When working with adolescents and their parents, I usually encounter two types of families. On one hand there are families who recognize that things are amiss and are willing to throw in the towel, and keep an open mind to a new way of doing things. On the other hand, there a families who recognize that things are amiss, have a strong desire for change, but are insistent that their way of thinking and doing, not change an iota.

Needless to say the latter presents as more challenging as the first. However such is the convenience of  myths; the belief that a specific way of thinking and doing will guarantee some form of stability and predictability. It can be especially confusing to  parents with more than one children, where one child is experiencing behavioral problems, and the other child is doing great. This merely helps to reinforce with some parents, their beliefs in their ways of thinking and doing. This is not to suggest that if a parent or parents have an adolescent who is struggling, that their parenting is “bad”, but I am certainly suggesting that no one way of parenting works for all children and adolescents. No two children born to the same parents have the same personalities, even identical twins have their differences. The problem with myths and parents who swear by them, is that they create false positives for parents.

Take for example, spanking. Some parents swear by this method of discipline, and in a recent posting related to spanking, I was flooded with a number of feedbacks, through twitter, email and the comments sections by people who strongly disagreed with my opinion about spanking. Spanking doesn't work, it is understandable why some parents believe that spanking is an effective way to maintain discipline in the household, given that most children who are spanked will respond by learning not to anger their parents. While most oppositional defiant children and adolescents will respond in reverse. So a parent who has achieved perceived success in spanking his first two children, might be tempted to increase the severity of his spanking on his persistent third child.

Here's another example, sex education. Some parents will swear that teaching abstinence is a sure fire policy towards protecting any adolescent from contracting sexually transitioned infections and unwanted pregnancies. Alas, but abstinence only education does not work in the hyper sexualized and aggressive society we live in today. Adolescents at the peak of their puberty are constantly bombarded with sex themed messages through all media outlets. So it is understandable if parents who grew up in a time where limited access and intrusion by media afforded their own parents and educators to exert more effective control over their lives.

The bottom line is certain myths persist in our society because life at times can be unpredictable and chaotic. So it is always going to be comfortable to believe that thinking and doing a certain way is a guarantee to ensure stability and predictability – but it's not. Even old traditions that where relevant in years past can become vestigial in todays' times. True, in order for parents to let go of a myth relating to parenting, there is usually a crisis that precedes it. Ironically, in order for parents to help facilitate stability and predictability in a chaotic adolescent's life, they have to first acknowledge and embrace the chaos.