Adolescence and the Loss of Parental Authority

Source: Carl Pickhardt

Adolescence begins the age of more thankless parenting.

Now, driven by the need for increased freedom to grow, to experiment, and explore more worldly experience, the teenager can bridle at parental authority. What the child compliantly accepted, the teenager increasingly questions.

At this older age, she or he can sometimes discount and resist the rules, responsibilities, and expectations that dedicated parents keep in place. Of course, parents create these rules to make a family structure the young person can safely rely on for continuing oversight and a constant frame of reference when deciding what to do and not to do.

Aspects of parental authority

So, come adolescence, parenting is not a popularity contest. The teenager, to varying degrees, can discredit four aspects of traditional parental authority.

• Standing: While the child respected adult authority; the adolescent can increasingly resent parental rule. “You’re not the boss of my world!”
• Influence: While the child believed parents could command them; the adolescent knows that compliance depends on her/his consent. “Doing what you want is up to me!”
• Knowledge: While the child believed parents knew most everything; the adolescent finds them ignorant about teenage matters. “You don’t understand my life!”
• Help: While the child believed parents could fix most problems; the adolescent believes parents are less effective. “You can’t make my troubles go away!”

No wonder parents miss some loss of traditional authority once their child’s adolescence gets underway.

Absolute and approachable authority

Should parents insist on absolute authority (defined as brooking no disagreement), they risk reducing communication and engagement with their teenager. “There’s no point talking to my parents; it’s their way with no argument allowed.” Absolute authority can be reluctant to relax control when letting go is gradually what such parents must do — granting more freedom to adolescent self-management as increased youthful responsibility is shown.

It's best to provide approachable authority, defined as welcoming argument from the teenager. Argument is not an expression of disrespect (ignoring is disrespectful); it is speaking up against a rule or request, thus keeping parents informed about adolescent thinking and being open to talking out disagreement. In response, parents can explain: “We will be firm where we have to, flexible where we can, and always want to listen to whatever you have to say.” This last declaration is important because it allows the adolescent to accept parental conditions the young person may not like. “I didn’t get my way, but at least I got my say.”

Positional power differences

Parental authority does have a drawback: misuse of the positional power difference between parents and adolescents.

Because they carry the burden of responsibility, parents occupy a superior position entitling them to set terms for which they expect compliance. The teenager is dependent on parents for support, in the subordinate position, and obliged to accept conditions parents set.

Unless carefully handled, the high power/low power difference in the relationship can be corrupted at a time when differences over freedom and independence are on the rise. Parents who were used to pulling superior rank to get their way in disagreements with the comparatively docile child may find the adolescent less amenable to being commanded by a parent acting in "boss" mode to get compliance.

Now the young person may be more inclined to give a resistant response. This can lead to power struggles in which winning the disagreement at all costs can seem, in the angry moment, to matter most of all, risking hurtful words and hasty actions both can later regret. It's best for parents to treat rising disagreements with their adolescent as problem solving encounters to be talked through and worked out, and as opportunities to teach the teenager to do the same.

Because the person in the superior position, the parent, has more resources to provide, they can exploit the power difference to get their way with threats and coercion. “If you don’t do what I demand, you won’t get freedoms and resources I control.” Being in the subordinate position, the teenager observes the superior more closely for survival and, as the superior’s prime informant about themselves, they can manipulate this power difference to get their way through antagonism and deception. "If you don't let me have my way, I won't be your friend and I won't tell you what's really going on."

When the positional power differences are regularly exploited with threats and coercion from above, or manipulated with antagonism and deception from below, distrust sets in, functional communication is lost, and the relationship suffers.

Independence at last

With functional independence, the young person now becomes their own authority, with all the commensurate responsibility that comes with occupying that self-governing role. Then they confront their own authority with the similar limits they once accused parents of:

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• Standing: “I’m in charge of my life, but I can’t control everything that’s going on.”
• Influence: “I make my choices, but I can’t always make myself do what I want.”
• Knowledge: “I can learn more, but never so much that I can’t be wrong.”
• Help: “I depend on me, but sometimes that is not support enough.”

It is an irony of reaching independence: While parents can miss the loss of their authority, at times the newly grown up adolescent can miss it too. "It was hard being bossed by my parents, but it's harder having to boss myself!"