Some of my favorite memories as a young father include times spent with my kids when they were five or six years old. At that age their Mom and I were the center of their universe and they genuinely loved spending time with us. Whether it was playing catch, taking a Sunday drive for ice-cream, or just running to greet me as I came through the door after a long day of work, I knew my kids loved me and truly enjoyed being with me. Life was good.
Then came one by one their 13th birthday, and almost over night my children began treating their mother and me as if we had suddenly grown three heads and were covered in boils. Instead of begging to spend time with us, they balked at anything that smacked of family time, and their lives revolved almost exclusively around their friends (I didn’t even know my kids had “best friends”). Family trips, when we could convince them to go at all, had to include a friend, and time that these new teenagers used to spend with us was replaced by countless hours huddled in the secrecy of their rooms or on the telephone re-visiting every nuance of their day with their latest best friend.
By the time I had gone through virtually the same scenario with each of my four children I realized that this radical change in personality was really just a part of growing up. All kids when they get to be about junior high school age crave the kinship of other kids their own age, even sometimes (okay, often) to the exclusion of their own families. We parents do well to remind ourselves that we have done nothing wrong; This “I hate my parents” phase is just a rite of passage almost every teenager must experience. They do get over it in a few years, I have discovered, although it is an absolute understatement to say that those teenage years can be painful because we can feel so excluded from their lives.
But some parents do make one critical mistake when their kids reach adolescence and start to pull away. While it is very natural for a parent to “back out” of their children’s lives given how much teenagers try and convince us to just leave them alone, many parents don’t pay enough attention to the friends with whom their teenagers start spending so much of their time. The truth is, at this age these friends have enormous power over them and they have a massive influence on your youngster’s behavior. In fact, if a parent wants to learn more about their child’s true behavior they need only to observe how their friends are acting.
This is especially true, for example, around drug use. From time to time I have a conversation with a parent who will tell me that her child doesn’t do drugs even though her son’s or daughter’s friends do. The truth is kids who do drugs don’t routinely pal around with kids who don’t do drugs, gang bangers don’t run with non-bangers, and kids who habitually break the law aren’t best friends with kids who obey the rules.
So, here’s an important measuring stick to find out what kind of young person your child is becoming: watch his or her friends closely. If the friends are respectful and studious, your child will likely be the same and you can count your blessings. But if your child’s friends exhibit behaviors that do not fit your vision of how your child should behave, chances are your youngster is doing exactly the same thing when you aren’t around.
When that happens I urge you to talk immediately with your teenager about your concerns. You may want to reinforce the family values you taught them when they were young (and they still thought you were smart) and to re-emphasize your expectations for his or her behavior even when you aren’t around. With any luck, and with vigilance and courage, you can help your teenager exit adolescence as a wonderful young adult, and you can actually regain your sanity until your next child turns thirteen.
We’ll talk again…
Larry Parsons
Superintendent
Roseburg Public Schools
January 25, 2011 at 1:39 am |
Lovely. We never think the cut-off is thirteen. Some one told me it would be 18. Another instance of poor math skills.