The other day I overheard my kids and their friends making plans to go to a movie. It was one of those last-minute decisions that teens often make. None of them were of driving age yet, so they were trying to solve that first obstacle.
One boy, Ted, said, “How are we going to get there? The movie starts in fifteen minutes.”
His friend said, “Call your mom; she’s easy.”
It was true. Ted’s mom, Andrea, is easy. She is a loving and easygoing person who also lets herself be taken advantage of by her teens. I have seen her interrupt plans that she has had in place for weeks in order to take her kids somewhere they decided to go at the last minute.
When I told Andrea that she was known as the “easy mom,” she realized that her kids needed to learn to plan ahead. Now when they ask her to do something for them at the last minute, she tells them, “Sorry, I wish you had told me earlier, but I’m doing something else. Good luck.”
Andrea does more than talk the talk; she walks the walk. She models the boundaries her children need to develop, and she helps them experience the limits they need to face.
Walk the Talk
Andrea understands the bottom line of good parenting: teens will develop self-control and responsibility to the extent that their parents have healthy boundaries. When it comes to good parenting, who you are is more important than what you say.
All parents have at one time or another warned and threatened their teens with some consequence, only to let it go when they didn’t respond. But kids learn more from what they experience than from what they hear.
This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t teach and talk about boundaries and house rules. They are very important. But those rules will hold little meaning unless you stand behind them and make them real.
Your teen needs to internalize your boundaries. That is, she needs to make them part of her own internal world. She will learn a powerful lesson when she loses something she loves because of a choice she has made. The more teens experience the negative consequences of their poor choices, the more internal structure and self-control they will develop.
Every time your teen experiences your external structure, you are providing something for your teen that she cannot provide for herself. Each time you go through this process, she becomes a little more aware, a little less impulsive, a little more responsible, and a little more mindful that she will control what her future looks like.
Develop Four Key Capacities
What does this look like for you, the parent? Here are some capacities, or abilities, for you to develop, if you don’t already have them. They will help you to set and keep healthy limits, which then become part of your teen’s character.
Definition. Definition refers to the ability to know who you are, what you want, and what you value. When you are defined, you know what you expect from your teen, and you also know what is not okay.
The nature of adolescence is to push against the parent’s definition. Teens are trying to define themselves. Parents who define themselves by whatever their teens want are not helping their children. So get a “yes” and a “no,” and say them. As Jesus said, “Simply let your ‘Yes’ be ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No,’ ‘No’; anything beyond this comes from the evil one.”8
I know when I am around defined parents because of how their kids behave. They still ask for a lot and want a lot, but they know when they have gone too far. They have had enough experiences with their parents’ definition that they have learned that when Mom or Dad isn’t happy, it won’t be long before they aren’t happy either.
Separateness. When you have a separate sense of self, you can experience your feelings and perceptions as different from your children’s. Parents with separateness can stand apart from their kids’ demands, anger, and behavior and are able to respond appropriately without getting caught up in the drama.
When parents aren’t separate from their children, they are said to be enmeshed. They lose themselves in their kid’s world and feelings. Enmeshed parents often feel responsible for their teen’s unhappiness or desires, and they lose perspective and the ability to choose.
Separateness isn’t about distance and disconnection from your children. Teens need parents who love them, but they also need parents who refrain from taking responsibility for their children’s feelings. Parents who are separate give up the fantasy that they can make their teens happy. Instead, they get involved in making it safe for their kids to mature into people who will be happy.
Honesty. Being a boundary means being truthful with your kids and living in reality. Teens want authenticity and have a nose for that which is fake. They may not always like your honesty, but remember that it is a template for their future dealings with people.
Being honest means, among other things, directly confronting your children when they cross a line, so that they know they have crossed it. It means to avoid saying something is okay when you know in your heart it isn’t. And it means helping your kids be aware of their vulnerabilities and issues, so that they don’t become blindsided by them.
I remember one time in particular when I had to confront one of my sons. I said, “You can be really selfish, and it is affecting us and your friendships. I am going to be working on this with you.” I felt bad about having to be so direct, but this problem wasn’t going away. A few weeks later, my son was telling me about a conflict he was having with a friend. He told me, “I think part of it was that selfish thing I do.”
Parents who are able to help their teens know what they are feeling are giving their children the tools they need to be able to deal safely with their emotions without getting damaged by the external world.
Persistence. It’s no secret that teens try to wear down their parents. They push and push until you finally give in, drop the issue, or postpone the consequence. Sometimes parents think this shouldn’t be, and they long for a kid who doesn’t butt heads with them. But, as I said earlier, teens need this head butting with their parents in order to learn how to negotiate with reality.
So parents who embody boundaries are persistent. They stick with the rules and the consequences, as long as they are reasonable. And they say “no” to attempts to manipulate, wear down, or even intimidate them.
In Dr. Cloud’s and my earlier book Boundaries with Kids, I mentioned a mentor of mine who, many years ago, told me: “Kids will run up against your decision 10,000 times. Your job is to hold the line 10,001 times.” Take a deep breath, pray, call your friends, and hold that line.
God made parents to be the guard rails on the twisting road of life. You need to be strong enough for kids to crash into over and over and over again. You must stay strong, so that your teens will learn to stay on track. Guard rails get dinged up. But if they work well, they preserve the young lives that run up against them.