and gathered community service points whenever she could. She had had one steady boyfriend, who excelled in both academics and sports. For Christmas the previous year she had sold crafts at a local craft fair in order to purchase a much-needed clothes dryer for her parents.
Rose had always made good decisions with forethought and planning, which is why it was such a shock when she told her parents she was five months pregnant. Rose planned on having the baby and did not want anyone to attempt to persuade her to end the pregnancy, which is why she waited so long before confiding her news. Her steady boyfriend was not ready for the constraints of marriage, and certainly not for fatherhood, so Rose came into therapy for guidance and support. Her parents accompanied her, wanting to know how this could have happened to such a responsible girl, who knew everything about abstinence, birth control and safe sex. The answer did little to lighten their burden, but it was the only answer there was: “Your daughter is only seventeen, and seventeen-year-olds do not make consistently good decisions.”
Friend or Parent? Don’t Confuse Your Role
Some of you might exercise your parental right to teach a lesson by withholding privileges; others might try to “buddy up” to your child, to be his or her friend, sharing stories of your own drug problems or sexual activities. Please don’t do that! Befriending your teenage children is not going to correct their difficulties but rather will add to them. Your teens do not need you to be their friend; they need you to be their parent. The two are not interchangeable.
A friend is someone who shares intimate confidences, who expects to be treated fairly without judgment or disloyalty, who will offer objective advice and be a shoulder to cry on. A friend is someone who supports ideas with enthusiasm and is not afraid to come forward with admonishments when your thinking is off base. Your child is neither emotionally equipped, nor mature enough, to be any of these things to you, nor should they be. We’re sorry to tell you this, but during their adolescent self-serving years, the only way your child wants to include you in his or her circle of friends is if you’re supplying the party house and the beer.
In a newspaper article run by the Associated Press (01/08), Laurence Steinberg, a psychology professor from Temple University, said, “The teenage brain is like a car with a good accelerator but a weak brake. With powerful impulses under poor control, the likely result is a crash.”
The article described Steinberg’s history, noting that “He helped draft an American Psychological Association brief for a 2005 case in which the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for crimes committed before the age of 18. That ruling relies on the most recent research on the adolescent brain, which indicates the juvenile brain is still maturing in the teen years and reasoning and judgment are developing well into the early to mid 20’s.”
Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the 5-4 majority in the case, wrote that “juveniles are more vulnerable or susceptible to negative influences and outside pressures, including peer pressure,” which determines their decision making and impulsivity in their out of control environment.
Your teens have their own friends, people their age whom they can “hang” with, cut up with, do stupid things with, and fight with. They cannot grow up any faster than they are programmed to, and you do them an injustice by attempting to trade the role of parent for friend so they will think you’re “cool.”
It is our opinion that this “not friends” rule holds true through-out life. Even as the generation gap narrows, your son or daughter will not have experienced your life lessons, nor developed the wisdom that comes from illness, death, betrayal, and other losses that are inevitable as we age. Sitting in the bleachers is not the same as being beaten up on the field. The stadium is filled with well-wishers, but they can never achieve the same satisfaction or the same despair as the athlete in the game. In your life, your children are permanently seated in the bleachers; do your best for them.
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