would too often result in a response such as: “Don’t bother me Mom”—revealing just how little control, respect or.direction the parent had over the child. Any more firm and direct parental request would be just further verification of how out of control so called “parenting” is.
Modern parents apparently try to be “buddies”, accomplices, and co-actors with their still-developing charges rather than asserting authority. In fact “authority, or control” seems to be two other banned words.
The result is that not one of these so-called “parents” knows how to say “NO” with finality and determination.
The word “NO” seems to have become the parental “N” word forever banned to the dustbin of history. Parental permissiveness and fear of asserting themselves —being an authoritarian” —-have left children to decide for themselves what they—with their inexperienced and still developing minds to decide what is permissible or appropriate —if they were to ever think about such things.
The facts are that children are still developing. Their brains are not fully wired. As teenagers —many psychologists claim—these developing humans are prone to excesses and irrational behavior. Perhaps, as these scientists suggest, childhood lack of control and tendency to push the limits of behavior are part of an evolved human development that thousands of years ago encouraged childhood innovation and experimentation. Such behaviors sometimes led to positive results—a new food source, or a better route to the spring—but it more often than not had failed and deadly results too...but the human family could afford those losses at that time. Today those tendencies have to be put under more control. However, modern parents with their often more than two decades of (hopefully) mental growth and experience are loath to use or even assert that extra brain power and life experience to direct their still mentally unformed progeny to a more survivable modern life style.
For hundred of thousands of years human parents have been (yes) controlling and (yes) directing their off-spring to prepare them for survival. The ancients knew that they could not simply push their progeny to the edge of the cave and expect them to survive in the wilderness. Not a chance. In the last several decades however, modern parents seem to have done just that. They have abandoned their essential responsibility to the new generation and left them—with their young brains still incomplete and developing—to their own devices and behavior patterns.
For modern parents the first thing to accept is that you are the leader...with the fully developed brain and with more than two decades of life experience over your child.
The second thing is to lean how to say “NO” and mean it. You have the power of the purse and the power of parenthood at your disposal. You can restrict access to electronics or encourage them to pick up after themselves, do some chores around the house, keep their rooms neat, perhaps even be responsible for their own possessions. Each interaction can be a learning experience for them.
The third factor is to practice TOUGH LOVE. You must honestly decide what is best for this child. Not what is best for you or the easy way out. Then do that. You can’t be a buddy. You can be a friend— you are the parent. That requires you to make honest best-decisions for a still incompletely formed youngster that will in your best assessment benefit that child when he or she is an adult .
That might mean insisting the child pursues their piano lessons, or joins a travel team, or does not do those things. It may not be easy to do but the question to answer is: what is best for this child?
Big responsibility!..But fully worthwhile endeavor.
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