Parenting Your Teenager

Trying to control a teenager is like trying to put pants on a gorilla. It's just going to frustrate you and make the gorilla really mad."

The difference between trying to control a teenager and manage a teenager is the difference that makes the difference.

A managment approach contains these six criteria:

1) The parents are clearly in charge - not necesarily in control but in charge:

2) The teen, over time, learns and earns the ability to be more in charge of himself or herself;

3) There is a clear map for continually building trust and responsibility;

4) The parents have a way to monitor the progress of the teen;

5) There are clear consequences when the teen demonstrates that he or she cannot be in charge of themselves;

6) There is a map for how to earn back trust and responsibility.

All six of these criteria reflect the real world for the teenager. Managing teens in this way is good training for the real world.

A management approach to raising teens puts parents clearly in charge. The goal is to manage them eventually out of your lives and into their own. Parenting is one of those jobs in which the goal is to eliminate the need for your job.