Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you’re concerned about your teenager, but not sure how far you should go in monitoring their actions?
Recently, there’s been a lot of talk and controversy about the web TV series 13 Reasons Why, a very graphic show about a teenage suicide. Without going too much into the series, it’s certainly highlighted the fears many parents have about what their teenagers may be concealing from them.
As a child moves into adolescence, they can start to become very protective of their privacy, and to some extent that’s okay. None of us would want somebody snooping through our things or reading our diary.
The problem is that a parent isn’t just 'anyone'. A bedroom isn’t always off-limits if certain behavior is happening, and a social media account is definitely not a private diary, no matter how much your children may tell you that it is! (It’s not called social media for nothing. If your child were publishing a local newspaper using a printing press in your basement, you’d certainly want to be able to read it!)
On the other hand, nothing is more certain to set up conflict than marching in and demanding to see whatever you want.
So what’s a parent to do?
It’s a question we deal with all the time. Interestingly, some parents seem to be so afraid of upsetting their teenager that they pretty much allow them to do whatever they like, in real-life and online.
Others are reluctant to adopt what they see as new-fangled ideas about how much input teenagers should have in decision-making. These parents want to take a more 'old-school' approach:
“The child lives under my roof and so what I say goes – my house, my rules”.
“I bought the computer/I pay for the phone, so I have the right to see everything on it”.
While these methods may be easier or emotionally satisfying for the parent in the short term, for a teenager already testing the boundaries they’re unlikely to be effective in changing the teen’s behavior or keeping them out of trouble.
First of all, you may not have thought about what your instinctive reaction might be in this kind of situation.
Clearly, this last one is what is going to get you further in the long run, but it may not be the one that comes instantly to mind (unless you’ve already done a parenting program)!
Part of this means being transparent with the teen and saying something to them along lines of “I’m getting the feeling there’s something is going on, so we need to talk. There’s a balance between giving you your privacy and me meeting my responsibility to check something out if I’m concerned. So how are we going to do that?”
A lot depends on the situation. For example, are you worried your child is being bullied, bullying someone else, self-harming, using drugs, sexting or receiving unwanted texts, or something else? Some other things to consider are:
In a recent example I was involved in, where there’d been a problem on social media, the parent’s approach went something like this: “Let me make the decisions about what should happen here. It’s my right as a parent.”
My role was to coach her to try something different. We talked about the idea of bringing the child into a discussion, first, before she did anything else. There are a number of good reasons to make your initial approach like this, because it means that:
What you’re doing, as I’ve talked about previously and is an important principle of Triple P, is you’re looking at a problem situation not from either a “too-hard basket” or “my way or the highway” perspective. You’re now looking at it from the point of view of strengthening the relationship between you and your child, while also building skills.
Technology brings plenty of opportunities for teenagers to keep things from their parents in ways we didn’t have to grapple with in previous generations. But some things aren’t so different. It’s always been part of growing up to learn the difference between what is okay to keep to yourself, and when you need to tell someone else.
While navigating the teenage years can really test the skills and patience of everybody, finding the right balance between privacy and parental responsibility and keeping the lines of communication open will pay off in the long run.