Get Help Fast • • • • • • • • •   Disrespect School Problems Running Away Alcohol or Drug Use Violence Threats of Suicide Sexual Promiscuity How the Events of September 11th Will Affect Our Teens Post Other Problems You Want Addressed Disrespect If you are in need of a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T, here is one thing to try. (For a complete strategy for stopping this problem, please turn to pages 122-137 of Dr. Sells’ book, Parenting Your Out-Of-Control Teenager. Clearly Define Disrespect to Avoid "Literal Disease" The first step is to define your definition of disrespect. What might be disrespectful in one household may not be in yours. A common pitfall is to simply tell your teen, "From this point on, there will be no more disrespect." This definition is too broad and open to interpretation. For example, you may implement the rule of "no disrespect," but fail to specify what your teen does or says that is considered disrespectful. Your teen now has the perfect loophole and can argue, "It's not in the contract!” When this happens, it is as if your teen is a shark, smelling blood in the water, and you, the parent, quickly become the victim in the feeding frenzy. The Parenting Survival Kit will take you through the steps of putting an ironclad disrespect contract together, including video clips that clearly show how this is done. School Problems We have combined school problems here to include both truancy and failing -- for two reasons. First, they both involve the school system at some level. Second, both behaviors have the effect of making you crazy and putting your teen in control. Missing school makes you anxious and fearful because your teen is unsupervised. Getting D's and F's makes you so angry and frustrated that you will lose your cool. For a complete description of how to stop this problem, please turn to pages 138-154 of Dr. Sells’ book, Parenting Your Out-Of-Control Teenager. #1- Work Closely With the School You can stop ditching school and failing grades, but to do so, you must work in close collaboration with school personnel. To get the school to help, proactively call your child’s principal or guidance counselor to set up a meeting. Typically, Required Teacher Conferences (RTC) are dismal and nonproductive. However, this meeting will be different for the following reasons. First, you will come prepared with a written one-page outline of how you and the teachers can collaborate together. For example, one parent wrote in his outline: "I am giving each teacher two post cards with my return address. If you have any behavior problems with Jason or if he misses any assignments, please drop these cards in the mail and I will respond immediately." This allowed the parent to instantly know when the teenager was starting to "backslide" and to get into trouble. In addition, the lines of communication between teacher and parent were now open. Jason had a more difficult time playing his parents against his teachers. For an example of a parent-teacher contract go to the the Parent Survival Kit Study Guide. #2- Go to School Dressed As a Nerd If nothing seems to get your teen’s attention, you can go to your big guns. However, only use this strategy if nothing else works. It will shock your teen into submission, but you must use it with caution. Using this strategy, you would go to school dressed as a nerd. This strategy is effective because teens are extremely self-conscious during adolescence. They want to look "cool" in front of their friends. Rest assured, your teen will definitely not like the idea of her mommy or daddy following her to each class and sitting right next to her. She may "play possum" and act like she doesn't care, but you can be sure that she DOES care. This is especially true if you are a mom and come to school in fuzzy slippers with rollers in your hair or a dad who comes dressed in colorful golf pants, nerdy glasses, and greased back hair. Running Away Running away is a powerful weapon. Your teen realizes that even the threat to run will make you back down out of fear; fear that if you push too hard, your teen will run and possibly come to harm on the streets. You are held hostage to this threat and are tempted to stop enforcing rules. (For a complete description on how to stop this problem, please turn to pages 154-170 of Dr. Sells’ book, Parenting Your Out-Of-Control Teenager.) 1- Find Out if Your Household is Toxic Often, it can be said that the teenager is "running away" from something. For example, your teenager might be running away from a parent who is overly harsh or punitive or another parent who is abusing drugs or alcohol. Sometimes teens will run just because they want to or they don't want to follow rules. However, this is the exception, not the rule. Most teens run from something toxic. To find out if your teen is running away from something, please answer these three questions: • "What are the reasons your teenager might want to run away?" • "Is there anything in your household that makes things stressful or uneasy (disagreements in parenting, inconsistent discipline, drug or alcohol problems, sudden death in family, etc)?" • "What are all the things that would need to change to make your teenager want to stay at home on a permanent basis?" 2- Stealth Bomber Consequences Even if your teen is running from something toxic, you still have to stop the behavior. A band-aid must first be applied to stop the bleeding (i.e., the running away) before you can clean the wounds underneath the surface. One of these band-aids is called “the stealth bomber.” Like the stealth bomber, your teenager will not see these consequences coming. He will be stunned by the creativity. Stealth bomber consequences include: • Using a "wanted poster flyer" with an unflattering picture of your teen and a small cash reward for information leading to his whereabouts. These flyers will be hung all over your teenager's school and around town. • Poisoning your teen's safe houses - the places he goes when he runs. Using picket signs, notarized letters, and other means to turn up the heat on the parents of these safe houses to make your teen unwelcome. • Using the pawn broker strategy to sell, pawn, or remove your teenager's prized possessions (stereo equipment, tennis shoes, makeup, roller blades, or telephone) if he continues to run away. These consequences are effective and hit your teen's "Achilles Heel." Faced with such bitter tasting consequences, your extreme teenager will often choose to stop running away rather than continue with these kinds of consequences. Please go to the Parent Survival Kit Study Guide to learn how to put these consequences in place. Alcohol and Drug Use If you have an out-of-control teen, there is a high likelihood that he or she will experiment or abuse alcohol and/or drugs. A major reason for this problem is that your teen does not think he has an alcohol or drug problem. How many teens who use drugs or alcohol think they have a problem? We’re guessing zero. The major difference between teens and adults is that adults have usually experienced the ill effects of drug or alcohol abuse, while teens have not. Because of this key difference, traditional 12-Step programs such as Alcoholics or Narcotics Anonymous fall short. Teens cannot get past the very first step of admitting that they have a problem. Here are a few recommended strategies to stop your teen from using whether or not she thinks she has a problem. (For a complete description on how to stop this problem, please turn to pages 122-137 of Dr. Sells’ book, Parenting Your Out-Of-Control Teenager.) 1- Make Your Teen Take a Pee Test You can now purchase drug monitoring kits or Breathalyzer tests very cheaply. The importance of objectively monitoring your teen's use and abuse cannot be underestimated. Otherwise, you will get into bitter arguments when your teen comes home and you try to "guess" whether he is high. Parenting Your Out-of-Control Teenager tells you what to do if your teen refuses to take the drug test. 2- It Takes a Village to Raise a Drug Addict If you have a difficult time being tough, do not go it alone. An alcohol- or drug-using teen will sense your lack of confidence and eat you alive. The answer is to bring in reinforcements. Calling friends, neighbors, or extended family members to become "your village" will help you play parent instead of friend. These reinforcements will also give you the backbone and strength you need to change. It will literally blow your teen's mind if he comes home and sees a roomful of strangers coming together to support you as a parent. He will quickly realize that there is strength in numbers. For more information on how to set up a village see Parenting Your Out of Control Teenager. Violence When your teen threatens you with violence through words ("I'm going to hurt you bad;" "I'm going to punch the wall;" "I'm gonna kill you") or actions (kicking holes in the wall, breaking glass, picking up a knife, cutting herself), it becomes a safety issue. Harming someone can lead to serious injury or even death. For a complete description on how to stop violent behavior, please turn to pages 122-137 of Parenting Your Out-Of-Control Teenager. Your teen's chances of committing an act of violence are twice as high if she exhibits the following risk factors: • Comes from a family with a history of criminal violence • Has a history of being abused • Belongs to the outsider group that gets picked on • Belongs to a gang • Abuses drugs or alcohol These odds triple when you add the following factors: • Uses a weapon • Has been arrested • Has neurological problems that impair thinking or feeling • Has difficulty at school and attendance problems If your teen exhibits one or more of these risk factors, you can either take a hard line approach, like calling the police and filing charges, or a more creative and less known approach. This approach is called "being unpredictable." It is extremely playful and will blow your teen's mind. For example, one father stopped his teen's violence cold by purchasing a wig and breaking into a song every time his teen got angry. Another parent purchased squirt guns. He and his teen went into the back yard to drench each other in a water fight before things got overheated. These interventions may seem crazy, but they work and they work well. Please review he Parent Survival Kit Study Guide to learn how to put both the tough and playful consequences in place.   Threats of Suicide Suicide is the most serious and deadly of the extreme behaviors. If your teen is violent, she may hurt someone but live to face another day. However, if your teen successfully implements violence against herself, she dies. With this problem, there are no second chances. Your teen's threats of suicide may be emotionally based or based solely on manipulation. Emotional suicide means that your teen is severely depressed and finds no reason to live. Manipulative suicide means that your teen is using the threat of suicide as a ploy to get you to back down. She has no intention or desire to kill herself. The scary part is that, even if the suicide attempt is manipulative, your teen may still kill herself by accident. To stop this problem, you have one of only three solutions. A 24-Hour Watch in which all freedoms are taken away and your teen is literally watched 24 hours a day. She may need to get her stomach pumped and, if necessary, a no-harm contract. These are such serious interventions that you must read about them in detail. Do not try these methods unless you are under the supervision of a qualified counselor. For a complete description of how to use these strategies, please turn to pages 122-137 of Parenting Your Out-Of-Control Teenager.   Sexual Promiscuity A 1999 review of research studies on teen pregnancy by the Department of Health and Human Services confirms that teens with behavior problems are the most likely group to initiate sexual intercourse and have unintended pregnancies. Yet, these teens are the least prepared group to become mothers or fathers. Raising a child takes patience and resources that are acquired with age, education, and maturity. Out-of-control teens often do not possess these resources. To deal with this issue, of course, there is the obvious. Talking to your kids about sex is still the number #1 way to prevent sexual promiscuity or teen pregnancy. But how and when we talk to our teens is critical. (See pages 122-137 of Parenting Your Out-Of-Control Teenager to see how this done.) There are also nontraditional methods as well, such as contractual contraception, volunteer work, or special outings. For a complete description of how to use these nontraditional methods, please review the Parent Survival Kit Study Guide.   How the Events of September 11th Will Effect Our Teenagers Many parents ask, "How will the terrorist attacks on September 11 affect our teenagers, especially those that were already difficult to begin with?" The full impact of the attacks may never be known. But now that the initial shock is wearing off, the likelihood is high that our troubled teens will act out even more. Here are the reasons why: An Environment that is Less Safe and Secure Behavior problems like disrespect, running away, or violence thrive in unstable environments. Teens will tell you that the more chaotic and stressful the home or neighborhood, the more it negatively impacts how they act. That environment will become even more unstable as war is now a reality, and the threat of more terrorist attacks continues to be a very real possibility. The result is constant stress in our teenagers. Without coping skills, this kind of stress begins to wear them down. When you cannot get rid of the stress, it comes out in inappropriate ways. Here are some warning signs to look for in your teenager: Warning Signs • Change in school habits, like grades dropping and not caring • A loss of interest in something your teen loves • Sleeping too much • Frequent crying, depression, feelings as if the unpleasant emotions have always been there or as if they will never go away • Preoccupation with death • Feeling insecure and needing more of your time and attention • Chronic panic or anxiety • Becoming more isolated - pulling away from normal social activities • Talk of depression, life is not worth living • Increased acts of aggression, heightened fears, or insecurity These warning signs are normal responses to the crisis. How you react will be key in helping your teenager through these traumatic emotions. Here are our recommendations of what to do if your teen expresses these warning signs: Strengthen Your Relationship After the shock has worn off, tough teens will need a secure and loving relationship with you. Otherwise, your teen may suffer in silence, unable to talk openly about the problems he is currently experiencing. Instead, he may crawl into a shell, act out, or turn to his peers for support. Parents of out-of-control teenagers often report that they still love their teens but no longer like them. However, during this crisis, it is critical that you try to reclaim this lost love. These steps are outlined in detail within Step 7 of Parenting Your Out of Control Teenager. Communicate Openly About the Crisis Some of the best solutions in life are the most obvious. Teens tell us that they want to talk about the terrorist attacks and current war, but are waiting for their parents to make the first move. It may be uncomfortable for you, but your teen needs to talk about it even if you don't have all the answers. Please remember that adolescence in and of itself is an unstable and insecure time in your teen's life. An unsafe world only adds to this problem. Catch Your Teenager Doing Something Right There is one way to guarantee that your teen will weather this current crisis and follow your rules on a consistent basis. Rules will be broken less often if you catch your teen doing something right by praising them for even the smallest improvement. For our troubled teens, we tend to only catch them doing something wrong because they may misbehave so often. Praise motivates, but criticism crushes the human spirit. How many of you would be motivated to do well at work if you received only 1 word of praise for every 10 words of criticism. Not many, and most of you would quit that job. Should your teen deserve less? To break this cycle, you must limit criticism and focus on praise. You will still hold your teen accountable for breaking rules, but while he is not misbehaving you must find things that he is doing right We hope these recommendations have helped clarify your role as parents during this catastrophic crisis, and has prepared you with possible warning signs. In a time of extreme terror, we must try to put aside our grudges and differences for the future of this nation…our children.