How do you regain respect of a teenager that is clearly off the rails?

Answer 1

To regain the respect of a teen, you usually need to change things about your methods. You can not change anyone, much less a teen; but you can change what you have been doing. This changes their reactions.

Some suggestions I have heard have been these:

1. Take your teen on contrasting day trips. Take one trip to the state pen/jail/ or rehab and another trip to the country club/law school/ or art show. Later, make a verbal or written list of the differences in the inmates and the members. Sometimes country club members make bad choices and end up inmates, but that is the exception and not the norm: discuss things like this. Avoid all statements that begin, "You..." keep it about the world outside your home and just philosophize. Have patience if your teen says things like, "Jail can't be too bad" or "I like the inmates better than the members." Just ask leading questions like, "I wonder what their homes look like?" or "Who do you think has an easier time finding a good job?" Address things like how the people got where they are. It helps if you had received first hand accounts from them on how they got where they are.

2. Go on a hike. When you go on the hike, talk about nature or your surroundings, or nothing. Try to avoid talk about things at home unless you are answering their questions. If/When you do talk about personal stuff, avoid being accusatory and blaming them for anything or telling them what to do. You might be better off asking them, "What do you think is your best course for avoiding conflict in these situations?" You should always ask, "What else could you have done?" or ask "And then what?" The name of the game is to keep them talking.

3. Gang up with other parents. You are not alone. Their friends all have parents of some kind. Trick them into introducing you all. Plan a barbecue, holiday party, themed party or Karaoke outing and get them to invite their friends and friends' parents. Exchange numbers or facebook invites with as many folks as possible. See what their rules and expectations are, then when Jr. says, "Ms. M let's Broyd skateboard the mall parking lot after dark!" You can say, "Well, I'm just going to have to ask her why she lets him, maybe there is a perk I'm not seeing here. Could it outweigh the risk of you getting hit by a car? ... I'm just not convinced it's a good tradeoff?" Chances are Ms. M will say she never lets her boy do that.

4. Make them save money for something awesome. It might be tickets to a concert you will drop them off at or money for a beach trip with a friend (and the friend's parents if you are banking in on suggestion number 3.) It will be fun to see them excited about something, but it also helps to have an extrinsic reward to dangle like a carrot on a proverbial stick.

5. Last but not least, be able to hurt them if you need to. If you can take away their social stripes by putting them on lock-down, you might have to. If you threaten something: back up every threat. If you just make empty-threats you become a half-blind police officer with a whistle and pink warnings. If we passed these officers in our cars, we would speed by laughing. They couldn't get us, and we'd know it. Real officers have guns and make us pay big fines or go to jail for even the lame infractions like speeding on the interstate.

Be a real officer. Keep your eyes open, and be ready to write out real tickets with probable lock-downs if reprimands are not met.

Bonus points if you spend time researching colleges, careers and healthy extra-curricular activities with your teenager. Finding productive stuff to plan and do will make a huge difference. They will probably act like it is a headache at first, but keep dropping packets of different college materials and explorer scout or ROTC info or anything else into their hands and you might find something productive that they are interested in sharing with you.