Parent's responsible for children?

KYLady says:

There’s never a dull moment in our house – we have twin daughters soon turning 16 years old. Fortunately, we learned a lot from raising their older sisters. I like your metaphor of walking the tightrope – that’s exactly what it’s like. Too far one way and we are tyrants, too far the other way and we’re accused of being uncaring. For sure, what works with one does not work with the other. I believe parents are responsible for their teens, but if they haven’t parented with clear expectations and firm guidelines in their childrens’ earlier years, it’s going to be a lot harder to influence them as they become more independent. Parenting teens is not easy, not even with good kids!
(end quote)



I would agree with your point that what happened in the parenting of the child effects what happens in the parenting of a teenager. Also that parenting styles with teenagers vary from one to another. This would also be true in childhood but I think it is more pronounced in adolescence.

I find your comment

I believe parents are responsible for their teens

an interesting one.

I know what you are saying but I don’t agree with it, sort of.



I don’t see myself or other parents as responsible for their teenagers. I provide a boundary for teenagers such that they are allowed to do A & B but not C & D. However I would not see myself as responsible for their actions nor their internal emotions. As I write this I am not too sure what I am saying.

I have a belief system in my head that I assume is communicated to my children that they are responsible for their behaviour and emotions and thoughts. I also know that when they are children they do not understand the world enough in order to survive or just operate successfully. That is where I come in and provide boundaries, make suggestions and make decisions for them.



I decide for them that eating a large block of chocolate all at once is a very bad idea and so I stop them but that does not make me responsible for them. All I am doing is controlling a piece of behaviour.

I retreat to my dictionary and discover that responsibility is defined as:

The state or fact of having control over someone

It appears that I am incorrect in my understanding of the term because I do have control over their eating of the chocolate. So according to this definition I am responsible for my children as KYLady originally proposed.

So what am I trying to say here?

As I think here I discover I have a belief and an expectation about my children. You are responsible for yourself and what happens to you in life. There are going to be plenty of times when I am not around and then you are responsible and even when I am around you are also still responsible for what you say and do, etc.

As I write this I am thinking, “OMG, I hope this is an OK thing!!”. I was not aware of this expectation I had of them until now.



Whilst I cannot recall myself saying such things often and openly I am sure this belief was communicated subliminally to them.

I will do all the appropriate things to control their behaviour, such as with the chocolate but at the same time there is this expectation or belief about responsibility that is communicated to them as well.

This is a little bit of a light globe turning on moment as I write this. I rarely if ever said the belief I had about responsibility to them instead it was an unstated expectation of them.

So back to KYLady’s comment about parents being responsible for their children. With the dictionary saying what it said I have to agree in one way but I disagree in another way.

Graffiti

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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Anger in my personality

Anger work - How anger is structured in my personality


My Parent ego state and anger

When my father was angry he would (Hit, withdraw and sulk, shout, swear, give a lecture, get sarcastic, eat, fight, get depressed and so on)

Say -

Do -


When my Mother was angry she would:

Say -

Do -




My Child ego state decisions about anger

When I was angry mother (father) would

Say -

Do -

Feel -

When I saw mother (father) angry I would

Say -

Do -

Feel -


What did your mother and father say about expressing anger. (OK, not OK, good, bad, time & place, men & women, etc)



As a teenager did you get rebellious and angry? If so how did you express it and how did the parent figures respond?

Summation of early decisions =



Graffiti

The male teenager and pornography

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