Do you find yourself in a cycle of giving and taking away privileges to get your teenager to simply do their work? These parents do and Neil helps them understand how to use the shift from giving kids Consequences to giving them Earned Privileges, why it works and how to apply it in real life. 

We talk about that and a whole lot more on this week’s podcast, Getting Earned Privileges Right. 

Here’s our question for today

Dear Neil

We’re really struggling with how to get our 14-year-old daughter to be responsible. She’s always been a bit of a free spirit, saying and doing what she wants, which for the most part is fine. She’s creative and loves art. Now her hair, nails and clothes are her canvas, but that’s fine. Our problem is that she gets behind in her work and her grades are mediocre at best. She’s been tested as gifted so if she just did her work, she’d get A’s. Every grading period is a crisis of getting her to catch up. Of course, what she wants to do is hang out with friends and get lost in social media without regard for responsibilities. Now things are a chronic struggle with her doing the minimum and us taking away privileges until she gets caught up. We read your book so we’ve been clear that she needs to manage her responsibilities to earn her privileges but that’s turned into chronic bargaining over how much she has to do to get which privileges. What can we do to stop the drama and help our daughter be responsible?

Exhausted Parents

Dear Exhausted Parents,

Good job reading Ending the Parent Teen Control Battle, now let’s talk about how to get it right for you and your free spirited gifted 14-year-old.

First of all, switching from giving kids consequences to kids earning privileges is not just a semantic shift. Giving consequence is parents punishing kids by taking something away from them. Allowing kids to earn privileges is just that, and it shifts responsibility and motivation for healthy behavior from parents to kids. If we take away privileges as punishment or hold them as ransom to get kids to do what they’re supposed to do, then it’s really consequences by another name.

In short, consequences or even rewards are parents trying to get kids to behave; to manage responsibilities and their behavior. The burden is on the parent to motivate the kid.

Earned privileges shifts both the responsibility and motivation for managing their behavior from the parent to the kid.

Here is how earned privileges works. Parents are clear that privileges are earned when kids are committed to doing their best, applying themselves in a way that represents their best selves in all the critical areas. That usually means managing school responsibilities within their range of capability and cooperating with the basic rules and standards of the home as well as away from home behavior, and very importantly, being accountable to parents when they are off track.

Kids will of course, go off track. For instance, forget to do something, sneak their phone when they’re not supposed to be on it. When kids are accountable, when parents call them on their behavior, they don’t argue and fight, they acknowledge the error and correct it.

So when kids lose privileges, it’s not because they screwed up, it’s because they are no longer in the covenant of commitment to their best and accountability to their parents.  Then when privileges are lost, it will take time and effort to prove they are back in and have embraced the covenant. The covenant of best effort and accountability.

Let’s say you’ve established that your kid needs to earn privileges by bringing their best; and they have embraced that. What should the behavioral guidelines be? Should there be a specific time and place for doing homework? Should parents help or check if they’ve done it or not? What should curfew be? What are the rules for social media use, how much and when? Is it checked by parents?

Teenagers are individuals who are moving through the teen years going from 12-18, how do you set these guidelines and standards?

This is where when there is accountability, healthy discussion and negotiation can be taught and learned.  Some kids will need more structure and support than others to manage their schoolwork.  Some are able to reliably be where they’re supposed to be when they’re supposed to be there. You can involve your kids in a discussion of how much responsibility they can manage independently and how much structure and support they will need. But then they will be accountable to accepting the support and structure that is established.

Without that clarity, Exhausted Parents, you and your 14-year-old will be in a perpetual control battle over what she wants to do vs. what you want her to do.

Here’s how it sounds when there isn’t accountability or clarity.

Mom: Sheila, Put your phone away and do your homework.

Sheila: I don’t have any

Mom: You always say that and then we find out you’re way behind

Sheila: The teacher said it doesn’t matter as long as it’s all in by the end of the semester.

Mom: Then we fight about needing to catch up. Do I need to take your phone?

Sheila: Why are you being so lame?

Sound familiar?

Now with accountability and clarity:

Mom: Sheila, get off your phone and start your homework.  

Sheila: I’m with my friends. Can I take 10 more minutes?

Mom: Absolutely not. Our agreement is a half hour of phone time after school and then homework and it’s been 35 minutes.

Sheila: Okay

How does that sound? Better, right?

If kids embrace the opportunity to do their best and be accountable, bingo, they’re on a healthy path forward and are learning and growing. And, they have earned appropriate privileges and the right to demonstrate the ability to manage increasing levels of independence.

If they are not in alignment with those standards and chronically fight accountability-- Well, no privileges, they all go. When parents are clear, patient and hold the line, with positivity and without judgement, Kids come around.

Thanks for tuning in today folks and thanks to our Exhausted Parents for sending in their question. And please take care of yourself, you need it, you deserve it, you’re worth it. Bye for now.

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