What do you do when your 15 year old son says you’re horrible parents and he wants to leave home when he turns 18, and your 17 year old daughter blows her top, whenever you say NO?  We’ll talk about this and a whole lot more on this week's podcast, You’re a Better Parent Than You Think.

.Today we’re hearing from Rebecca from Minnesota, the land of 10,000 Lakes.  Rebecca wrote us a parenting question about each one of her two teenagers and we’ll read both and respond to both.

Rebecca writes:  

“My husband and I think the approach outlined in your course is wise and that it is what our family needs. We have a 15 year old son with ADHD. He's a good kid, but wants more independence than he is ready for.

The problem is that years of dealing with conflicts have resulted in us having a very strained relationship with him.  We do have good & positive interactions with him, but he has told us on multiple occasions that he wants to leave as soon as he turns 18, that we are horrible parents, etc. To complicate matters, his closest friend has parents who allow WAY more freedom than we do, so he constantly compares us with their family and pretty much always wants to be at his friend's house.

We've tried to have conversations with our son to come up with agreements and behavior expectations, but he avoids participation and says we will just do what we want anyway.

How do we hold him more accountable without further damaging the relationship?”

Second question:

“Our almost-17-year old daughter is responsible and respectful most of the time. She gets good grades, has a job, spends time with the family, and overall is easy-going. As a result of her high "mature-o-meter" rating, we feel like we let her have appropriate levels of freedom and privileges. However, if we say no to ANYTHING to her, she acts as if we don't let her do anything and that we are the strictest parents in the world. The most recent thing we said no to was a self-tattoo kit for permanent injected tattoos.

Her strong reaction causes me to worry that we are jeopardizing her respect for us and that she will decide to not care about being the mature, responsible girl that she is anymore. How do I decide what is OK?”

Now to Rebecca’s question

Rebecca is doing really well here.  While her 15-year-old son, and her 17-year-old daughter aren’t saying “Wow you’re the best parents ever,” both are doing pretty well. Rebecca reports that they do have positive interactions with their son and that he’s a good kid. That’s not too shabby.

Parents want to have conversations with him about expectations, but he doesn’t want to participate because he says his parents will just do what they want anyway. So it sounds like he’s resigned to the belief that his parents are going to have the limits they have and that has to live with them.

That seems pretty sensible to me. Of course it would be fabulous if he'd sit down and talk with his parents and have a mature conversation, but he might not be ready for that.

Rebecca also reports that their almost 17 year old daughter is responsible and respectful most of the time, she gets good grades, has a job and spends time with the family.  Who could ask for more than that, right"?

I love it that Rebecca references the mature-o-meter. She must have downloaded the free chapter I wrote For Teens Only from my website.

But there's always room for improvement. So let's help Rebecca out here. It is important that for starters Sarah realizes that she and her husband are doing an excellent job of raising their two teenagers. Because it takes confidence to deal with the negatives that inevitably our teenagers will present.

Now Rebecca realizes that they had been fighting with their ADHD son and realizes that's a control battle and now they are trying to be more positive and fight less. That's terrific. It is upsetting to Rebecca and her husband that their son says he wants to leave home when he turns 18. That's a way of complaining and seeing oneself as a victim of parental control. But 15 year olds do need structure and it's tough when as a parent you have important structures in place that are critical to your son or daughter's success and safety, and other parents have a more laissez-faire approach. That puts pressure on the kids who put pressure on the parents to be more laissez faire.

Rebecca’s question about dealing with her 15 year old is: How do we hold him more accountable without further damaging the relationship?

Rebecca keep up the good work with your 15 year old and worry less about his complaints about how horrible you are as parents. Here is a critical point: we don't want our teenagers' upsetness with us to be the dominant mood in the home. We don't need you and your husband being upset that he's upset. Stay positive and take the attitude that it's OK for him to be upset and feel differently and not see things from your parental points of view.

You don't have to be callous to his feelings. You can say that you understand how he would feel that way; that there is a difference between the families and that your values are different from his friend’s parents values, but that it's vital that we are true to our values. That you can't live with yourselves as parents if you throw all your values and beliefs out the window and just go along with what someone else thinks.

It's a hard lesson in life but we all have to stand up for what we believe is right.

Think about it, you're giving a great example! You're being great role models for sticking up for your beliefs and your values and not giving in to peer pressure. Wouldn't that be amazing if he learns that lesson from you both. So no arguing, staying positive, validate his feelings and of course earning privileges with responsible and cooperative behavior is the path forward.

You might think of some things that your son and his friend would really like. A camping and canoeing trip on a remote lake?  Go to a Twins or Timberwolves game with them?  Don’t argue about whether you are horrible or not. Just be the generous, wonderful parents you are, with your parenting values, good ones from my point of view, and keep the faith. 15 is a challenging age for many parents. And one other thing. 15 year old boys love food. Lots of it.  Have some of their favorite food around or offer to take them out for food at a favorite spot.  Just being your wonderful selves so that you don’t feed the negative narrative that your son wants to sell you.

Now let's talk about your fabulous, very successful, social, employed teenage daughter who was very upset that you said NO to her desire to get a self tattooing kit. Rebecca I'm not sure that your daughter really wanted you to say yes. I think she might have been counting on you to say no because she probably doesn't need your approval to get such a kit or if she does because it's only sold to over 18 year olds, she could certainly find someone over 18 to get it for her if she wants it that badly and then she could ask for forgiveness rather than permission. So it's very likely that she's counting on your not allowing it so that she doesn't have to say no to herself or seem conservative to her peer group.

One thing we can all benefit from is learning how to say no without using the word NO.

For instance, my daughter says, “Can I get a self tattooing kit?” I'm sure that the word NO will appear in most of our brains but what should come out of our mouths?  How about “well that's an interesting request, what makes you think about that?”  And after doing some listening and hearing what your daughter has to say, you might say something like I know your generation is very tattoo oriented and many young people get tattoos. So it's reasonable that you will want one. If you do want one, perhaps it should be one that is professionally done, and one you’ve chosen after seeing more of what’s out there.  Who knows, when you go to college and see what the other kids are doing, a self tattoo from high school might seem young and uncool. When you wait and are patient, if you choose to get a tattoo, it will be with a better sense of what you like since it will be on you for your lifetime.  Not something impulsive from highschool.

I’m sure she’ll express unhappiness, but you will have done a good job explaining your thinking so she’ll know that it isn’t simply an arbitrary NO. And you will be role modeling thoughtfulness over impulsiveness.

In my book, Ending The Parent Teen Control Battle, in the chapter on Adolescence, I mention that a heightened dopamine release often leads to impulsive behavior and that’s why it’s good that your daughter has parents and that you allow her an appropriate level of independence so she can take risks and be impulsive, when there is less chance of long term negative impacts.

Thanks for tuning in today and special thanks to you Rebecca for your two questions,  we truly appreciate you taking the time to send them in.

Just a reminder, are you taking a minute or two to breath, go inward, take a moment, and regroup? Did you do anything just for you this week? Self-care is essential because this parenting business isn’t easy.  You need it, you deserve it, you are worth it.