Raising Teenagers: Part 2

 

Principles of Love and Logic 

• Develop a healthy self-concept in your teen.
• Encourage responsibility.
• Provide guidance to find a solution to their problem.
• Neutralise all arguing.
• Give control through choices.
• What you say must be enforceable and followed through on.
• Show empathy.
• Lessons are learnt through consequences.
• Consequences don't have to be immediate.
• Building a life long relationship with your teen.

The Consultant Parenting Style

The Consultant Parent asks questions, offers choices and places the decision making on the teen.

Consultant Parents use "I" messages.

Consultant Parents ask questions that force the teen to do the thinking.

The biggest challenge of implementing Love and Logic is getting the language right. For Love and Logic to work it hinges on getting words to work for you.

Effective questioning tips:

• Don't tell teens what you expect. Get your teen to tell you what the expectations are.
• When your teen is amped up or angry, give them space and come back to the discussion later.
• If your teen has gone mute and won't engage in the discussion simply say, "You have a think about it and we'll talk about it later."

I like the first tip. By doing this you will discover whether your teen actually knows what is expected! The difficulty is getting the wording right. 

Here's a couple of "problems" I am having at the moment. 
Problem: Unable to find school clothes/Not putting clothes away.
Expectations: Clothes are put away after being washed and folded.
Discussion: Remember when you couldn't find your school clothes and it got pretty stressful for you? What do you think you should do with this pile of clean clothes?

Problem: Putting down others.
Expectations: We speak to each other with respect.
Discussion: I've noticed that when you get angry at Chook you call him 'Stupid'. What's your thoughts on that?
(Errggghh! I so want to say, "Stop calling him "Stupid". It's a horrible word and makes him feel bad." Then I want to ban him from gaming for a day if he does it again, but I've done this before and it's not working so I'll give Love and Logic a try).

Problem: Coming home late.
Expectations: You are home when you say you'll be home or you phone if you're going to be late.
Discussion: I get really concerned for you when you don't come home on time. I worry that something might have happened to you. Leave me _______ number. If you're not home by ____ I will phone your mobile, your friends and finally the police.

It took me twenty minutes to come up with the discussion questions! This is not an easy parenting method. But neither is the journey through adolescence. To use this tool I am going to have to practise using effective questioning.

Join me this week in developing our effective questioning so our teens are doing the decision making towards good choices.

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