Читать книгу You Don't Know Anything...! - Nadir Psy.D. Baksh PhD - Страница 11

Of course, children do not appreciate being corrected on their behavior; they take deep offense when they are not entitled to say and do whatever they please. That is too bad. If you, or a teacher or police officer, or any other person in authority issues a directive, it is to be followed; end of story!

Teenagers love a good debate, and will take the opportunity whenever it avails itself. If you allow your child to debate your decisions, you are sending the incorrect message that you and they are equal on a level playing field. You are not. This is not a competition; therefore, when you declare a conversation is finished, the subject is over.

Teenagers should not be invited to enter into any type of debate with you, nor should lengthy defensive explanations be given when the outcome of a decision is not favorable to your child. The oldest trick in the book is to force a change of mind with manipulation—wearing you down and confusing you until you can no longer remember the premise of your ideas or the manner in which you reached your conclusion. This trickery is aimed at undermining your parental role. The opinions of your teenagers are often invaluable when asked for, but your adolescent son or daughter has no business butting into any adult conversation uninvited and uninformed.

Further, if your teen demands to know how you came to your conclusion about an issue, you should not make them privy to the details surrounding your decision. Unless their safety is at stake, to include them in lengthy conversations is to cast them into the role of co-adult.

Parents of young children are capable of issuing directives such as “Never run into the street” without question and following up with a severe consequence if that directive isn’t followed. Yet, those same parents cannot enforce a directive to their teenager, allowing it to be debated or ignored.

We want to yell out, “What is wrong with you? Why can’t you be as certain, now that your child is older, about the dangers that lurk about? Why don’t you demand the respect you deserve? Where have you gone wrong and what are you going to do about it?”