I've Had It Up to Here with Teenagers (6 page)

Parents differ in how they respond. One size does not fit all. You have to find what works for your kid and your family. The important things are to find the consequence that will work and to impose it consistently and as often as necessary to get the result you want: a happy, responsible, self-supporting adult who doesn't live in your basement when he or she grows up.

As far as I can tell, there's no magic recipe. It's a complicated mixture of carrots and sticks. You want to motivate and inspire like a sweet mama does, but you also want to come down like a ton of bricks on issues regarding safety, unkindness, laziness, and sheer cussedness. I wish I could tell you what to do. If I ever figure it all out, I'll get a memo out ASAP. I can tell you only what has worked for me, the mean mama.

When kids are still in single digits, consequences are relatively easy to apply. You can redirect, distract, or remove the temptation or the kid from the situation. Consequences are usually immediate, which is how it should be. Yesterday is ancient history to a
toddler. Little kids live in environments controlled by parents. I loved parenting my kids at that age. I'm a big fan of control. Time-out worked for me. I have friends who ask, “How did you make them stay in time-out?” I don't know how to answer that. My kids never got up until I told them they could. I found it easy to manage toddlers. They're not hard to outsmart. I'm a resourceful woman. Also, little kids crave their parents' approval. They actively seek to please. Don't you love that about them? I do.

Teenagers are another matter entirely. It's a quick ride from Play-Doh to prom night. Suddenly, you're there. Teaching teenagers the consequences of their actions is like going straight from peewee football to the NFL draft with no stops in between. You have to hang tough and be ready to hit whatever comes over the plate. You have to field whatever comes at you. (I don't know what's with all the sports metaphors. They just feel right.)

Teenagers have quick reflexes and little to lose. They think fast on their feet. They're clever, and they were born technologically savvy. The best you can do is try to keep up. They can text with their cell phones in their pockets or under the table while you are talking to them about something else entirely. The kids you love more than your next breath will lie to your face with the audacity of antique dealers. They aren't inherently bad deep down inside—way deep down. It's just that they are wholly, completely, and totally absorbed in themselves. They want to do what they want to do, whether or not it is a good idea, whether or not they could get killed doing it, and whether or not the timing is right. The fact that they aim to please only themselves means that, quite often, what they want to do runs right smack into what you told them not to do. That's when things get sticky. They have to
choose
to do the right thing.

At our house, we are all about choices. “You always have a choice,” I tell my kids. “If someone holds a gun to your head, you have a choice.” The problem is that the choices stink. You can do what the gunman wants, or you can risk getting shot. No matter how much I talk about alcohol, drugs, sex, and other dangers, my teenagers ultimately have to decide for themselves how they are going to behave. The challenge for me is to convince them to choose wisely. “When you make a choice,” I tell my kids, “you better be able to live with the consequences—in the big world and at home.” It's a toss-up whom they fear more: me or God Almighty. “You always have to pay the piper,” I remind them. With regard to sex, for example, I say, “Please don't allow ten minutes of fun result in eighteen years of child rearing. Once you have a child, that kid's needs become more important than yours. Got it?” You can't be vague with teenagers. You have to lay it on the line and hope they pick up what you put down.

Disciplining teenagers requires subtlety and creativity. You have to find a way to get them where it hurts without actually hurting them. I've found one of the most vulnerable areas on a teenager is the plug-in soft spot. My teenagers are attached to their cell phones, iPods, computers, and televisions with umbilical cords. One of the fastest ways to get their attention is to cut that cord. I promise you one thing: if you do this, your teenagers will pay attention to you. They may yell like they're being hacked to death with machetes, but they will hear what you have to say. Remind them that Mama giveth and Mama taketh away. It's all about finding the balance between rewards and consequences. It's a delicate dance.

Like most families, our run-of-the-mill, go-to consequence is grounding. In a nutshell, that means the teenager is restricted to
the home front for whatever time period we designate. The teenager goes to school and whatever activity or event other people depend upon him or her for (why punish the whole baseball team because my kid misbehaved?), but that's all. His or her social life comes to a grinding halt. Sometimes, the kid gets to keep phone, television, or computer privileges, sometimes not. It depends on the nature and the magnitude of the crime. Was there premeditation? Was actual malice involved, or was it just a bonehead, spur-of-the-moment impulse? Was it a have-you-lost-your-mind choice or merely a what-were-you-thinking transgression?

The downside for the rest of the family is that the gloomy, bad-tempered, grounded teen is confined to the house—where everyone lives. On more than one occasion, a grounded teen in our home has added time to his or her sentence by behaving poorly while still under house arrest. It happens. Some monkeys learn faster than others.

Unlike most mamas, I do not allow grounded teenagers to lounge around. In my view, whatever the teen has done to result in a consequence of significance has caused harm to the family as a whole. The peace of the home has been disrupted—usually by screaming, at the very least. As a consequence, that teenager owes reparation to the family. In other words, the teen has some making up to do. My kids are assigned jobs when they are grounded. I'm not talking make-work either. I mean real work. We live in an old house. Something always needs work.

We have three children and two parents in our family. Every day, more work needs to be done than two parents can possibly do, no matter what time we get up in the morning (while the teenagers who kept us up all night sleep in). Therefore, I always have a to-do list on my desk. On that list are small jobs and big jobs, dirty jobs
and clean(ing) jobs, outside work and inside work, mindless tasks and you-must-be-smart-to-handle-this jobs. Every second that the grounded teen is not eating, sleeping, or going to school is time that can be spent working and improving the world around them. If I can't think of anything appropriate (hasn't ever happened and never will), I'll farm my kids out to elderly neighbors like indentured servants. We're all about giving back to the community.

My kids have frequently been sentenced to spend the day polishing silver. I am especially quick to assign this punishment if we have a dinner party coming up soon. My kids have learned to be especially well behaved the day before a party. You'd be amazed how well those slim adolescent fingers can get into crevices with an old toothbrush to polish antique filigree. It's good for them to learn a new life skill, silver polishing, while serving a sentence for misbehaving. I love to double-dip. It is twice as satisfying. The result: clean silver and a repentant, silver-savvy teen. It's win-win.

Another obvious choice for punishment is yard work. This is particularly helpful if your teen is vocal about how unfairly he or she believes the imposed consequence is. If he's composing a letter to The Hague accusing you of crimes against humanity, tell him to take it outside. In the great outdoors, he can vent to the earth and sky to his heart's content. It's a cleansing exercise. Let him get it all out of his system while digging a hole for your new gardenia bush. You don't have to listen.

My kids can mow grass, plant flowers, trim borders, fertilize, and use the weed whacker and the blower. It is helpful to have a big job like yard work in your back pocket in case all the kids in your house misbehave at once or in the event they were all in on the same crime. If you want to make an especially memorable experience, I suggest the removal of a large bush or small tree. They're
not easy to dig up. It's a dirty, sweaty job, even for an adult. It's particularly daunting if the shovel is taller than the kid holding it. Keep a list of jobs stored in your head. You never know when a teenager will screw up next. You might as well get something good out of it.

When one of my teens snuck out of the house using his bedroom window after coming in for his curfew on time, the sneak, I was shocked and furious, but a fitting punishment popped almost instantly to my mind, as if it had been planted there by God himself. I explained that since my teen was so familiar with the workings of the window and screen, he could put that knowledge to good use the next weekend by removing all the screens and washing all the windows in our home. I thought the punishment fit the crime in a tidy manner. It's nice when there's an ironic theme to the grounding. I do love a clever consequence.

Another time, my son's consequence was to spring-clean the porch—a big job, since it was the first cleanup after winter. It was easily a five-hour punishment. The pollen was so thick that the floor looked yellow. All of the furniture had to be removed from the porch, washed, and later returned. The cushions and pillows had to be cleaned. The walls had to be swept of cobwebs and washed. It was a filthy job. After issuing specific instructions and providing the cleaning equipment, I went about my day, confident that justice was being done and pleased that I'd also get a clean porch out of the deal.

After an hour or two, I heard my son talking to the neighbor who lives next door. I like my neighbor. He's a young doctor. He has two baby girls. Unfortunately, I think he's just a heartbeat away from calling the authorities to report us for child abuse. When he sees my kids working, he looks visibly appalled.
Just you wait
, I always think to myself.

“Hey,” he said to my son, tentatively.

“Hey,” my son answered as he tied a white T-shirt around his nose and mouth to keep the pollen out. I had heard him sneezing nonstop for over an hour. About sixty used tissues were wadded up on the swing, where he had thrown them in between swipes he was making with the mop. (This kid has the strongest work ethic of my three. He's big, muscular, and strong like only high-school athletes in the peak of condition can be. I always get better results when he's the one in trouble. The boy does great work.)

“Son, are you having an allergy attack?” my neighbor asked, the picture of a concerned physician. “I have some Claritin if you need it.”

“No, sir, I'm okay,” my son said.

My neighbor couldn't stand it. He had to know.

“Do you just like helping your parents out, or what? That's a big job you've got there,” he pointed out—trying, I suppose, to gauge whether he should make an anonymous call to DHR or just go ahead and dial 911 and let the police sort it out.

Time to intervene
, I thought.

I started walking toward the porch. I felt a little bad about the pollen. I knew one of my kids was really allergic, but I'd forgotten which one. I might have crossed a line there. Ideally, none of my punishments is designed to send any kid to the emergency room.

Before I opened the door, I heard my son's response: “Oh, no, sir, I don't like cleaning. This is a
consequence
.”

Well. What a good boy! I couldn't have said it better myself. You have to love a kid who responds like that. Lord knows, I do.

The next consequence I impose will be Christmas card labels. My current list is a big, fat mess. It will take many painful hours to organize. My kids have better computer skills than I do. The next time somebody gets in trouble, he or she is going to spend the
weekend working on Christmas card labels. As a bonus, it will be a good reminder of how much we value our many, many extended family members. As my child sorts through the names and addresses of distant relatives, we'll review the whole family history together.

Doesn't that sound like fun?

 

1.
“My brother/sister did the exact same thing, and he/she didn't get in trouble at all!”

2.
“You should see what other kids do! I'm an angel compared to some of my friends!”

3.
“You can't ground me until I'm thirty! That's ridiculous!”

4.
“You should just trust me!”

5.
“Just because other kids were drinking doesn't mean I was!”

6.
“You can't be mad at me because of what someone else posts on my Facebook wall!”

7.
“When I have kids, I'm going to let them do/pick/wear/go wherever/whatever they want!”

8.
“You're totally overreacting! Nobody got hurt. This punishment isn't fair!”

9.
“I didn't do anything wrong!”

10.
“It wasn't even my fault!”

11.
“Nobody else's mom grounded them!”

 

O
ne of the hardest things about parenting teenagers is: other people. They make my job more difficult than it has to be. I hate that. My teenagers' friends, other kids' parents, older siblings, cousins, grandparents, even actors, rock stars, musicians, and models—every person and her hair stylist has an opinion on the best way to parent teenagers.

It's like squirting lighter fluid on the grill when one of my teenagers says something like, “There's no reason we can't go to that concert at the beach by ourselves! So-and-so's dad says we're plenty old enough!”

In a sarcastic aside to my husband, I reply, “I understand why he wants the boys to go alone. He will be way too busy committing adultery that weekend to take the boys to that concert like he promised.”