Kathryn then went back to Jeremy and expressed her confidence in him and her sympathy for his situation (he loved the girl in many ways—even though it was an unhealthy relationship). She offered to help in any way he’d like. Within a few weeks, Jeremy decided to take a leave of absence from school and to go work with his father, who lived in another state, to make it easier to end his relationship. He came back a semester later, finished college, and started on a successful career in law enforcement.
Now it doesn’t always work out this ideally, but by conveying to Jeremy that she trusted him to make his own decisions and learn from his mistakes, Kathryn opened herself up to being a resource and sounding board.
Here’s Why It’s Hard: Frequently Asked Questions
As you can imagine, we have many conversations with parents who struggle with relinquishing control. At times as a parent, emotions will flood your thinking and none more so than fear. Fear will cause you to fret, What if he chooses the wrong thing? What if he gets hurt? What if he’s unhappy? What if I lose him? We’re parents and we get it. We’ve been scared ourselves, too. That’s why we’ve devoted this next section to the areas where parents really get stuck. In our responses, you’ll see how “It’s your call” plays out in the real world all the time.
“Last week my fifteen-year-old daughter was at a party where the kids were drinking. She drank too much, passed out, and got a concussion from hitting her head on the floor. She clearly doesn’t make good decisions. I don’t see how I can say to her, ‘Honey I want you to decide for yourself’ when she used such poor judgment.”
Let’s consider the options. First, you could conclude that your daughter isn’t capable of making good decisions and needs to be more closely supervised and that you need to step in until she shows better judgment. This generally doesn’t go well, in part because unless you hire a private investigator, you can’t really know if your daughter is doing things she’s not supposed to do. It’s very difficult to monitor teenagers 24/7. So while we strongly support letting your daughter know that she won’t be going to a party for the next month or so, we suggest that you express confidence in her ability to learn from her experience. Share your concerns about her safety and give her an article or ask her to watch a YouTube video about what binge drinking does to a developing brain. Remind her that you can’t protect her from the many dangerous things in life. Tell her you will always be willing to pick her up from a party or to send her home in a cab or an Uber if she feels pressured to do things she doesn’t want to do, but avoid giving her the message that she can’t be trusted because she used poor judgment that night. You want to help her learn from her mistakes.
Now here’s the really hard part: What if she does it again? What about kids who seem to continually make poor decisions? Believe it or not, this is rare. We only want kids to make informed decisions and will override a child’s decision if it seems crazy. But if your child is repeatedly making the same bad decision, then it’s even more important that they practice exercising judgment—with your help—so they can get better. If frequent chemical use is a problem, remember, all bets are off and you need to intervene. For most judgment lapses, though, we suggest asking Dr. Phil’s question, “How’d that work for you?” and discussing ways to make better decisions next time.
“I feel like if I don’t come down hard on my child for misbehavior, if I don’t tighten the reins, I’m letting her get away with it and she’ll learn the wrong lesson.”
This isn’t necessarily true. A child does not have to receive a negative consequence for every misbehavior in order to learn which behaviors work well in this world. Bill will never forget when his daughter was six and participating in a day-care program. When it was time to leave, Bill’s daughter passively refused to clean up. Bill encouraged her to do so and tried to explain logically why it was important for her to do her part. Eventually, he told her that they couldn’t go home until she did. After a standoff of seven or eight more minutes, one of the parent volunteers at the child-care program said, “Bill, who’s winning?” at which point Bill cleaned up the toys and took his daughter home. When it comes to discipline, nothing works every time.
“If my son makes a really bad decision, he could be stunted for life.”
If a thirty-year-old came into Bill’s office and said that his life had been wasted because he’d made a bad decision in the eighth grade, or in high school, and had closed off all his options, Bill would say, “Buddy, get over it. You still have plenty of opportunities to shape your life.” Bill shares this hypothetical with kids who are panicked by a seemingly insurmountable setback, and also with their panicked parents.
This question speaks to one of the assumptions we need to get to the bottom of: that life is a race with one clear route to the finish line. That’s simply not true. We understand that children develop at different rates physically and mentally and the same is true of the rest of their development. Molly, for instance, was a bright but fairly sheltered high schooler who went nuts when she found the freedom of college. She performed so poorly her first semester that her parents told her they would stop paying for her tuition unless she improved her grades. Molly worked herself to the bone for her remaining three and a half years of undergrad to undo the GPA damage she’d done in that first semester. It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun. When she interviewed for medical school admission, she was repeatedly questioned about her poor first-semester grades. She explained that she’d gone off the rails a bit, but emphasized how proud she was that she had clawed her way back from the brink, and said that it was the most character-building experience of her life. She knows now what she’s capable of. As you can guess, Molly was admitted to an excellent medical school.
Often what we think of as a cataclysmic setback is really nothing more than a ripple. Parents tend to worry far into the future, thinking, “If he gets stuck now, he’ll always be behind.” But that’s not true. Most development of children’s brains happens just by getting older. Letting them get stuck every once in a while, while you’re available to help them get out of the ditch, can actually help them grow.
“What about kids who won’t do anything or go anywhere unless they’re forced? Or teenagers who want to stay home and play video games all summer?”
Stephen Covey famously said (paraphrasing the well-known prayer of St. Francis), “Seek first to understand, then to be understood.” Ask your child questions in an effort to understand what’s behind her resistance. Is it that she prefers to spend her time doing lower-key things around the house than going out, just as some adults do? Does she resist because she’s anxious about “Novel” or “Unpredictable” experiences? (Remember the N and U in N.U.T.S. from the first chapter?) Really hear her concerns. It doesn’t mean she will get her way—perhaps it’s important to you that the family go on a hike and you want everyone to be together. But understanding where she’s coming from, addressing her concerns, and compromising if possible is a healthy approach.
You are also well within your rights to say something like, “If I let you sit around and not do anything all summer, I’ll feel like I’m a terrible parent. That’s not what good parents do. So I want you to decide. I want you to have at least one extracurricular activity. Let’s brainstorm about what that might be.”
“Religious faith is very important in our family. How can we ensure that our children will follow in our faith and religious practices and still nurture a strong sense of control?”
In our experience, most kids go along with their parents. Although they may not like it, most children do not put up a major fight against going to church, synagogue, or mosque if it is something that you do regularly together as a family, and most eventually assume the religious faith of their parents. We thus believe that modeling positive religious values and taking the attitude that “our family holds these beliefs and practices” is a perfectly appropriate way to start. If your children question their religious teachings or
the basis for faith, we believe in answering as honestly as we can. If your children hate going to church or synagogue, we recommend treating them respectfully and using the collaborative problem-solving approach to find a mutually agreeable solution.
“What if my kid is a good athlete but doesn’t want to stick with his sport, which could limit his options for college?”
First, figure out why it is important to you that your child play a sport. Is it because you won’t be able to afford college otherwise? If so, use collaborative problem solving. Explain the pros of sticking with the sport and how it could open up the choices of schools he can attend and that you can afford. It might also mean that he won’t need to get a job in college. The cons might be that he doesn’t enjoy the sport and it takes all his extra time. After weighing the pros and cons with him, let him decide.
If money isn’t the issue, ask yourself why it matters to you. If it’s not for him, it’s not for him. So often, parents want to play Edward Scissorhands and start pruning their child like a tree, but the reality is that your tree has just begun to grow, and you don’t even know what kind of tree it is. Maybe it’s not a sports tree.
“What about anxious, perfectionistic kids who hate to make decisions?”
Over the years, Bill has worked with dozens of kids and teens who hate the responsibility of making decisions, often due to the fear that they will make the wrong one. His advice to parents has been to say to their kid, “As you get older, I want you to be able to confidently make decisions for yourself. I know it makes you really anxious at this point, so I would be happy to make the decision for you. Before I do, though, I want you to tell me what, if you were going to make it yourself, your best decision would be.” Letting them make good decisions is a long-term goal, and we don’t need to force kids to do things before they’re ready.
“What about kids who won’t listen to reason when we discuss pros and cons?”
Again, we want kids to make informed decisions that aren’t crazy. If children will not consider the relevant information, we don’t support letting them make the decision.
“What about kids with ADHD, who we know have an immature prefrontal cortex? Or kids with other disabilities or problems?”
As much as we’d like to, we can’t chronically protect kids from themselves. Bill consulted with the parents of a twenty-four-year-old young woman who had just finished her fifth year as a full-time student in community college but still had fewer than twenty-five credits, apparently due to a combination of ADHD and emotional instability. Her parents, understandably, had attempted for many years to exert a high level of control over their daughter’s life and to protect her from herself in a variety of ways. Bill encouraged them to think differently about their role in their daughter’s life. “What can we do to make sure that if we pull back, she will want to take steps to move forward?” they asked. “What happens if she gets discouraged and doesn’t do it?” Bill reminded them that they can’t make their daughter want what she doesn’t want and they can’t make her do what she doesn’t want to do. He also pointed out that it couldn’t be their responsibility to make sure that her life was successful, and that their job was to support her, express empathy, set limits when necessary, and model assertiveness.
“In the real world, kids don’t get to make all their own decisions. Don’t we need to prepare them for being told what to do and then doing it responsibly?”
You’re right, there are plenty of circumstances in which kids (and adults) don’t get to make their own decisions. But the equation here works differently than you might think. Giving kids more choice when you can makes it easier for them to accept authority when they need to.
“Doesn’t this just open the door to everything becoming a negotiation? That is exhausting. Sometimes I just want my son to go along.”
We get it. Parents are busy, and when in the midst of making breakfast and corralling the family to get out the door on time, you don’t always want to collaboratively problem solve with your twelve-year-old, or go through the pros and cons of wearing sandals on a rainy day.
Overall, try to remember that negotiating is a great thing for your kid to know how to do. You want him to learn to advocate for himself and to practice those skills for the real world. If he’s never able to “win” with his parents, he’ll internalize that message. He may be more apt to sneak, lie, or cheat to get what he wants, or to give up pushing back on authority altogether, believing that he has no voice. To improve your legitimacy, you have to show your child that he is being heard. So give him credit for making good arguments, by sometimes changing your position so that he knows that a well-thought-out argument is in fact a worthwhile pursuit.
Also feel free to say, “You know, I love what a great negotiator you are. Some people get paid a lot to do what you do so naturally. But sometimes it’s exhausting for me, and it’s especially hard when we are crunched for time or when there’s a lot going on. I’d be grateful if when I need you to, you could go with the flow, without the need for a discussion. If you can do that, it will help the morning run more smoothly and I will acknowledge that you’ve really helped out.”
What to Do Tonight
Tell your child, “You’re the expert on you. Nobody really knows you better than you know yourself, because nobody really knows what it feels like to be you.”
Give your child a choice about something you may have previously decided for her. Or ask her opinion about something. (If they’re young, you can frame it as, “Do you think we should do it this way or that way?”)
Have a family meeting where you problem solve together about what chores need to be done and who should do them. Give them options. Could they walk the dog instead of doing the dinner dishes? Take out the trash instead of cleaning the toilet? Do they want to do it each Sunday or each Wednesday? Morning or night? Keep a consistent schedule, but let them choose that schedule.
Make a list of things your child would like to be in charge of, and make a plan to shift responsibility for some of these things from you to him or her.
Ask your child whether something in his life isn’t working for him (his homework routine, bedtime, management of electronics) and if he has any ideas about how to make it work better.
Do a cost-benefit analysis of any decision you make for your child that she sees differently.
Tell your child about decisions you’ve made that, in retrospect, were not the best decisions—and how you were able to learn and grow from them.
Have a talk in which you point out that your kid has got a good mind. Recall some times when he’s made a good decision or felt strongly about something and turned out to be right. If he’ll let you, make a list together of the things he’s decided for himself that have worked well.
Tell your teen you want him to have lots of practice running his own life before he goes off to college—and that you want to see that he can run his life without running it into the ground before he goes away.
Emphasize logical and natural consequences, and encourage the use of family meetings to discuss family rules or family policies more generally (e.g., no gaming during the week).
CHAPTER FOUR
The Nonanxious Presence
How to Help Your Kids Find a Sense of Control by Finding Your Own
DO YOU REMEMBER when you first took the wheel of a car? It was probably a little scary but invigorating. Driving a car is the culmination of more than a decade’s worth of empowering first moments, starting with learning to walk. Think of the toddler recognizing for the first time that he can take a step on his own. Suddenly he’s racing everywhere—albeit unsteadily—with abandon. Or consider the ten-year-old who is given permission to bike to the store alone to buy candy or comic books. He feels like he owns the whole town. When a teenager first learns to drive, he imagines himself as Mario Andretti. He’s breaking away, the road is his.
Now let’s look at each o
f these moments from a parent’s point of view. The toddler who is racing everywhere means that mom and dad need to be more vigilant, barricading stairs and cordoning off balconies. The ten-year-old biking to the store probably leaves his parents biting their nails in his wake—craning their necks out the window and struggling not to follow. The mother of the new driver may find herself imagining that scene from Thelma and Louise—any moment now he will be driving off the cliff and there’s nothing she can do about it.
Parental anxiety isn’t new. Parents have worried about their kids ever since having kids was a thing, but we believe it’s worse now than before. Why? For one, we have a lot more information than we’ve ever had before. In days past, we had to be okay with not being able to reach our kids at every waking minute. Now it’s almost a mandate that we know their every move. Barry Glasser, a top sociologist and author of The Culture of Fear, concludes that “most Americans are living in the safest place at the safest time in human history,” but it doesn’t feel that way because 24/7 news and social media inundate us with scary story after scary story about kidnappings, drug overdoses, and freak occurrences that, in their ubiquity, muddy our perspective.1 This, combined with an increasingly litigious culture, has dramatically changed the way we think of “danger.” Let your six-year-old climb a tree and you’re considered careless. Let your eight-year-old walk to school on her own and you’re positively neglectful.
And then there’s the way parents have changed. We can worry about our kids because, on balance, we’re no longer worrying about survival the way we once were. Our great-grandparents’ fears were about illnesses like polio and cholera, or drought, or world war, or full-scale economic depression. There wasn’t a lot of space left to worry about what Jimmy Jr.’s B average means for his chances for admission to a choice college, or why he wasn’t invited to Suzie’s birthday party. Many families still have to worry about getting food on the table, but even those of us who don’t still find plenty to give us sleepless nights.
The Self-Driven Child Page 8