How to communicate with teens

What do you want from me? we often hear them plead. We want you to succeed, we implore. We want you to do your best, to feel good about yourself. We want them to have had a happy childhood, we rationalize.

So we pledge anew to do whatever we can to enable their success. Too often, though, in our eagerness to pass on a legacy of parental generosity, we overlook the critical proteins of sacrifice and responsibility.

Them: Mom, c’mon, I’m late for school. I’ll clean up my room when I get home.

Us: That’s what you said yesterday. You know our agreement is that you at least make your bed—before school. You also know that it’s one of your responsibilities as a family member.

Them: I know, I know. But do you want me to be late for school? I just didn’t have time this morning. Cut me a break, why don’t you?

And so the dilemma goes:

No, we don’t want them to be late for school (or miss out on any fun or opportunity that presents itself, especially if it could reflect badly on them or, worse, on us).

Yes, we are frustrated because this isn’t the first or the fifth time or even the twenty-fifth time they’ve neglected a responsibility.

Yes, we are annoyed that they don’t seem to understand that, in the grand scheme of things, straightening one’s room is a very small task, and one of the few that’s asked of them, but . . . (see next bullet).

Though this may not be a skirmish worth escalating into a full-on battle, any mutually agreed-upon responsibility should be accounted for. (As a matter of fact, a survey of 639 adolescents regarding their practices related to a host of adolescent issues, such as drinking, smoking marijuana, sex, eating, school performance, and more, found that one of the common denominators among the 12.5 percent who were “too good to be true” was a requirement that they keep their rooms clean. Other common denominators were frequent family dinners, intact family units, no phones in rooms, and some type of community service.)

How do we deal with the plight of the long-term investment versus the short-term gain when it comes to raising our teenagers? What rules do we put in place that acknowledge the same loopholes we discovered, indeed created, in our parents’ parenting, yet allow our adolescents to discover the benefit to their own self-image of even the smallest contribution?

The good news is that it is never too late to change our parenting practices. The better news is that it’s simpler than we think.

Excerpted from "7 Things Your Teenager Won't Tell You," by Jenifer Marshall Lippincott and Robin M. Deutsch, Ph.D.  Copyright © 2005 by Jenifer Lippincott. Excerpted by permission of Ballantine Books, a division of Random House, Inc.  All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

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