Last week, a dad asked for advice dealing with his pre-teen daughter.
“My daughter is 11 going on 22,” he wrote. “She is very confidant and independent, venturing out by herself with friends to the mall, swimming pool and movie theatre. I realize the ways we can reinforce behaviour in her are changing. I am concerned that some of the discipline techniques that worked in the past could now cause resentment and provoke her to become rebellious. As a protective dad, it’s not easy letting go and trusting she’ll always make the right choices. Can you give me some good advice for helping my daughter navigate what seems like a precarious stage between her childhood and teenage years?”
Here’s what our parent educators had to say:
When you think of discipline that worked, what did that mean? That she would learn from her mistakes? That she discovered that there were lines that shouldn’t be crossed? That there were certain dangers in the world she needed to be aware of?
Effective discipline means to guide or teach, and often, discipline strategies used by parents don’t do that. Punishment can cause resentment in a child and interfere with the parent-child relationship even when the child is young.
Over-control or over-protection stops a child from learning the lessons of life and taking responsibility. A healthy child will rebel against too much control from her parent.
The less-independent child may conform, which means she has to put her needs aside to please the parent. This is the most tragic response to over-control, as it interferes with a child’s development and maturity.
Another response to over-control might be for a child to go underground, hide her activities and pretend to be somebody that she is not. When this happens, a parent misses out on the opportunity to be a guide to his child.
As she grows into her teen years, you have to work on keeping a connection with her and let go at the same time. What makes it more difficult is that you will lose your status as the coolest person on the planet and turn into somebody who dresses funny and is totally embarrassing to be around. Sometimes, you won’t even breathe properly, according to your teen.
So what’s a parent to do? Look at the previous goals of discipline. She will learn from her mistakes and that means she needs enough freedom to make them.
When that happens, support her and don’t take over or lecture her. You still get to have boundaries and let her know if she crosses them, but they are issues that directly affect you, like respect for your things and time, locking up the house at night, letting you know if she is going to be late and helping with the common areas of the home.
While you can’t control the dangers of the world, if she can trust you, she’ll talk to you when she needs to. This also means that you aren’t nagging her about her areas of responsibility, such as homework, her bedroom, her clothing, her friends and her choice of activities. Those are her issues.
One more thing: Don’t become so focused on her that you lose sight of your life and your passion. Teens are allergic to too much attention from the parent. Besides, your role-modeling matters more than any discipline strategy you may have used in the past.
Allison Rees
LIFE Seminars
Parenting courses
One big mistake that we parents often make is that we assume our children need us less as they approach adolescence and friends become more important to them. We must ask ourselves, “Who do we want raising our teenagers — their peers or their parents?”
More than ever, you need to be part of your daughter’s life, making sure you have a strong, warm and supportive relationship with her. She needs to look to you for direction and guidance and the only way to do this is to limit her time with peers in favour of quality relationship-building with you.
If you step back and allow your daughter relatively unlimited time with friends, she will take her cues from them and you will find her distancing herself from you even more.
It’s not too late. One way to re-connect with an adolescent would be to plan a trip away for just the two of you. Camping or something that requires her to depend on you is a great choice. The key will be to leave behind screens of all kinds, including her cellphone if she has one.
After a week with just the two of you reconnecting, you will likely find your relationship closer and her willingness to defer to you restored. Then, when things are better, you can gradually allow peers back into her life, albeit on a limited basis. Make sure you are part of the scene, allowing her to have friends over for sleepovers and the like.
It’s a great idea to only permit one afternoon or night a week with friends, with the rest allotted for her family. This way, the peers will have a place, but her family will be more important. Limit access to the Internet and keep all computers and cellphones in a public place in the home.
You need to be aware of how much time she spends online with others. If she has a movie date or trip to the mall planned, go along and be part of it. She is very young to be out unsupervised and hanging out at the mall is not nearly as much fun if dad is tagging along. She may make different choices that are more suited to her developing maturity.
Parenting adolescents is possibly the most challenging stage of parenthood. Our children push us away just when they need us more than ever. The key is to remain in a close relationship in the face of societal pressure to back away. Follow your instincts to care and protect her and you will be just fine. As your daughter matures, you will know you have done your job when she knows her own mind rather than following her friends. That is the sign of maturity, and typically it comes after the age of 18.
Jean Bigelow
Parent consultant
Next question:
How do you “explain” suicide to children? It’s a topic I’d like to avoid, but sometimes it’s unavoidable, if it comes up in newspapers or on TV, and I find it even harder to explain than murder (although that one is hard, too).
Do you have any advice for this parent? Are you struggling with a parenting dilemma? Send your input to [email protected]. Please put “the parent rap” in the subject line. Questions about kids from infants to teens welcome.
