Teenage supervision

Its not a good week to be a parent in the city in which I live. Parents have come under considerable criticism by the police and parts of the press, most notably Jane Marwick in today’s daily newspaper.

As 14 - 16 year olds end the school year they go to holiday resorts and some of them get drunk and so forth. Whilst these are undoubtedly the minority they attract attention from the police and the press. The police in particular are scathing of parents who they say are not taking any responsibility as they put it and letting these teenagers run riot.



One thing the police do not say is how it should be done differently. At some point the teenager has to be left unsupervised. That is how a young person develops a sense of responsibility. If you are supervising them then they are not being responsible for them self and thus can never develop a sense of self responsibility. Sooner or later you have to let them go and do it on their own.

I have been counselling teenagers and their parents for 25 years and I am not aware of another way by which a teenager can become self responsible without being left unsupervised at some point. If Jane Marwick or the police have some idea on how to do that I would be very interested to hear it.

At what point do you let them be unsupervised and to what degree - there is no clear answer. It varies depending on the personality of the child and the relationship with the parents. It is a very difficult path for parents to walk as often it is trial and error and involves changing the plan of teenager management as you find what works and what does not.



At times parenting teenagers involves two bad choices and it is a matter of picking the less bad choice. A strong willed 15 year old who is reacting against parental supervision can simply get up and walk out of the house. You cannot stop them. You can call the police who can find them and bring them home but then they just walk out again. This can only happen a certain number of times before they end up on the streets. A horrible scenario for parents.

Such a teenager is demanding to be unsupervised and most teenagers do this in varying degrees. When I counsel such parents and teenagers the parents again have to walk a tightrope. You certainly don’t want them being on the streets so you have to give them more unsupervised periods than you may like. The parent has to pick the lesser of two bad choices in order to maintain a relationship with the child and some degree of control. If those criticising these parents have a better solution I would be very glad to hear it.



As the relationship transitions from parent/child to parent/teenager a quality of bargaining and negotiation enters into it. Almost all teenagers will do this to varying degrees. If the teenager is of a complaint nature then it may be minimal. If they are of a strong willed adversarial nature then it can be very pronounced. At times parents have to let teenagers do what they don’t want them to do in order for the longer term goals to be achieved.

At some point parents have to let teenagers be unsupervised if they are to grow into functional members of society who can self regulate. Those unsupervised times often involve undesirable behaviour, that is how the teenager learns what is desirable and undesirable.

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