We know that the teen-ager wants and needs the protection of sound rules and regulations to help him control his acts. They bring him the certainty he must have in the face of his own uncertainty until he grows into more mature sureness.
With some boys and girls dependable independence comes earlier than with others. But until it is present, a teen-ager wants your rules. They are enormously important props even though he may resist them.
The respect which you have paid to his feelings will be a large factor in determining the respect he pays to your rules.
The assurance which you feel in regard to what you request will also be important.
What rules are drawn up will depend on your own convictions, your background, the customs of the families with whom you associate. It will depend too on what you learn about the customs and rules among the friends with whom your teen-ager goes.
Do you know about his crowd's dating customs?
Discuss these with him. Find out what his crowd does.
Don't forget, however, that his fantasies may color his reports. What he states may more nearly approximate conditions as he wants them to exist rather than as they do actually exist.
" Susy doesn't have to stay home week nights," Florence reports to her parents. "Florence doesn't have to stay home week nights" Susy reports to hers, adding "You shouldn't keep pressuring me to stay home . . ." "So?" we might ask. "Who's pressuring whom?"
You will not want your child to be too different. And yet on some scores you will need to insist on differences.
About times to go out and the time to come home
"Two nights during the school week are enough for dating. Short dates only. Earlier to bed is a must!!"
"No, Ellen, even though the other girls don't have to be in at any special time, we don't think it's wise for a sixteen-yearold to be out till three or four in the morning. Let's settle on a more reasonable time and stick with it . . ."
"But, Mother, suppose we get into a traffic jam on the way home? Or that all the rest of the kids go for a snack? How can you expect me to get in on the dot of the minute hand?"
"I won't. We'll grant half an hour's leeway . . ."
"And if it's a party, of course I'll just have to stay till the end."
"That's right. Making you leave early wouldn't be fair. So we'll want to know when you go to a real party and where."
"Since we care with whom and where--"
"We'd like to know in general where you're going. To a movie. To a dance or what . . ."
"We may be old-fashioned but we want to meet your boy friends. We don't believe in this horn-blowing routine. When Tom comes for you next time, please invite him in . . ."
"Double dates, yes; single dates, no. Not for the present . . ."
"You said Judd asked you up to his apartment? I'm glad you told me. No, I don't think it's wise."
Do you meet her dates with grace?
When daughter brings her boy friend in, do you, her mother, in an attempt to be charming, give her a feeling that you may be trying to outshine her? Or do you, her father, in your attempt to be a hail fellow, really shove your girl into a back seat?
Don't be a holder-onto or a prier-into. Neither one helps.
Are you a night watchman waiting up
for your youngster's return?
"For heaven's sake, Mother, go to bed!"
Are your punishments too punishing?
"Imagine! They made me call off the big party. I'd been looking forward to it for weeks. That was to teach me! To teach me what? How to be meaner than mean to get even! . . . Anyway I felt they'd turned against me. So I put on my jeans and I took my toothbrush and nightgown and I got on the bus and went to my friend's . . ."
Do you yourself remember the agony of punishments that brought humiliation? They're never worth it, no matter what the crime. If you do deny privileges, at least don't make the
denials cover conspicuous times. And do permit your adolescent "outs" that save face.
Do you practice protective interference?
Do you, for instance, keep young brothers away?
Are you dependable about the car?
You promised he could have it. And then you decided to go out the same night. It might just as well have been the next night because it was just one of those "when-can-we-make-it" affairs.
That's one thing.
But it's another when you already have a date and a relatively unimportant one comes up for him and he starts to beg and you begin to feel "cruel." Do you stick with your conviction anyway that it's right to consider yourself rather than martyr yourself? If you do the latter, resentment is bound to follow and you'll take it out on him in some way no doubt.
How sympathetic are you in those pathetic "crises"?
When she's been starry-eyed, expecting a blind date to be her big moment and he turns out a "flop" . . .
When status and prestige are deflated by a lack of a Saturday night date . . .
When he's turned down or she's stood up . . .
These are awful moments, not to be belittled in their crushing weight.
How is your party behavior?
"My parents! They make pretenses to come downstairs and check. Imagine! My mother came down last night to see if I was burning myself with a fork!!!"
On the other hand . . . "My parents are wonderful! Do you know what they've done? They say young people need independence. So, because our place is small, they fixed up their room so it could be a sitting room, not only a bedroom. Now they're out of the way and comfortable there after the introductions are over when I have my friends in. And they're on hand if I need them, which gives me a feeling that's mighty good . . ."
Remember: There are few absolute rules. Most of them should be reviewed in relation to you, to your child and to the resolution that you can come to in terms of your standards and his standards--always, however, adhering to the standards of health, of safety, and of necessary legal demands.
Sometimes it is possible to make things happier all round if the parents of the boys and girls who go together can comfortably manage to get together.
It happened that Randy went with a group whose parents lived in one neighborhood. Randy's mother was an enterprising and friendly soul. She invited various mothers to tea in the afternoons, some of the fathers and mothers over for afterdinner coffee. What could be more natural under these circumstances than that the talk drift to parents and children?
"I think if we could have some common agreement about what our respective children should and shouldn't do, it would be more comfortable for all of them."
"And for us!"
"A good idea, Mrs. Jones."
Even so, our youngsters are bound on occasion to protest what we ask. They wouldn't be normal if they didn't.
"I know you think we're old fogies," one father commented, accepting his daughter's feelings, "or old bags, or whatever you call it . . . We are interested, though, in whatever arguments you have. We want to hear them." Thus he provided an action outlet for the feelings of protest. He knew that if revolt and hostility were there it was better to have them come out directly in face-to-face discussion than to have them store up and come out away from home, behind his back.
A few major "don'ts" are important for us too in connection with the "don'ts" that we level at our adolescents.
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