After a disagreement between two groups of high school girls from an affluent neighborhood began causing confrontations at school, the assistant principal invited the mothers of the young women to meet with her to defuse the bickering that had grown from a neighborhood disagreement into a school disruption issue.
At the meeting, the mothers disclosed that the conflicts had begun sometime after 2 o’clock the previous Saturday morning when the girls were out on the street near their homes. When the administrator acted a bit surprised that the girls were out at that hour, a mother responded, “Oh, you don’t understand; in our neighborhood, parents trust their kids and give them freedom.”
The parents of that neighborhood, fortunately, were out of sync with the majority of American parents. A 1999 New York Times/CBS News poll of U.S. teenagers indicates that 87 percent of the teens interviewed live with parental curfews.
That same poll suggests that parents do not see themselves as powerless and irrelevant when their children become teens. Forty-five percent determine the kinds of movies the teens may see; 30 percent say how much a teen may watch television; 24 percent control how much time may be spent on the computer; 21 percent make decisions about the persons with whom a teen establishes a friendship.
Parenting experts and adults involved with youth in the ministry of the church agree that limits and boundaries are vital. In fact, parental involvement is just as important with teens as with younger children, noted Richard Udry, the principal investigator of the National Longitudinal Study on Adolescent Health.
Each generation of parents of teens faces limits and boundaries issues which are a bit different from those faced by previous generations. Some of the more current limits issues include the following.
- Money issues. A survey conducted in 1997 by researchers at Ohio State University’s Center for Human Resource Research has shown that teens, on average, have more than $100 in weekly allowances and other money. Teens from the highest income families receive an average of $175 a week while those whose family income averages between $20,000 and $30,000 receive an average of $19 a week from their parents.
Plentiful cash for teens is a new issue for many families; therefore, they have no role models to give them guidance as they make decisions about money and teens. Many of these families want to know how to set limits to teach responsibility when they can provide so much for their children.
Families with limited incomes, meanwhile, face limits issues related to money because of the prosperity of others. How does one determine the limits of family sacrifice for a teen? And beneath the surface issues related to money, Christian parents face a deeper issue of how to teach teens what is really valuable and how Christ wants His followers to relate to possessions.
- The Web. Shortly before Christmas 1999, the newspapers and television news broadcasts were filled with one more problem related to Columbine High School when a student received a message over the Internet that caused school officials to close the school to protect students. This problem reflects the epitome of parental concern about the Web. Other concerns related to the Web include exposure to pornography; time spent on surfing the Web instead of being involved with peers and family members; communications with persons whose identity may or may not be who they say they are; harassment by someone in a chat room; and the possibility of making purchases without parental permission, including the purchase of alcohol.
The top Internet sites reflect the current teen emphasis on “cute and brute,” reports The New York Times. The most popular male site features professional wrestling, and the top site for girls is MTV’s site. Parents who restrict the viewing of professional wrestling and MTV on television may not be aware that these popular sites exist on the Web.
- Binge drinking. Although alcohol is an issue for all parents of teens, it is an especially critical issue for parents of seniors because of the college binge-drinking statistics. Nearly half of all college students binge drink (five or more drinks at a time for males and four for females). Parents worry about binge drinking because of the teen health issues related to alcohol poisoning. They are also concerned about rape, car crashes, fights, lack of attention to studies and sexual activity that occur after binge drinking.
Some parents confuse showing love with being too permissive. The difference in these two styles of parenting is the setting of boundaries. To act in a loving manner toward one’s child requires setting and maintaining boundaries.
A significant task for parents of teens is establishing boundaries and standards that will allow the creation of a win-win family relationship. Win-win boundaries are clear, specific and well communicated.
They do not lead toward forcing the teen into a loser’s role while the parents are made the winners. They are proactive and positive. They take into consideration the needs of the parents as well as the needs of the teen when the boundaries are set. Parents of teens will want to set boundaries with input from the teen so that the teen can feel some ownership for the boundary.
For families who have not been successful in setting/maintaining limits and boundaries, is it ever too late to start setting boundaries or expecting teens to live with boundaries? No. A good way to work on making limits more meaningful is for the parents and the teen to cooperatively choose one area for improvement and work toward achieving adherence to that one limit before expecting a teen to conform to a spectrum of boundaries. Parents may want to suggest an area other than the one causing the greatest conflict for the first attempt at boundary improvement if that chief area of disagreement is very sensitive. (For additional information on setting boundaries, see “Parents, Teens and Boundaries: How to Draw the Line.”)
Sticking with boundaries can be difficult. Parental submission reduces the respect of both the parent and the teen. Even though teens may say they want freedom, teens with no rules do not feel good for long because they want their parents to respect them, and they want to respect their parents. “Permissiveness breeds disrespect and discouragement, and invites rebellion. It’s a vicious cycle that can create havoc in family life,” write Don Dinkmeyer and Gary D. McKay in “The Parent’s Guide: Systematic Training for Effective Parenting of Teens.”
As teens respond well to the boundaries they and parents have accepted, they are on the road to setting their own boundaries — which is the real goal that parents set for all teens. The concept that living within boundaries prepares one to be independent seems contradictory. However, when win-win boundaries are established and teens recognize the rewards that follow keeping limits and the consequences that follow breaking family limits, the teen is on the road toward being responsible.
Before teens leave home for college, vocational training, marriage or whatever they choose to do on their own, they should be setting many of their own limits and boundaries if their parents have given permission to grow toward independence. They have learned from watching their parents and from being given ever-increasing amounts of freedom as they accept more and more responsibility for themselves that independence and responsibility are a package deal — one who lives within family or society’s boundaries is the person who earns the most independence. (BP)
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