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During adolescent period, teens are typically oppositional of their parents. Their need for independence is often at odds with their interaction with their parents. It's also the time in their life when the influence of their peers seem to be more important to them. They're a lot more concerned about their thoughts and appear more self-absorbed. At times, parents need to take a step back and give their teens room to grow. However, intervention and punishments for defiant teens should be considered when their defiant and hostile behavior begins to adversely affect their social, academic, and family life.
It's also important to help your teens understand boundaries and limits to their behavior so that they'll know what kind of behavior is acceptable and which ones are not. The earlier parents start establishing boundaries for teens, the better. After all, teens are almost adults, and parents cannot really force their adult children to do anything they want to do.
When dealing with defiant teens, it's extremely tempting to scream and make decisions based on an emotional response to their rudeness, belligerence, and defiance. However, as strange as it may seem, teens are just more likely to tune out emotional outbursts aimed at them. However, when parents don't deal with defiant teens at home, these teens grow up with an unhealthy disregard for authority figures and rules.
Punishments for defiant teens is only one part of the picture. The other part is concerned with building a healthy relationship with them, which takes time and a lot of effort on your side. Here are a few parenting tips that could help:
- Setting boundaries - From the time children are small, they depend on parents to teach them how to recognize and respect boundaries. It's an important life skill that is important both inside and outside the house. For parents who are having problems with their defiant teens, it helps to be specific about the things you expect your child not to do. For example, simply telling your teen that he'll lose his video game privileges if he gives you an "attitude" leaves a lot of room for interpretation and results to more fights.
- Focus on important areas - Accept beforehand that you will not win all wars with your teen so it's important to pick your battles. Select the most common problem areas where you and your teen clash all the time and focus on those areas. Your teen will not be able to get everything right all the time, but at least he'll probably get it right where it matters most. Punishing every little thing that your teen does wrong will only break down communication between you because it makes them think that you're being overly critical of them and it kills feelings of affection at home. Suddenly it becomes all about getting it all right rather than helping your teen become a better-adjusted individual and have a happy home life along with it.
- Be consistent - Parents should present a united front when dealing with punishing teens. When parents aren't on the same page, it sends the wrong message to teens that they can get away with breaking house rules depending on mom and dad's moods. Teens will try to get out of a bad situation through a loophole or through negotiating with you. It's best to stick to your guns and be consistent about house rules, which shouldn't be a problem if you keep your house rules short, reasonable, and easily understandable.
- Look out for signs of behavioral issues - Sometimes, teens become oppositional or appear to be oppositional because they have a disorder such as ODD (Oppositional Defiant Disorder). Teens with ODD seem to have a compulsive need to always do the opposite of what authority figures say. They may blame others for their mistakes, are always uncooperative, defiant and hostile, and they can even be physically aggressive. For these kinds of teens, winning arguments is everything. For teens who have different needs, disciplinary measures that usually work on other teens won't work on them. It helps to work with a professional in order to help teens with such issues. Individual and family therapy sessions can work wonders.
Developing a good relationship with your teen doesn't mean agreeing with them all the time. Setting boundaries, being consistent with house rules, and spending a lot of quality time with them is very important. Making the effort to have sit-down family dinners or spending time with them over the weekend for a little quality family time is a great place to start.
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