Mark,
Thanks so much for your comments. I have shared these with my husband and do agree with much of your advice and opinion.
We have tried in this past week to do as you advised about having me be more of the disciplinarian and my husband take more of a quieter role. He is so bitter and angry all the time. I have had more conversation with my son about him moving out and I did discover it's not just from our home he wants to move from it is from the area we live in. He hasn't told me what exactly is going on but he has shared that he wants a clean start to get away from the problems he has in Green Bay.
I have told him that running away from the problems won't solve anything and they eventually will just catch up to him. He likes to blame us for a lot of his problems but I think he is just angry with himself and it comes across like he is angry at us.
I found some medication missing in our cabinet and I asked him about this and he said he didn't know anything about it. Later he left his back pack sitting around unattended and I looked inside to see if he had these and I found them along with other medication he had taken from us. He asked me later if I took something from his back pack and I said I hadn't. He thinks it was stolen from school at this point. I don't know what he was doing with these.
He did tell me later that one of his friends had him holding a couple of pills for him and now he is mad at him because he doesn't believe that they were stolen. I haven't told my son that I have them, and I'm not sure I will. We just can't trust anything he tells us.
We started giving him some money as of last week. We did this because we thought maybe he was selling them because he didn't have any money. All we asked was that he work on giving us some respect, by talking more nicely and following the rules of the house, i.e. curfew, bed time, being polite. Which curfew is about the only one of them that he is following. On Wednesday's is when he is due to get some more cash for the week and I told him before he will get this we want to sit and talk about how this is going, he said no, he wont' talk to us and just wants to move out.
I don't know why he is so angry, I suspect he has made some poor choices and is having problems with friends, school, alcohol or other bad influences that he feels he is tainted or cast in a bad light with others that he wants to just run away from everything. Do you have any advice in light of this new information? Thank you so much.
D.R.
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Hi D.,
Thanks for waiting for me to find time to get back with you. I want to be able to spend some time on this email.
Allow me to share with you what I see in those cases where parents seem to have difficulty getting 'off the ground' with these parenting techniques:
Some parents have always been indecisive about what course of action to try with their child. They jump from one parenting technique to the other without giving any one technique enough time to be effective, or they try a new parenting technique once and then give up in frustration because it didn't work fast enough.
Some parents will say, "We've tried everything and nothing works with this kid." On rare occasion, this may be true. What I usually see is parents drifting from one parenting tool to another without refining their parenting tools.
Here are several ways to refine:
---Realize the same discipline may not work for all children, because of the unique features of different children
---Try to blend a combination of several parenting tools to create a more effective discipline
---Don't believe it when your children seem unaffected by discipline. Children often pretend discipline doesn't bother them. Continue to be persistent with your planned discipline, and consider yourself successful by keeping your parenting plan in place. When children pretend a discipline doesn't bother them, parents often give up on a discipline, which reinforces the child's disobedience. Remember, you can only control your actions, not your children's reactions.
Let's trouble shoot...
Below is a summary of all the assignments I gave you in My Out-of-Control Teen eBook. If parents do not implement ALL of these assignments, it will be the "kiss of failure." For example, the transmission in your car has hundreds of parts, but if just one little tiny part is not working -- the whole transmission does not work. The same is true with this "parent program." Omit just one strategy, and the whole plan falls through the floor.
1. Are you asking your son at least one question each day that cannot be answered with a simple "yes" or a "no" to demonstrate that you are interested in what is going on in his/her life? (page 20 of the printable version of eBook)
2. Are you saying to your child "I love you" everyday and expecting nothing in return? (page 20)
3. Are you eating dinner together at least one evening each week -- either at home or out? (page 20)
4. Do you use "The Art of Saying Yes" whenever your answer is yes? (page 25)
5. Do you use "The The Art of Saying - and Sticking With - No" whenever your answer is no? (page 25)
6. Do you catch your son in the act of doing something right at least once each day? (page 25)
7. Do you use the "When You Want Something From Your Kid" approach as needed? (page 31)
8. Do you give your child at least one chore each day? (page 31)
9. Do you find something fun to do with your teen each week? (page 54)
10. Do you use the "I noticed ...I felt ...Listen" approach when something unexpected pops-up? (bottom of page 50)
11. When you are undecided about what to say or do in any particular situation, are you asking yourself the following question: "Will this promote the development of self-reliance in my child, or will this inhibit the development of self-reliance?"
If it is supportive of self-reliance, say it or do it. If it is not supportive, don't!
12. Is your son EARNING ALL of his stuff and freedom? (see "Self-Reliance Cycle" - page 19)
If you answered "no" to any of the above, you are missing some important pieces to the puzzle. Most parents DO miss a few pieces initially -- you can't be expected to remember everything! But don't get frustrated and give up. We must be willing to hang in there for the long haul.
I'm talking about refinement here. Refinement is a necessary tool to use in order to truly be successful with these parenting strategies.
HERE IS THE GOOD NEWS: Parents who refine are, on average, 95% - 100% successful at getting the parent-child difficulties reduced in intensity and severity (i.e., the problems are easily managed).
The same can be true in your case. Keep up the good work. Please continue to refine by emailing me again. Refinement is a process, not a one-time event.
Here's to a better home environment,
