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Reinforcing a rule for your defiant teen can sometimes be even more difficult than making it. What’s the use of setting dozens of limits if they’re not followed? Making rules and then sitting there watching them being broken around you, puts question marks on your authority as parent. By reinforcing your guidelines, you are not only creating a secure place for your children but you are also providing them with steady and reliable parents to look up to.
When your kids break the rules, make sure to follow through with the corresponding consequences you initially set up. Be ready for teenagers who may try to push your patience. They’re just calling your bluff. But what they don’t know is that you’re not bluffing, you’re dead serious. Mix-ups of this nature can start from just letting little things go by unnoticed.
For example, your teenager may leave the dirty dishes in the sink one night and rush out to play basketball with his buds. You may simply just finish the washing yourself but then you may begin to notice as time passes that he stops helping out with other chores as well. Now you may reach a point where you can just burst. But if you kept constant from the start, an outburst may be avoided completely.
It may be tiring to always remind your teenager about following the rules, but remember that prevention is an important way to keep your kids away from trouble. As a parent, you can expect your rules to be adhered to constantly, if constant reinforcement is made.
Utilizing Penalties for defiant teens
When a teenager breaks rules, the corresponding consequences may differ not just according to the rule broken but as to how your defiant teen reacts to it as well. If you tell your daughter that she can no longer use the computer for games as a penalty for coming home past curfew, it may mean nothing to her if she only cares for magazines and the mall!
When assigning penalties to certain rules note the following:
• Remember to make penalties which have meaning for your individual child. They should have weight enough to actually curb the mistake committed from happening again.
• And of course the harshness of the penalty ought to be equivalent to the act committed.
Initially, after your child breaks a rule, a direct penalty should be made. This direct penalty may then be followed with further consequences if the harshness of the act committed calls for it. For the example given above about coming home past curfew, you may choose to send her to her room as soon as she gets back.
If needed this penalty may be backed up by grounding her for the week. Studies have shown that utilizing direct penalties have a prominent effect on teens. It’s up to you to find out what mix of direct penalties or further consequences can help your child out the most.
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