Adolescent Stumbling Blocks
“Most parents are in denial about adolescence,” said Dr. Carl Pickhardt, presenting “Stumbling Blocks in the Journey of Adolescence.”
“Most parents would like to think, ‘Adolescence is something that happens to other people’s children, but it wouldn’t happen to mine.'”
Pickhardt, author of “The EverythingÃ?¢ Parent’s Guide to Positive Discipline” said, “Adolescence, because of all the possibilities, is scary for parents, but that doesn’t mean we’re going to go through agony with adolescence. By and large, most kids and most parents go through adolescence rather comfortably. What is not comfortable is our lack of awareness of what goes on during adolescence.”
First of all, parents should be aware, “Adolescence is not a punishable offense. We don’t punish them for the process, but we do hold them accountable for how they handle that process.”
Far from the generally smooth period of time before adolescence, “Adolescence wears the magic out of parenting. Now it takes more energy to parent than it did before. Our attitude has changed, and the kid’s attitude has changed.” However, he said, “We need this mutual disenchantment to occur.”
Pickhardt said, “The first thing you look for is a bad attitude. The positive energy drains away, and the negative energy starts to build. We are now cast in the role of the parent who no longer understands. Part of that negative energy is a sense of grievance.”
The adolescent is thinking along the lines of, “‘It’s not fair. It’s not right that you can tell me what to do. You’re not the boss of me.’ But, we are the boss still – this leads to rebellion.”
With rebellion, “They are seeing if they are powerful enough to stand up and argue with someone as powerful as a parent.” Pickhardt said it is important to allow room for arguing, unless, “If your mind is made up, don’t argue about it.”
He said that the active and passive resistance that follows gathers power for the adolescent, and they then move to experimentation and testing limits. Much of this is actually an important part of the maturing process, but if the adolescent takes it as far as “pranking, vandalism and shoplifting – Don’t treat that as innocent mischief. You’ve got to close the loop of responsibility on those things.”
Also, this is the point where a parent needs to weigh in heavily on such issues as drugs and alcohol. “If you don’t weigh in with mature, adult information on this stuff, then they will get information from their peers.” He used an example of one adolescent telling another, “Did you know you can’t get drunk on beer?”
During this process of adolescence, “Don’t take the process of negative activity, resistance and testing limits personally. The early adolescent is not doing anything on purpose to get to you. Adolescence is a counter cultural phenomenon.”
Because of these natural and necessary processes, “Teenagers are naturally offensive.”
During this period of time, “You have enormous developmental insecurity. They’re saying they don’t want to be treated as a child anymore. They know what they don’t want to be, but they don’t know what they want to be. They are breaking out of the family circle.
The family circle is no longer big enough to allow enough room for them to grow. These kids try to get themselves socially anchored at a time when they are the most insecure.”
He said, “Have you ever seen the amount of scrutiny they put in to looking at their bodies? They wake up in the morning waiting to see what is the latest tragedy they will have to take with them to school, and they know everybody is going to see it. They make comparisons with kids who they think aren’t going through any of this stuff. We
have the discussion that what is important is not your appearance but who you are on the inside – the kid knows that is nonsense. The kid knows appearance is everything.”
He said that instead of talking about it, kids internalize their feelings. “Sometimes parents who are uncomfortable will have a nervous smile or will laugh, but you can’t do that with kids this age. The kid will be humiliated.”
He said parents should take boredom seriously. “You don’t take it lightly. It is very painful. They think they don’t have a way to connect with themselves or with any other person.”
He said, “We do want to give them some windows of inactivity. It’s important to have that kind of time, but you want to keep some controls, some monitoring of that time. Kids are less and less capable to generate activities for themselves that are self-affirming.”
Another very important factor of adolescence is academic achievement. “Adolescence is the enemy of achievement. There is a lot of anti-achievement motivation in adolescence. The hard part of
schooling, the hard part of parenting, comes last.”
He said, “They are learning, ‘How do you operate in a system?’ They have to learn to work with the system, or the system will work against them. A report card is like a mirror. They look at that report card and see of reflection of themselves.”
He said it is very important not to let falling grades be associated with the anger of parents. “The kid will go down in flames to show you that you can’t make them.”
He said in dealing with school-related problems, parents should take advantage of the ‘Age of Embarrassment.’ Although, “It’s not
your goal to embarrass them,” say, “If you can’t manage to take care of business, I will insert myself in to your world. If you can’t take care of business in school, I will expand my circle of supervision and come to your school and sit beside you in class.”
