<p>I’ll jump in here but I’m not saying my way is the only way or the right way. So far it is working really well for us. We have four children - three boys ages 20, 16, and almost 14, and a daughter 10. They are far from perfect but we got one through high school with no major behavior or substance abuse problems, and I’m thinking we’ll be okay with number two. I make no real predictions ahead for any of them, as I’ve learned that life is what happens to you when you’re making other plans. But I do think it’s important to clamp down a little in the early teen years so they can have more (deserved) freedom in high school.</p>
<p>I believe 7th and 8th grade, at least for boys, is the hardest time, and this is a very good thing. I do not want the hardest time with my kids to be when they’re 16 or 17! To me the job of my kids in 7th/8th grade is to push the envelope as hard as humanly possible, and my job is to deliver consequences time after time until they realized that we are still the parents and they are still the kids. </p>
<p>I told my older two boys that if they followed my rules they’d have more freedom than anyone they know. But if they didn’t follow the rules and we found we couldn’t trust them, then their freedom would necessarily be curtailed. We set reasonable rules, like you <em>must</em> let us know where you are, when you’ll be home, who you’re with, etc. My 20 year old still gives us a general idea of his goings on, if not only out of courtesy to us when he’s home under our roof for the summer. I certainly expect the same from a 13 year old. </p>
<p>And then when this rule is inevitably broken, as it must be at least once or twice just to test the waters, we make the punishment a little worse than the crime - so bad that it never feels like a fair deal (like you give me $5, I’ll give you $5 worth of goods) but more like, “I’m never doing that again because this just isn’t worth it.” I expect this and thus I don’t freak out when it happens - I just administer the appropriate consequence and let him stew in his own juices about it.</p>
<p>We also hold them 100% accountable for their decisions about who to hang out with. If they’re with a group of kids and someone decides to shoplift, or break a house window, my kid will be held just as responsible as if he’d done it himself. In other words, be discerning and make good choices about the qualities in your friends, or it may come back to haunt you later. I trust my kids are intelligent enough to see these things in other kids and make good judgment calls about who they surround themselves with. When they’ve struggled with this, I just turn the question around and ask if they’d be comfortable if dad and I were hanging out in the bars all the time, or with people who cheated on their spouses, or stole from their employers. Of course, they are not comfortable with that thought, so it gives them an idea of what we’re talking about.</p>
<p>Just yesterday my almost 14 year old had three friends over who, after I told them a rule about our house, went ahead and did it again. I caught them and kind of gave it to all of them. My son is grounded for a full week. He has some friends who would never have made the mistake in the first place, let alone doing it again after I had expressly told the group the rule. My son has some choices coming up to make in his friends, and also in his personal decision making. Life has consequences, and the sooner he learns this, the better. Life also gives a lot more freedom and reward to those who recognize and respect legitimate authorities (such as parents, or when older, the law, or employers). I do not want my kids thinking they are above the law, as that will make for quite unhappy and unproductive lives. If those four 14 year olds will knowingly break our rule in our house and with us right around, they certainly aren’t going to care about breaking rules when no authority figure is nearby. One kid even had the gall to tell me his mom wouldn’t care if he broke a rule at his house. All I could say was that our house rules had teeth, and we expected them to be followed. All I could think was, “and good luck to you in life.” To me his parents are doing him a huge disservice. My 14 year old seems to not quite understand all the things we try to explain to him as well as the older two did, so he may need to go through the school of hard knocks a little more than they did. I am not looking forward to it, but realize it’s what’s best for him in the long run and for his life. Kids are different. I am hopeful (but never completely sure) it will work the same for him. But I remember being in the middle of this with the other two and feeling much the same way. I have no crystal ball.</p>
<p>So ultimately, dke, my advice to you would be to expect to fight the good fight for about a year or so at your son’s age, and then do your job as a parent and make sure he knows how the real world works. I <em>love</em> my older teens, and I think this is a direct result of getting some issues resolved when they were 13 or 14. We still have arguments, and we still have to say things like, “You’re not going anywhere until your chores are done,” and things like that, but as my 16 year old told me the other day, he knows if he breaks a major rule, there are too many things he loves to do to make it worth sitting home for two months. I don’t expect we’ll get off scot-free with him, but it appears he’s moving in the right direction. And thus, he has a <em>lot</em> of personal freedom.</p>
