Boundaries with Teens

Author: Dr. John Townsend
Publisher: Zondervan
Release Date: February 2006
ISBN: 978-0-310-27045-4

Dr. John Townsend, coauthor with Dr. Henry Cloud of the Gold Medallion Award-winning book Boundaries, is a parent of two teenagers. He is a cohost with Dr. Cloud of the nationally broadcast New Life Live! radio program, a cofounder of Cloud-Townsend Resources, and the bestselling author or coauthor of numerous books, including Boundaries in Marriage, Boundaries in Dating, and How to Have That Difficult Conversation You’ve Been Avoiding.

Introduction

What are boundaries? Simply put, boundaries are one’s personal property line. They are how you define yourself, say who you are and who you are not, set limits, and establish consequences if people are attempting to control you. When you say “no” to someone’s bad behavior, you are setting a boundary. Boundaries are good for you and good for the other person, for boundaries help people clarify what they are and are not responsible for in life.

Because of all the developmental changes teens are going through, they often don’t have good control over their behavior, a clear sense of responsibility for their actions, or much self-discipline and structure.

When parents tell teens the truth, set limits, establish curfews, confront misbehavior, and do a host of other things, they are providing a structure and helping teens to develop a structure. If all goes well, teens will ultimately and safely discard their parents’ structure and, using their own structure, be able to meet the demands of adult life and responsibility.

And that is the purpose of this book, to show you how to help your adolescent shoulder responsibility for her actions, attitudes, and speech so that she learns the gift of self-control and ownership over her life. So in this book you will learn a deceptively simple skill that all parents of teens need:  knowing when to say Yes, and how to say No, that is   how to implement and enforce healthy,  loving boundaries with your adolescent.

Be a Parent with Boundaries

You must live what you are teaching your teen. So this part of the book will help you to develop and grow your own boundaries.

Revisit Your Own Adolescence

Teens do things that are irresponsible. That is the nature of adolescence. For some of us, the teen years had some minor blips, and for others of us, they were miserable.

For the sake of your teen, remember your own adolescence. The more you can recollect how you felt and what you did then, the better a parent you will be.

Teens need parents who “get it,” who haven’t forgotten their own past but instead have grown from it.

Be a Boundary

When it comes to good parenting, who you are is more important than what you say.

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.
• 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.
• Honesty. 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 dealing with people.
• Persistence. It’s no secret that teens try to wear down their parents. So parents who embody boundaries are persistent. They stick with the rules and the consequences, as long as they are reasonable.

Get Connected

You need friends who can let you be yourself, who accept your vulnerabilities, and who love you and give you grace, no matter what. They don’t have to be parents of teenagers. What matters is their character and what transpires when you are with them.

So look for adults whose friendships will provide the following:

• Grace. It’s easy to condemn yourself for not parenting right. Spend time with friends who will accept you, love you unconditionally, and support you, no matter how miserably you think you are failing.
• Identification. Parents of teens sometimes feel like they are insane, living in a bizarre world that no one else inhabits. So get connected with people who live in your world and help you experience that you aren’t alone. You need to be around people who let you know that they also get too angry, let go of their boundaries and make bad choices with their teens.
• Guidance. Get connected with mature people who have been down your road.  You’ll face many decisions regarding your teen that don’t have a simple answer. As you share new ideas, advice, solutions, and brainstorming, you can receive guidance and wisdom about what to do.
• Reality. Find people who will give you reality, people who aren’t black-and-white thinkers and who don’t pretend to have an answer for every problem. People who live in reality can live with conflict, failure, and pain. And when you are trapped in the present crisis and can’t think beyond the next ten minutes, they are able to keep the long view in perspective.

Relationships are neither a luxury nor an option for parents of teens. Your teen needs you to give him love, grace, truth, and strength. And you cannot manufacture these elements. You can only receive them from outside of yourself. So if you’re not connected and plugged in with others, make it the next thing you do.

Be United in Your Parenting

Of course, no parents agree on everything. But in the best situations, they agree on the most important things and disagree only on styles, preferences, and smaller matters.

If one parent is loving but has poor boundaries, and the other has good boundaries but is not very loving, their teen will likely be undeveloped in her ability to love and to set limits. She will have difficulty being open and vulnerable, taking responsibility, and staying attached in conflict. Clearly, the stakes of split parenting are high.

If you and your spouse have significant disagreements about your teen, you can begin to resolve your conflicts—and go a long way toward maturing your child—by doing the following.

• Agree that your teen comes first. Talk about your conflicting viewpoints, and agree to work on your differences by doing what’s in the best interest of your teen.
• Defer to each other’s strengths. For example, if you have difficulty providing clear structure for your teen, you might ask your spouse for help and guidance. Or, if you can’t listen and understand at the emotional levels your child needs, get your spouse involved in the conversation.
• Don’t triangulate your teen. Sometimes parents will forget their role and involve their teen in their conflicts with each other. This is called triangulation, and it can be devastating for the teen, because triangulation keeps kids from growing or changing in healthy ways.
• If one is resistant, stay balanced. In other words, if your spouse is too strict, don’t give in to the temptation to be lenient.

So work together to become united rather than divided parents. After all, you are your teen’s most important guide for how life is supposed to be lived. Kids do best when their parents stand together. Give your teen what he needs.

Be an Integrated Parent

You are probably aware of your own tendencies to go along with your teen’s behavior, to not respond or confront because it’s too much trouble or because you don’t want the conflict. Then, out of the blue, something snaps inside you, and you come out swinging, yelling, threatening—doing whatever it takes for you to express your frustration. I look at this as the “ignore and zap” parenting style: putting up with inappropriate behaviors for too long, then blowing up.

When you consider how much teens test their parents, it’s easy to understand the temptation to ignore and zap. However, even though most parents ignore and zap at times—myself included—this isn’t good parenting. It teaches the teen that love and limits don’t go together.

Mature adults are loving and responsible at the same time. The more you, the parent, can integrate love and limits, the better chance your teen has of internalizing them too.

Understand the Teenage World

Though it’s tempting to jump right into dealing with teen problems, you need to have the bigger and broader picture of the world your teen inhabits. Otherwise, you may not understand the person you are trying to help.

Separating from Parents

In order to become healthy, functioning adults, children must sever the ties to their parents, often transforming the relationship into a friendship.

As a parent, you’ll help your teen enormously if you know the right way to separate, because then you can help him leave home in the healthiest way possible. Let’s explore the primary differences between the right way to separate and the wrong way.

• Within relationship versus outside of relationship. Stay connected, even in differences. Don’t let conflicts and differences alienate you.
• Toward versus away. Accept that your teen is being drawn toward something rather than away from you, and help her be as content as possible at home so that she want to leave for the right reasons, not just to escape you.
• Prepared versus unprepared. The final goal of parenting is to equip your child with toolbox of abilities and capabilities that will enable him to meet life’s demands successfully. Be a parent who helps your child leave home with the optimum tools to make it in the world.

Don’t fight the separation. Instead help your teen stay connected to you, interested in what is good and healthy in the outside world, and prepared for the challenges ahead.

The Influence of Culture

No question about it, the culture can be dangerous to your teen. She is being bombarded with information, images, and messages that are tailored for her age group, maturity, and mentality. She needs you to help her navigate through all the messages coming her way.

This is a time for you to take wise and deliberate action so that you can help your teen keep cultural influences in the right perspective so that they become a source of great growth and creativity.

Here are some tips on how to do just that.

• Be informed. Know what messages television and music are sending to your teen. Monitor the movies and shows he watches and the websites he visits.
• Listen to your teen. Teens know a wealth of information about the culture. So ask your teen what is going on at her school, at the movies, and at the mall.
• Be connected. Talk with your teen about the messages he’s exposed to in the culture and through his peers. Bring up drugs, sex, violence, and ethics at the dinner table.
• Be protective. Install computer software that restrict sexual, violent, and otherwise negative content on the Internet. Go over the lyrics of the songs your teen buys and set standards regarding their content.
• Know your teen. While broad-based standards are good, you will need to tailor them to your kid’s particular frailties.
• Don’t react. At the same time, don’t have a knee-jerk “all culture is bad” reaction either, because it simply isn’t. Help your teen understand how to use the Internet in healthy and helpful ways.

Set Boundaries with Your Teen

Teens need love, self-control, values, restraint, and a sense of responsibility for their lives.  But they do not come by this without the hard work of their parents.

This section of the book will give you the tools you need to create, establish, and follow through with boundaries and limits that can mean great progress toward maturity for your teen. No matter what the issue, from school problems to bad attitudes, and no matter the severity, from minor to critical, these keys can help you think effectively about healthy boundaries and then utilize them.

Dig beneath Your Teen’s Problem

Parents often jump into a boundary setting approach too quickly. Sometimes they are so fed up and have felt so helpless with some attitude or behavior that when they see a strategy or approach that might work, they implement it immediately.

No one can blame a parent for wanting to get some relief and resolution on a teen problem.  And if there is a crisis or emergency, such as drug or violence problems, then they don’t have time to do anything else for the time being.

But as a parent, you need to realize that teen problems have a context. Most of the time, they don’t occur out of the blue. Your teen is underachieving, being disrespectful, or acting out for a reason.

Teens, like everyone, are complex beings. Get to know your teen and who she is, so that you can figure out what is driving her problem.

Remember, your teen’s troublesome behavior did not occur in a vacuum. It may be caused by an underlying issue that will not be solved by boundaries.

Use the Four Anchors of Boundary Setting

Every boundary-setting conversation or situation must make use of four anchoring principles. As anchors stabilize ships, these four principles can provide stability, focus, and clarity to parents who want to establish healthy and appropriate boundaries with their teen. When applied to boundary setting, these principles help parents optimize the chances for success with the teen.

Anchor #1: Love. Always begin with love.  Love will help your teen hear what you are saying, accept the boundaries and tolerate the consequences. This is true for all of us. When we hear hard truths from someone who cares about us, we need to know that the person is on our side. Otherwise, we are liable to feel hated, bad,  worthless, unloved, offended or victimized.

Anchor #2. Truth. Truth provides guidance, wisdom, information, and correction. Truth exists in the form of rules, requirements, and expectations for your teen. They are the dos and don’ts  that spell out what your teen needs to do and what he needs to avoid.

Anchor #3: Freedom. Your teen has probably exercised freedom to make some poor choices, and you haven’t seen much good come from that. But freedom is absolutely necessary, for a couple of reasons:

• You can’t really make your teen choose the right thing. You aren’t present for much of her life, so you can’t control what she does in school and with her friends.
• Freedom to choose poorly is necessary to learn to choose well. Even if you could “make” your teen do the right thing, it wouldn’t help him develop into a mature, loving, responsible person.

Anchor #4: Reality. Simply put, reality defines what is or what exists. For our purposes, however, I am using the word to describe what exists for the teen in the form of consequences. That is, if she chooses to utilize her freedom to reject the rules and cross the line, she will experience consequences. Teens need consequences, because that’s how they experience a fundamental law of life:  good behavior brings good results and bad behavior brings uncomfortable results.

The next time you decide you need to have a boundary-setting conversation, be sure you tell your teen:

• “I love you and am on your side.”
• “I have some rules and requirements for your behavior.”
• “You can choose to respect or reject these rules.”
• “Here is what will happen if you reject these rules.”

When you use these four anchors, you are providing the stability, clarity, and motivation your teen needs to begin to learn self-control and responsibility.

Don’t Get Derailed

Here are some keys to keep you on track when you begin to establish limits with your teen.

• Accept resistance as normal. Most teens react with manipulation, arguments, anger, or defiance when their parents set limits with them. So the first thing you can do accept that your teen will resist your efforts.
• Do your homework. Second, make sure your rule and your consequence are reasonable and appropriate. For example, before you set a curfew, think it through. Talk to sound-thinking people in your community whom you trust and who know kids.
• Involve your teen in the rules and consequences. When you are crafting your house rules, bring your adolescent into the process. Ask for her input and opinion on the rules and consequences. She may not agree with all the rules and consequences, but she will know you didn’t surprise her; she will know you took her input.
• Contain, don’t escalate, your teen’s reaction. Teens often lash out in anger when they are given requirements and consequences. Containing involves maintaining eye contact, being warm, and not being overwhelmed, defensive, or disrupted by your teen’s emotion.
• Listen empathically. Empathic listening is the ability to hear and understand what your teen is saying from her own perspective and emotions rather than from yours. Empathy allows you to connect with her, join with her experience, and let her know that you understand how she feels, as much as possible. The more empathetically you connect with her, the less she is able to see you as harsh and unloving.
• Be charm-proof. Most of the time, parents who allow their kids to charm them have a need that they are allowing the teen to meet. These parents may be lonely and need someone who is warm and kind. As a result, the parents’ needs keep them from being direct and holding limits, because they fear their distant and angry teen will withhold what they need.
• Beware of the compliant teen. I am not saying obedience and compliance are bad. But if the “good” kid never pushes against the limits, never questions, and is more concerned and anxious about pleasing you than about knowing what he thinks and feels, he may need your help to draw out his real self.

Consequences 101

If you are like many of the parents I talk with, you often have difficulty identifying and following through with appropriate consequences for your teen. However, it’s really not that difficult. Let’s take a look at a few simple principles that can guide you in determining the right consequences for a problem with your teen.

• Remove the desirable, add the undesirable. A consequence, basically, can be either removing the desirable or adding the undesirable to your teen’s life as the result of a rule violation: for example, the removal of television privileges or the addition of extra chores. In my experience, removing something a teen wants is usually more effective than adding something she doesn’t want.
• Don’t interfere with a natural consequence. Whenever possible, allow your teen to face a natural consequence to an undesirable behavior or attitude. Don’t intervene. For example, allow your teen to
  • spend the night at the police station after being picked up for loitering late at night;
  • miss out on going to a movie as a result of having spent all his allowance.

• Make the consequence something that matters to the teen. She needs to want and desire what she is losing; she needs to not like what she is having to add. That is why you need to know your own teen’s heart, interests, and desires.
• Have more than one kind of consequence. While there is no perfect number of kinds of consequences you should have for your teen, you probably do need more than one. So have a few different consequences to break up the predictability.
• Preserve the good. Impose consequences that are a big deal to your teen, but don’t remove activities that are good for her, such as participating in sports, taking music or art lessons, or going to youth activities at church, Boy Scouts, or Girl Scouts. These activities teach teen important lessons in discipline, cooperation, skill building, and coaching, and in so doing contribute to their growth. Far better to remove movies and video games, which are limited in their capacity to help kids grow up.
• Distinguish between misdemeanors and felonies. You’ll want to ensure that the consequences fit the violation appropriately. When consequences are too strict, it can lead to alienation, discouragement, or increased rebellion. When they are too lenient, it can lead to increased disrespect and a lack of the desired change in the adolescent. So give the most lenient consequence that works. This approach keeps parents from being unduly strict.
• Use rewards strategically. Rewards are good things, but teens shouldn’t be rewarded for doing what is normally required in life. Instead or rewarding teens for doing what they should, give them praise. But reserve rewards for something special, such as extra results or extra effort.
• No Responsibility = No Privileges. As you try to determine the best consequences to use when your teen violates a rule of behavior or attitude, remember that what your kid wants most is to be in life and have friends; teens are very attached to things and relationships. Use this intense interest to help your teen understand that privileges require responsibility, and they will be removed if there is irresponsibility. In so doing, you will help your teen succeed in adult life.

Epilogue

It is so easy to live in the crisis of the day. While crises must certainly be dealt with, don’t remain stuck in today’s problem. That is where your teen lives, and you need to be the one who pulls her out of the crisis by your love and greater sense of perspective.

She may not show it, but she is jumbled up inside and unable to function as she should on the outside. She needs a loving, accepting, and validating parent to center her mind and heart and help usher her into the adult world. Do the work of drawing out your kid’s feelings and thoughts, especially the troubling ones, and help her bring her fears, failures, and frustration to the light of relationship, where they belong an can be matured.

Your teen is moving quickly toward his future. In just a few short years he will be leaving you to take his place in the world. What can you do, even today, to help your teen become a grown-up who will prosper and give good things to others?

As a parent, you have no greater task, and no higher good.

From Boundaries with Teens by Dr. John Townsend. Copyright © 2006 by John Townsend. Summarized by permission from Zondervan.

288 pages. $14.99. ISBN: 0310270456; ISBN-13: 978-0310270454.

Summary Copyright © 2010 by FamilyIntel, LLC. All rights reserved.