Parenting Teens with Love and Logic

“Please clean up your room.”

“I don’t want to”

“Clean your room now!”

“No!”

“If you don’t clean up your room I will take your phone away!”

“Go ahead! I don’t care!”

..sigh..

You know the feeling all too well- that “tug of war” with your growing teen as you try to navigate these challenging years and all that comes with them.  Can parenting your teen be a positive experience? Is parenting teens with love and logic possible? How can we maintain and nurture the emotional connection to our teens AND hold them accountable for their actions?What are responsible parents supposed to do in this situation? You worry that if you are too rigid and inflexible, your teenager will resent you and push back even more. You are also aware that if you give in too easily, they may take advantage and walk all over you. 

Parenting teens with love and logic step 1: Notice the Power struggle

When we ask our teenager to clean up their room, it may seem to us that we are asking them to do an incredibly basic and easy thing that should not take that long, however, what we’re actually trying to do is establish control. When they say ‘no’ to you, they are in turn trying to exert control. If you pull the rope too strongly you don’t feel as though you can win and if you allow your teenager to win the match, a  power imbalance will likely develop in your household; ‘so you dig, they dig’- emotions are heightened and both parties are locked in to the power struggle of not losing ground.

The good news is that there is a critical third option in parenting your teen with love and logic; just simply “drop the rope” and disengage in a healthy, consistent way.  The key behind this concept is that your relationship with your teen is the most important thing in this situation and that power can be shared. 

Parenting teens with love and logic Step 2: Consistency 

The growing teenage brain thrives on consistency and predictability. Having this experience at home reduces stress and anxiety, and opens the lines of communication tremendously. If you are skeptical about this, just think about your teen’s favorite sport or video game to play. Having a set structure of objectives, expectations, and natural consequences is part of why kids in particular enjoy these activities so much. They understand that they are able to learn a finite number of microskills which can then be applied to a goal within a certain set of boundaries or natural consequences. Imagine if every time your teen fouled in a sport, the referee gave a different consequence based on their emotional reaction to the penalty? Imagine if every time your child’s favorite video game character died, a brand new level appeared with entirely new rules and boundaries? We can all agree that if sports and video games were formulated this way, kids would likely become frustrated and quit. 

The very same holds true in your household when it comes to parenting. Whether you see yourself as a “strict” or “laid back” parent is of little consequence. What is imperative, however, is establishing predictability and consistency in your home as much as possible.

Parenting teens with love and logic step 3: create and agreement and establish buy-in

Have a sit down with your teen and present them with 5-10 of the most important expectations at home including expected time frames (i.e. “clean your room by bedtime tonight”) with accompanying equivalent, natural, agreed upon consequences.

There is not so much a “right” or “wrong” set of household expectations; what is important is ensuring that they are clear, relatively objective, and predictable just like the rules of a  sporting event or video game. By honing in on 5-10 specific, measurable expectations, you are also maintaining your own peace by not having to remember an exorbitant list and feel like a compliance officer. It is also important that your teen agrees to this, so you may want to give them some time to think and present their thoughts. You don’t have to agree with what they come back with, but you can take your time to integrate their thoughts, feelings and opinions and if it makes sense to you- negotiate- but only if it is logical to you. 

If your teen breaks an agreed upon rule or fails to meet an expectation, the agreed upon consequence comes into play with very little need for any ineffective back-and-forth dialogue or argument. 

Spoiler alert: when you try to roll this new framework out during a family meeting, your child is going to test you at first. Stay consistent in the plan you have developed and model the same emotional regulation you are hoping to see in your child. You will absolutely notice a difference in how much boundaries are pushed once your child realizes that old manipulative behaviors just won’t get a rise out of you anymore. The excitement of winning the tug of war is gone for them, and parenting your teen can feel less like a battle for authority infused with conflict and hurt feelings. 

Parenting teens with love and logic step 4:  Hit the “Reset” Button

Instead of constantly pulling on the rope and meeting resistance, you can ask yourself” “Why am I pulling here?” If this piece is striking a chord, you have likely been consumed with a variety of emotions surrounding your teen’s challenging behavior. Raising a teenager is an extremely challenging endeavor and your emotions around it are very valid. It is also very important to model what you hope to see in your child, however modeling requires that you are in a grounded place emotionally. Just as it wouldn’t be appropriate for a sporting event referee to bring personal issues into the match or hold grudges against a player for something that occurred in last week’s game, you also need to meet each interaction with fresh, objective eyes. While your child is working on her or himself, reflect on your own stress, anxiety, or other challenges.

How are you, really? What are you doing for self-care and rejuvenation? A global pandemic, homeschooling, working from home, not knowing what rules and expectations apply anymore after your child spent so much time without their peers, the stressors we face as adults are endless, and sometimes there is no pause button- we have to intentionally create the pause.  How are you modeling stress management in your household? What do you need from your closest people in order to feel supported? Are you asking for what you need? It’s ok to model self care to your teenager by engaging in those activities that bring you closer to yourself and less reactive or connected to the external day to day conditions. Many of us can agree that the old adage “do as I say, not as I do” is both frustrating and ineffective. If you are struggling with your own stress due to work or other areas of your busy life, consider how much time you are devoting to unwinding and rejuvenating. Speaking with a therapist is a fabulous way to demonstrate through action, not word, that there is nothing your child needs to be ashamed of about getting support for their own struggles.

Parenting with love and logic step 5: Consistent, Genuine Recognition

As your child initially tests boundaries to see if you are serious about this new consistent model, you will begin to notice small but certain behavioral changes at home. Be sure to positively reinforce these in a genuine, specific, and consistent manner.

Avoid standard praise such as “good job” or “thank you” and dig a bit deeper for a more well-thought, heartfelt appreciation. You may think: “should my teenager really be recognized for doing the things they are expected to do?” The answer is absolutely.

We don’t need to over inflate something relatively small in a disingenuous way, but taking ten seconds to voice specific appreciation goes a long way with your child who desperately wants your approval despite the tension that may be present at times.

If we want to see amazing growth in a young person, we have got to nurture each step of the journey in the same way that we would nurture a plant from a small sapling until it is big and strong enough to grow tall on its own. It also shifts the power dynamic to a place from where both parties can benefit, as it highlights the positive, thus creating more of the energy that generated the positive behavior to begin with. A lot of times teens say things like: “They only notice when I do the wrong things, and don’t pay attention to when I get it right”. This can build resentment on their end and sets up the situation for picking up their end of the rope and rebelling from that anger.  Genuine reinforcement can sound like: “I noticed how much effort you put into studying for that test”. 

In summary, be confident that instead of pushing and pulling in a “tug of war” match that only results in everyone feeling exhausted and frustrated, you can wisely choose the less obvious third option of “dropping the rope” by remaining consistent in your approach and refusing to argue back and forth in an unproductive way. Lay out the household expectations and apply natural consequences consistently, avoid lengthy ineffective and unnecessary dialogue, model the behavior you wish to see including self-care, and recognize the positive behavior changes that are sure to follow no matter how small. Every context in which we thrive comes with a set of rules, expectations, parameters and natural consequences for it to work, including their classroom and our work cultures; your home is no different and your teenagers know that at some level you are not asking for a lot when you have basic expectations of their behavior; remember when in a tug of war, drop the rope. We hope that this small introductory framework for communicating with your teen leads to the more harmonious household you so hope for.

~ Connor Wills M.Ed, LAC, NCC