The Secret to Loving Teens Effectively
Gary Chapman
Teenagers who feel genuinely loved are more open — learn to speak their specific love language.
Most parents love their teenagers — and most teenagers don't feel it. Chapman shows the core problem is a language mismatch: the actions that communicated love at six can feel patronizing at sixteen.
Everything Chapman wants you to walk away with
Speaking the wrong love language is like speaking French to someone who only understands Japanese. The words and actions that communicated love when your child was six can feel patronizing or invisible at sixteen.
Every teenager has a primary love language that fills their emotional tank most effectively. Parents tend to love in their own language, not their teen's. Learning which one actually registers is the single most important relationship skill.
Deep within the soul of every teenager is the desire to feel connected, accepted, and nurtured by parents. When this doesn't happen, the emptiness will greatly affect their behavior. Fill the tank first — discipline lands far better on a loved teenager.
Teenagers can now think logically and see consequences of different positions. If parents understand this, they can have meaningful conversations. If they don't, they develop an adversarial relationship and the teen goes elsewhere to flex intellectual muscles.
Telling a teenager 'you did a good job cleaning your room' when they didn't is a slap in the face of their intelligence. But 'thanks for getting the coffee stain out of the carpet' rings true. Sincerity and specificity are everything with teenagers.
Times of success and times of failure are both windows for loving physical touch. If teenagers don't receive it from parents, they will seek it elsewhere. A father's appropriate affection toward his daughter reduces her likelihood of early sexual activity.
Father and son watching a game may or may not experience togetherness. If the teen thinks sports are more important than he is, connection didn't happen. Quality conversation focuses on what you're hearing, not what you're saying.
Allow your teen to think their own thoughts, experience their own emotions, and share these without receiving your unsolicited assessment. Help them evaluate ideas in a friendly atmosphere of dialogue, not dogmatic monologue. For most parents, this is the greatest challenge.
Every teenager must wrestle with whether their parents' belief systems are worthy of commitment. Parents who don't understand this become a negative influence and push the teen away. Give honest answers in a nonauthoritarian manner.
Rule one: when one person talks, others listen sympathetically. Rule two: others may ask questions to clarify, but don't give advice unless asked. This simple ritual builds the connection that makes everything else — discipline, guidance, trust — possible.
These notes are inspired by direct excerpts and woven together into a readable guide you can follow from start to finish.
By Gary Chapman
When parents become uninvolved, their primary role of guidance is replaced by someone or something else—the gang, the peer group, or social media. This book focuses on what is perhaps the most foundational building block of parent-teen relationships: love.
The issue is not whether parents love their teenagers—most do. The issue is that thousands of teenagers do not feel that love. For most parents it is not a matter of sincerity but rather a lack of information on how to communicate love effectively on an emotional level.
From the early days of emerging teenage culture to its contemporary counterpart, the underlying themes have remained the same: independence and self-identity. Throughout the years, teenagers in American society have been actively searching for their identity while trying to establish independence from their parents.
First, there is the challenge of accepting and adapting to the changes that take place in the teen’s body. Arms, legs, hands, and feet all grow—sometimes at a disproportionate rate—producing the reality of “teenage clumsiness,” which can be a source of extreme embarrassment. Sexual characteristics are also developing, which may be both exciting and anxiety-inducing. And every parent has felt pain watching a teenager struggle with that most devastating of enemies: acne.
Adolescence is also the age of reason. Teenagers can think logically and see the logical consequences of different positions. They apply this logic not only to their own reasoning but also to the reasoning of their parents. This is why a teenager may often be perceived as “argumentative”—in reality, the teen is developing mental skills. If parents understand this, they can have meaningful, interesting conversations with their teenagers. If they do not, they risk developing an adversarial relationship, and the teenager must go elsewhere to flex newfound intellectual muscles. With this rapid growth in intellectual development and the gleaning of new information, the teenager often believes himself to be smarter than his parents—and in some areas, he may be right.
The development of cliques among teens has far more to do with agreement over intellectual ideas than it does with things like dress and hair color. Teens, like adults, tend to feel more comfortable with those who agree with them.
The intellectual ability to analyze ideas and project outcomes gives rise to another common teenage challenge: examining the belief systems with which one was raised and determining if those beliefs are worthy of one’s commitment. “Were my parents right in their views of God, morality, and values?” These are heavy issues every teenager must wrestle with. If parents do not understand this struggle, they will often become a negative influence and actually push the teenager away. When a teenager questions parents about basic beliefs, wise parents welcome the questions, give honest answers in a nonauthoritarian manner, and encourage the teenager to continue exploring these ideas. They welcome the opportunity to dialogue about the beliefs they have espoused through the years.
Parents who want to help will use the normal flow of family conversation to address issues related to sexuality, dating, and marriage. They will also guide their teenager to the right printed materials and websites that speak on the teenage level while providing practical, sound information.
There is one other common challenge: grappling with the question, “What will I do with my life?” This involves choosing a vocation, but it is far deeper than that. It is ultimately a spiritual question: “What is worth the investment of my life? Where will I find the greatest happiness? And where can I make the greatest contribution?” More immediately, teenagers must answer: “Will I go to college, and if so, where? Should I join the military? Or should I get a job?” Teenagers understand that these choices lead somewhere—there is something beyond the next step, and the next step will influence where they end up. Parents who wish to be helpful will share something of their own struggle, joys, and disappointments. You cannot and should not offer easy answers, but you can encourage the search and perhaps introduce your son or daughter to people of various vocations who can share their journey. Encourage your teen to take advantage of vocational counselors at high school and, later, at the university.
Despite all the similarities across generations, a mighty gulf exists between the contemporary teenager and teenagers of the past.
These five trends shape the context in which modern teenagers form identity and evaluate authority.
Contemporary teenagers are looking to parents for guidance. In surveys, teens report that parents have more influence than peers on whether to attend college, attend religious services, do homework, drink, and on job or career plans. Friends had more influence on immediate issues such as whether to cut classes, who to date, hairstyles, and clothing choices.
Deep within the soul of every teenager is the desire to feel connected, accepted, and nurtured by parents. When this happens, the teenager feels loved. When the teen does not feel connected, accepted, and nurtured, the inner emotional tank is empty, and that emptiness will greatly affect the teen’s behavior.
”I love you, I care about you. I am committed to you because you are my child. I don’t always like what you do, but I always love you and care about your well-being. You are my son or daughter and I will never reject you. I will always be here doing what I believe is best for you. I will love you no matter what.”
If you want your teenager to feel loved, you must make time to be with them. The meal table is one of the best places to build emotional connectedness. Consider starting a new tradition at mealtimes: first, the family talks to God (teach your children to be grateful for their food), then you talk to each other; after that, if you wish, you can revert to screens and media. Leave the screens off the table.
Have someone volunteer to thank God for the food and the person who prepared it. Then each family member shares three things that happened in their day and how they feel about them. Rule #1: When one family member is talking, the others listen sympathetically. Rule #2: Others may ask questions to clarify, but they don’t give advice unless the person sharing solicits it.
One teenager put it this way: “The main thing I like about my parents is that they accept me for who I am. They don’t try to make me like my older sister.” This teen feels loved because of acceptance. The goal is to communicate to your children that you are happy to be their parent, no matter what, without respect to their behavior. Though you are not always pleased with their behavior, you are always pleased with them because they are your children.
Nurturing parents have a positive attitude. This does not mean they deny the realities of life, but they choose to see the hand of God behind the scenes of human events. They look for the sun behind the clouds and communicate this spirit to their teenagers.
If there is a stage of life where humans need more affirming words, it is during the teenage years. Yet this is the very stage at which parents often turn to negative words in their efforts to get the teenager to do what they believe is best.
Parents who treated the child one way will not get the same results if they continue that approach with the teenager. When the teenager does not respond as the child did, parents are pushed to try something different. Without proper training, parents almost always revert to coercion, which leads to arguments, loss of temper, and perhaps verbal abuse. Such behavior is emotionally devastating to the teenager whose primary love language is words of affirmation. Efforts to verbally argue the teenager into submission actually push the teenager toward rebellion.
When the relationship has deteriorated, the first step is a cease-fire: stop the condemning, negative bombshells. Second, call for a family conference and openly share your deep regret. Be honest—tell your teen you had nothing but their best interests in mind but realize you went about parenting the wrong way. Tell them you love them no matter what and that you intend to eliminate critical, condemning, demeaning, and harsh words from your vocabulary. Admit you won’t be perfect, but when you fail, you will sincerely apologize.
Teenagers need boundaries, and parents who love them will see that they live within those boundaries. But there is a better way to motivate teenagers than yelling cruel, bitter, condemning words when they misbehave.
Two factors are critical when giving words of praise to teenagers. First is sincerity. Teenagers are looking for adults with integrity and authenticity. You may have gotten away with flattery when she was three, but it will not work at thirteen. Telling a teenager “You did a good job cleaning your room” when she did not is a slap in the face to her intelligence.
This leads to the second factor: praise specifics. Sweeping general statements are seldom true. The truth is found in the details: “You did a good job getting the coffee stain out of the carpet.” “Thanks for putting the dirty clothes in the hamper; it was a real help when I did the laundry this morning.” “Thanks for raking the leaves out of the side yard Saturday. It really looks nice.” These specific praises ring true with the teenager. Train yourself to look for specifics.
When you can’t praise results, praise efforts. Your thirteen-year-old mowed the grass—it’s not perfect, but he invested two hours of life. Don’t point out what was missed; say instead, “You’re really coming along in your grass-mowing skills. I appreciate your hard effort. It’s a real help to me.” The same principle applies in marriage: reward each other for effort rendered rather than pointing out imperfections.
No matter what is going on in the life of your teenager that brings you pain, disappointment, or anger, continue to look for actions worthy of praise and give your teenager affirming words.
Try using the word “enjoy” rather than just “love.” As one mother found, saying “I really enjoyed you today” made a real difference—her daughter would later ask, “Did you enjoy me today, too, Mommy?” Create your own synonyms: “I adore you.” “I feel proud when I think about you.” “If I could choose any teenager in the world, I would choose you.” “I wake every morning and think, ‘What a privilege to be your father/mother.’” Write them in a notebook and periodically sprinkle them in along with your “I love yous.”
Verbal affection can also focus on attributes of the teen’s body or personality. “Your hair looks like sunshine today” may be especially affirming to a sixteen-year-old wondering if she looks OK. “Your eyes are beautiful” may be the words that return to the heart of a seventeen-year-old who has just been dumped by her boyfriend. “You are so strong” may change the mood of a fifteen-year-old worried about facial blemishes. Look for physical characteristics you can verbally affirm.
Words of affection can also focus on personality: “I am so happy that you have such an outgoing personality.” “You are so steady. I like the way you think before you speak.” “Your bubbly personality makes so many people happy.” “One of the things I really admire about you is that you are dependable.” “I am so happy that I can trust you.” “I love the way you encourage people.”
Try affirming your teenager in the presence of the entire family. Give words of praise and appreciation in front of younger or older siblings (though not in front of the teen’s peers). Words of affirmation often speak louder when given in the presence of others.
Times of major accomplishment are occasions when teenagers are usually open to loving physical touch from parents—a victory on the athletic field, a successful piano recital, the completion of a major paper, the passing of an algebra exam, the securing of a driver’s license.
Conversely, times of failure are also times for physical touch. The teenager is down because he flunked the calculus exam, his girlfriend dumped him, or he had a fender bender. Your daughter is feeling in the pits because her best friend has a date and she does not, or her boyfriend broke up with her and started dating her best friend. These are occasions when teenagers are open to the love language of physical touch.
A good rule of thumb: never touch a teenager in the presence of his or her friends unless the teenager initiates it.
Every teenager needs to hear the language of physical touch. If they don’t hear it from parents, they will seek it elsewhere. A teenage daughter needs to feel good about herself as a female—to sense that she is attractive. The father’s role is to give her this sense of well-being through appropriate physical touch. If the father withdraws physical affection from the daughter, she is far more likely to become sexually active at a younger age.
Real quality time means giving the teenager your undivided attention. Nothing else matters in those moments. As psychiatrist Ross Campbell wrote, “Without focused attention, a teenager experiences increased anxiety, because he feels everything else is more important than he is. He is consequently less secure and becomes impaired in his emotional and psychological growth.”
A father and son watching a baseball game may or may not experience togetherness. If the teen walks away feeling lonely, thinking sports are more important to the father than he is, togetherness did not occur. But if the teen gets the message, “The most important thing about this game is being with you. I love it when we do things together,” then father and son have connected. This does not mean every time you are together you must have long, in-depth conversations. However, you must intentionally seek to communicate by eye contact, words, touch, and body language that the teen is more important than the event.
Quality conversation is quite different from words of affirmation. Words of affirmation focus on what you are saying; quality conversation focuses on what you are hearing. When our children were little, we issued instructions and commands. If we continue that pattern during the teenage years, the teenager will say, “You are treating me like a child”—and will be right. You must learn to allow your teenager to think their own thoughts, experience their own emotions, have their own dreams, and share these without receiving your unsolicited assessment. Help them evaluate their ideas, understand their emotions, and take realistic steps toward their dreams—in a friendly, encouraging atmosphere of dialogue rather than dogmatic monologue.
Parents who learn to ask questions will keep their teenagers talking—not badgering questions like “Where did you go, how long did you stay?” but questions that solicit thought: “How do you think most teenagers reacted to the anti-war protest last week?” Listen attentively and you will hear not only your teen’s observation about peers but also their own thoughts. Keen interest solicited by thoughtful questions may lead the teenager to ask for your opinions. Questions beget not only answers but also other questions.
Replace “Because I said so” with “Let me tell you why.” Teenagers are interested in reasons. They are developing their own ability to reason and respond to the person who has logical reasons for their beliefs.
When parents do not make time to attend the events their teenagers are involved in, the message is: “You are not as important as other things.” When five thousand adults were asked what they least appreciated from their parents as a teenager, the number one response was: “They were not involved in my life.” Teenagers want their parents involved. Helping with homework, attending activities, driving teens to the mall, shopping with them—all create opportunities for quality time. Parental involvement says, “Your interests are important to me.”
Camping or hiking trips, rafting, fishing, attending sports or musical events in a distant city, visiting museums and places of historical interest—these are ways to create environments for spending quality time. The key is to begin with the interests of your teenager.
Avoid responses that close communication. Empty reassurances like “By this time next week, you won’t even remember” or quick advice like “Moping around won’t help—why don’t you go jogging?” communicate a know-it-all attitude and express no empathy. Some teenagers stop talking because they have learned these are the only responses they will receive.
Peer groups play four primary roles in the teenager’s life: (1) they help the teen transition to adulthood by providing a social-emotional support group; (2) they provide standards the teenager can use to judge their own behavior and experiences; (3) they provide opportunities for developing interpersonal relationships and social skills; (4) they provide a context in which the teenager can develop a sense of self-identity.
Parents sometimes ask, “If I continue with acts of service, how will my teen learn to do things for himself and serve others?” The answer is found in modeling and guiding. You model unconditional love when you do things for the teenager that you know they would like, as long as you believe these actions are good for the teen. However, you must choose these acts wisely—otherwise, you create a dependent teenager who takes but never learns to give. Cooking a meal is an act of service, but teaching a teenager how to cook a meal is an even greater act of service.
When they are young, you wash the clothes for them; when they are teenagers, you teach them how to wash the clothes.
Many teenagers later find themselves married only to discover that neither they nor their spouse know how to scrub a bathtub, vacuum floors, cook meals, or do laundry—totally inept in the basic skills of serving each other, because their parents failed to teach them the love language of acts of service. If the teen learns to perform acts of service, he will feel good about himself, enhancing his self-identity.
The purpose of gift-giving is not simply transferring an object from one person to another. The purpose is to express emotional love—to send the message, “I care about you, I think you are important, I love you.” These emotional messages are enhanced when attention is given to the ceremony accompanying the gift.
When parents diminish the ceremony, they diminish the emotional power of the gift. A teenager who requests basketball shoes, gets taken to the mall, buys them, and wears them out of the store has experienced no ceremony at all. Such gifts communicate little emotional love and create an entitlement mentality: “My parents owe it to me to get me whatever I want.” However, if those same shoes are taken home, wrapped creatively, presented in front of other family members with words of affirmation and physical touch, the gift suddenly becomes a strong vehicle of emotional love.
You must also encourage the teenager to work for money. This is the only way the teen will develop any sense of the value of money. If the teen works for the seventy-five dollars she is about to spend on designer clothing, she has a sense of the effort that goes into earning it. It forces the teen to ask, “Is this object worth the effort?” This is how your teen becomes a discerning consumer. Working for money also forces the teen to make choices between material objects.
A simple approach: say to your teenager, “If I should decide to buy you a gift this month, would you make me a list of two or three things you would like to have? Be as specific as possible—brand names, colors, etc.” Most teenagers will be happy to oblige.
When a person is receiving enough of his primary love language, the secondary love language becomes more important. There is also the possibility that parents originally misread the child’s love language. This is not uncommon because parents tend to see their children through their own eyes. It is easy to think that because your language is physical touch, the same will be true of your child. We tend to believe what we want to believe rather than what is true from the child’s perspective.
If you have been speaking your teenager’s love language but they don’t seem to respond, the problem may be that you are using the same dialects you used when they were a child. Seldom do teenagers want to hear the same dialects from childhood. Phrases like “You are the greatest! I’m so proud of you! You are so smart!” are associated with childhood, and the teenager—trying to be independent—does not want to be treated as a child. You must learn new dialects using more adult words: “I admire the strong stand you took for that boy who was being picked on at school.” “I appreciate your hard work on the lawn.” “I trust you because I know you respect the rights of others.” These express high regard without the ring of childishness.
Try asking your teenager directly: “From your perspective, what would make our relationship better?” Or approach it this way: “Lately I have been thinking about how I can be a better parent. If you could change anything about me, what would you change?”
You can also discover the primary love language through indirect questions. Ask, “Who would you say is your best friend?” When the teen says a name, ask, “What does he do that makes you feel he is your best friend?” If the answer is, “He listens when I talk and tries to understand,” the teen has just revealed that quality time is the primary love language.
Another experiment is to give the teen choices between two options and keep a record. A father says to his thirteen-year-old, “I have two hours free this afternoon. Would you like to fly your new kite together or go to the store for batteries for your new camera?” The choice is between quality time and a gift. Do what the son chooses and keep a record. Over time, a pattern will emerge.
Two of the most important relationship skills a teenager can learn are how to express love and how to process anger.
When you feel anger, begin by asking yourself: Why am I angry? What wrong has the other person committed? Am I judging their behavior without having all the facts? Do I really know their motive? Has my teen misbehaved or am I being overly sensitive? Are my expectations too high for the developmental level of my teen? If the anger reveals your own selfishness, recognize it as your problem and release it.
When the teenager finishes the initial explosion of angry words, share with the teen what you think you heard and let them clarify: “What I think I hear you saying is that you are angry because I … Is that what you are saying?” This indicates to the teenager that you are listening and want to hear more. The teenager will give you more. Continue to write down what you are hearing and resist the temptation to defend yourself. After the third round of listening, the teenager will sense that you have taken them seriously.
Becoming a teenager for a moment—remembering the insecurities, the mood shifts, the desire for independence and self-identity, the importance of being accepted by peers, and the desperate need for love and understanding—is essential. The parent who does not seek empathy with his teen will have difficulty affirming the teenager’s feelings of anger.
The important issue for the custodial parent is to focus on the teenager’s emotions, not the teenager’s behavior. This is exactly the opposite of what we typically do.
Simple things like going to the grocery store or bank together can be meaningful to your teenager. But the teen knows when she is being taken advantage of. When your interests center on yourself rather than the teenager, the teen will quickly resent such behavior.
Kindly but firmly keep the boundaries in place. The teenager needs the security of knowing that parents care enough to say no to those things they believe to be detrimental. It works best if both parents can talk about boundaries and have the same list of rules and consequences. Don’t try to talk the teenager out of his thoughts and feelings. If the teen chooses to talk, listen carefully and affirm his emotions.
As parents, you have the final word, but teenagers need to be part of the process in deciding the rules and the consequences when rules are broken. If you establish the idea of a family forum early on—with the understanding that any family member can call a forum anytime something about family life needs to be changed—you will establish a vehicle for processing emotions and ideas.
Teenagers learn responsibility when consequences are enforced.
Your goal is to encourage the teenager’s independence while at the same time meeting the teen’s need for love. Allowing the teen to sit with friends rather than family at the theater or church, if accompanied by an expression of love, is a way of both affirming independence and meeting the need for love. Occasionally allowing the teenager to remain at home or eat dinner with a friend while the rest of the family goes to a restaurant serves the same purpose. Providing private space and the freedom to decorate it as the teen desires, accompanied by meaningful expressions of love, will foster independence and keep the emotional love tank full.
One way teenagers establish emotional independence is by keeping their thoughts and feelings to themselves. Parents should respect this. After all, do you share all of your thoughts and feelings with your teenager? A wise parent might say: “I know that sometimes you don’t want to share your thoughts and feelings with me. I understand and that’s fine. But if you do want to talk, I want you to know I’m always available.”
On events where you think the teenager’s presence is extremely important, you should expect the teenager to attend—but announce these well in advance, giving both chronological time and emotional time to prepare. Explain why you feel it is important.
Nothing is more central to teenage culture than music. The parent who criticizes the teen’s choice of music will be indirectly criticizing the teen. If such criticism continues, the teenager will feel unloved. However, if you affirm the teen’s freedom of choice and continue to express love in the primary love language, the teen’s sense of independence is fostered and the need for love is met.
Read the lyrics of your teenager’s music (read, because you probably will not understand the words if you listen). Find out about the musicians. Point out things you like about the lyrics and positive things about the performers. Listen as your teenager shares their impressions. If you take this positive approach, occasionally you can say, “It troubles me a bit that in this otherwise positive song there is this one line that seems destructive. What do you think?” Because you have not been broadly critical, the teen will be inclined to hear your concern—and even if they disagree, you have planted a seed.
Teenagers will speak a different language. When your child becomes a teenager, she will learn a new language. Don’t try to learn it—that would be embarrassing for everyone. The whole purpose is to have a language parents do not understand, because social independence requires putting distance between teen and parent, and language is one means of doing this.
Parents who create a world war over the teen’s clothing are fighting a useless battle that turns a normal developmental phenomenon into a divisive issue. Such battles do not change teenagers’ ideas and offer no positive rewards for parents. Wise parents share their opinions, if they must, but back off and give the teenager freedom to develop social independence.
The teenager is looking at things that earlier were accepted without question, now applying the test of reason and logic. This often means questioning parents’ beliefs as well as those of teachers and other significant adults. These questions tend to cluster around three areas: values, moral beliefs, and religious beliefs.
Parents who wish to be an influential part of their teenagers’ reasoning process must shift from monologue to dialogue, from preaching to conversation, from dogmatism to exploration, from control to influence. Teenagers need and want their parents’ input, but they will not receive it if treated as a child. In childhood, parents told the child what was right and the child was expected to believe it. That is no longer true when the child becomes a teenager. The teenager wants to know why. Where is the evidence?
Teenagers will examine not only your words but also your actions. Parents who welcome moral questions, who are willing to talk about their own beliefs and practices, who listen to opposing viewpoints, and who give reasons for their moral beliefs—those parents keep the road to dialogue open and positively influence their teens’ moral decisions.
Whereas values answer the question “What is important?” and morals answer “What is right?” religion seeks to answer “What is true?” Your teenager is going to explore religious thoughts. The question is whether you want to be part of that exploration and whether you want to love your teenager in the process. If you recognize the right to independent thought and invest time in creating the atmosphere for meaningful dialogue in a loving setting, the teenager will continue to be plugged in to parental influence. If you draw lines in the sand and make dogmatic proclamations about what teenagers are going to believe and do, you will create adversarial relationships.
Adults are allowed the freedom of living in a house as long as they take the responsibility of paying the mortgage. The electric company allows freedom to have lights on as long as the customer pays the bill. All of life is organized around the principles of freedom and responsibility—the two never stray far from each other. It is a major part of parenting to help the teenager make this discovery.
”If you can accept the responsibility, then you can have the freedom. If you cannot accept the responsibility, then you are not ready for the freedom.”
Wise parents bring their teenagers into the circle of decision-making, letting them express ideas on what constitutes fair and worthy rules. Share reasons for your own ideas and demonstrate why you think the rule is good for the teenager. In such open family forums, parents still have the final word, but they will be wiser when they know the teenager’s thoughts and feelings. If the teenager has had a voice in making the rule, he is more likely to believe it is fair and less likely to rebel.
Parents who are proactive will call a family forum, acknowledging that their child is now a teenager and this calls for rethinking the family rules to allow more freedom and more responsibility. Being proactive before the teenager starts complaining about childish rules is a strategy of great wisdom.
Rules without consequences are not only worthless but also confusing. Three guidelines for formulating and enforcing consequences:
| Design Focus | Rules | Consequences |
|---|---|---|
| Timing | Discuss and agree before conflict peaks. | Define before any violation happens. |
| Quality standard | Few, clear, and fair. | Consistent and proportionate. |
| Tone | Collaborative dialogue with final parental responsibility. | Administered with love, not hostility. |
| Developmental aim | Teach judgment and responsibility. | Let teens experience outcomes that build maturity. |
Formulate your rules and consequences in response to two questions: (1) What are the important issues in helping my teenager develop into a mature adult? (2) What dangers need to be avoided and what responsibilities need to be learned? Some rules will be prohibitions to keep the teenager from physically or emotionally destructive behavior. Others will help your teenager practice positive behaviors that enhance maturity and enrich the lives of those around him.
If teenagers are to learn to serve beyond the family, they must first learn to serve the family. Teenagers need real household responsibilities: supervising a younger sibling, helping cook dinner, taking care of the family pet, mowing the grass, trimming shrubs, planting flowers, vacuuming floors, cleaning bathrooms, dusting, and washing clothes.
If the teenager chooses not to perform assigned responsibilities, the consequences are determined in terms of loss of freedom. For example, if the driving teenager is assigned to take the car to the carwash by noon on Saturday, and the predetermined consequence is losing driving privileges for two days, wise parents will not stay on the teenager’s back. It’s a choice: shoulder responsibility and have the accompanying freedom, or choose to be less mature and lose that freedom. The teenager will seldom wish to lose such freedom, and parents will not waste time and energy fretting.
If the attendance rule is broken, the consequences might be that for every day missed at school, the teenager spends Saturday reading a book and making a verbal report to the parent. They will not be allowed to leave the house during the normal hours they would have been at school. Most teenagers will lose only one Saturday.
Credit cards encourage spending beyond one’s income—an extremely poor practice to teach teenagers. Fundamentally, a teenager cannot learn to manage money until he has some to manage. This has led many parents to the decision that the teenager should receive a regular allowance rather than coming to the parent every two days for another twenty dollars. A far better approach is for parents and teens to agree on a weekly or monthly allowance with a clear understanding of what areas of expenditure the teenager is responsible for (clothing, food, music, gas, etc.).
Once the amount is set, it should not be changed simply because the teenager complains, “It’s just not enough.” If the teenager wants more than the allowance covers, the teenager must earn money outside the family. If not old enough to work at a restaurant, they can mow lawns, babysit, deliver papers, or find other jobs available to younger teens.
Communicate that you are giving an allowance because you love your teen and want them to learn to handle money responsibly—not because of household duties (that is a separate matter). The teenager should not earn additional funds from parents, as it confuses normal household responsibilities. Let them earn outside the family. Loaning the teenager money is also a mistake: it teaches spending beyond one’s income.
Dating can be a positive experience in building self-esteem and developing relationship skills necessary for mature adult romantic relationships. Early adolescence is the time for the teenager to develop same-sex friendships, gradually followed by group activities involving girls and boys, and in later adolescence, one-on-one dating. Girls who begin dating in early adolescence risk being caught up in romantic feelings and will typically date older boys who are likely to overpower them psychologically as well as physically.
If the teenage girl feels loved by her father, she is less likely to seek emotional love from an older teenager. The teenage boy who feels loved by his mother is less likely to exploit a younger girl for his own emotional or physical pleasure.
Nothing destroys independence faster than alcohol and drug addiction. There are things a parent can do to make drug use less likely. First and most powerfully: model abstinence. Teenagers who watch parents drink every night to unwind are far more likely to use and abuse alcohol. Teenagers who watch parents misuse prescription drugs are much more likely to become drug users.
In the family forum, express your desire that the teenager abstain from drug and alcohol use. Explain that this is not because of some ill-founded belief but is based on clearly researched facts. Knowing the teenager will someday be an adult and can make his own decisions, it is legitimate for parents to insist that while at home, the rule is no alcohol and no drugs.
Consequences for violation should be stringent. Point out that illegal drugs are in violation of state and federal laws—the teenager may suffer not only parental consequences but also judicial consequences. One approach: the first offense removes driving privileges for one month; the second offense, three months; the third offense, the car purchased by the parent is sold and never replaced by the parent.
”Good parenting is doing the right thing when a child does the wrong thing.” Your best efforts at loving and parenting do not guarantee success. Teenagers are their own people, and they are free to make choices—good and bad.
Before you help your teenage son or daughter, you must first deal with your own response. The first response many parents have is to ask, “What did we do wrong?” It is a logical question, particularly in a society that places so much emphasis on proper parenting. However, many self-help books and parenting seminars have overestimated the power of positive parenting and failed to properly reckon with the teenager’s freedom of choice.
Usually the teenager is already feeling guilty. Teens know when their behavior hurts parents. They are aware when they violate the moral codes they have been taught. Don’t let your first words be words of condemnation: “Why did you do this? You know this violates everything we’ve taught you. How could you do this to us?” The teenager is already having those thoughts and asking himself those questions. If you make these statements, he may become defensive and stop wrestling with the questions himself. A teenager who has failed needs to wrestle with his own guilt but does not need further condemnation.
Teens learn some of life’s deepest lessons through experiencing the consequences of failure. When parents remove those consequences, the message becomes: “I can do wrong and someone else will take care of the consequences.” Such a conclusion fosters irresponsibility. It is difficult to watch our teenagers suffer consequences, but to remove the consequences is to remove one of life’s greatest teachers.
This is where the five love languages are exceedingly important. If you know your teenager’s love language, speak it loudly, while demonstrating the other four as often as possible. The teenager needs to know that no matter what he has done, someone still believes in him, still believes he is valuable, and is willing to forgive. When the teenager senses emotional love from parents, he is more likely to face the failure head on, accept the consequences as deserved, and learn something positive from the experience.
Let the teen know that while you do not agree with what he has done and cannot remove all the consequences, you want him to know you are with him and will stand by his side as he walks through the process of dealing with the consequences.
Parents with controlling personalities often want to control the teenager’s behavior after a failure. When the parent decides what ought to be done and tries to convince the teenager to do it, this is manipulation, not guidance. Guidance is helping the teenager think through the situation to make wise choices.
The teenager cannot become a responsible adult without having freedom to grapple with his situation and make decisions. One way to give guidance is to help the teen follow his own thoughts to their logical conclusion. Another way is to share your ideas as possibilities: “One possible approach might be …” is far more helpful than “What I think you ought to do is …” Remember, in spite of moral failure, the teenager still wants independence and self-identity.
If, in the end, the teenager makes a decision you believe to be unwise, allow him to suffer the natural outcomes. If those outcomes are negative and the teenager fails again, repeat the process—remembering that being a responsible parent is helping your teenager learn from his own mistakes.
The teenager who fails does not need parents who walk behind, kicking and condemning for a personal failure. Nor does the teen need parents who walk ahead, pulling and trying to force conformity. What the teenager needs is parents who walk alongside, speaking the teen’s love language with a sincere desire to learn together how to take responsible steps after failure.
Teenagers who genuinely feel loved by their parents are far more likely to respond to the deep longings for community, to welcome structure, to respond positively to guidelines, and to find purpose and meaning in life. Nothing holds more potential for positively changing culture than parental love.
Most parents love their teenagers, but thousands of these teenagers do not feel loved by their parents. Sincerity is not enough. If you are to effectively communicate love, you must learn the teen’s primary love language and speak it regularly. You must also learn the dialects within that primary love language that speak most deeply to the soul of the teenager.
When a teenager does not feel loved, the words of adults will fall on deaf ears. The teenager desperately needs the wisdom of older, more mature adults. But without love, the transfer of wisdom will be ineffective.