When it comes to freedom and adolescence, this is how it's meant to be. A healthy adolescent is supposed to push for all the freedom to grow that he can get as soon as he can get it, and healthy parents are supposed to restrain that push within the interests of safety and responsibility.
This necessary conflict of interest is expressed in many ways over the course of adolescence, as I describe more fully in my recent book about parent/adolescent conflict, "Stop the Screaming."
When adolescence finally winds down in the early to mid twenties, this conflict plays out because now the young person has at last claimed functional independence and parents have finally relinquished their directing, supervising, and supporting role.
Until then, however, parents can't just let their teenager have freedom on demand because it is risky. Each new worldly freedom mixes the young person's ignorance with her untried experience with unpredictable influences, often in the company of eager and impulsive friends.
Of course risk is matter of perspective, and the two perspectives tend to disagree. "You worry too much!" protests the teenager. "Well you don't worry enough!" counters the parent.
Actually, parents are all for the teenager having a certain kind of freedom. "Responsibility" they call it, the kind of freedom that is informed by preparation, monitored by awareness, and influenced by judgment - the safest kind of freedom there is. This is the kind of freedom they want their teenager to have, for example, when she gets behind the wheel of a car.
The question is, how are parents to decide that their teenager is ready to risk having more freedom out in the world? My answer is when she is meeting the provisions of "the freedom contract."
As soon as your child shows the signs of entering early adolescence (see 2/16/09 blog), you need to have a talk about freedom and responsibility, and the contractual relationship between the two. You can say something like this.
"The time has come when you are going to want more freedom to grow, to do more things out in the world with your friends. I want to let you have some of those freedoms, but only if you are showing me that you can handle them. So I am going to hold you to contractual account for six kinds of responsibilities.
Meet them all, and I will be more likely to let you try the freedom you want. Don't meet them, and I will be more likely to refuse. Here are the six responsibilities in the freedom contract I want you to meet.
TELL THE TRUTH. I want you to keep me reliably informed with adequate and accurate information about what is happening in your life and what you are planning to do.
MAKE A CONTRIBUTION. I want you to live in a two-way with me, doing work for family in return for all that family does for you.
HONOR YOUR COMMITMENTS. I want your word to be good which means keeping the agreements and promises you make to me.
SHOW MATURITY. I want you to demonstrate socially appropriate behavior at home, at school, and out in the world.
PRACTICE AVAILABILITY. I want you to be open to talking with me about any concern I may have at any time.
DEMONSTRATE CIVILITY. When I have something to discuss with you, or when we disagree, I want you to communicate with me with the same respect that I show you.
If you have been honest and forthcoming with me, helped and done chores at home, kept your word to me, taken care of business at school, talked about what I have wanted to discuss, and managed that discussion respectfully, then you will have bargaining power in the freedom contract. You can point out all the ways you are acting responsibly, and I will take that record into account in weighing my permission.
If, however, you have been lying to me, refused to do your share of work at home, broken agreements, failed your obligations at school, won't talk to me, and when you do talk with me do so disrespectfully, then you will lack bargaining power to get the freedom you desire."
And if your teenager, not meeting some provision, vows to mend his ways if only you will let him have some urgent freedom now, explain that you only bargain with performance, never with promises.
"You show the maturity to do all your homework this next six weeks instead of not turning most of it in, and that will help bring you back into contract and allow me to consider more freedoms that you want."
Next Week's entry: Adolescent Boredom - Not a trivial emotion.
For more information about my book on parent/adolescent conflict, "Stop the Screaming," see: www.carlpickhardt.com
