Driven by the all-consuming quest for freedom and the intense fear that we’ll revoke it, even teenagers who are generally good and trustworthy sometimes resort to bad behavior. They may downplay problems, fool themselves into thinking that they weren’t doing anything wrong, hide things, and even lie to us-all in an effort to secure and protect their independence.
When asked in a survey, “When you do something that your parents would disapprove of, what is the best description for the reason that you do it?” 89% of the kids said they are “just pursuing their freedom and ability to do what they want to do.”
From the book For Parents Only, co-author Lisa Rice gave her own real-life example. She got a call from one of her daughters saying, “Mom, I’m still planning to spend the night at Jessica’s, but just FYI, I had the teeniest little boo-boo where I backed into this lady’s headlight. I don’t think it’s a big deal, and you might not even need to come over here…” but she neglected to mention that the teeny boo-boo happened while she was breaking their rule of not talking on the cell phone while driving. She clearly wanted to assure Lisa that it wasn’t a big enough deal to bother with or – heaven forbid – impose penalties that would interfere with the rest of the plans for the evening. The most amazing thing is that the most effective consequence was not taking away her phone, but they required her – and she preferred! – to pay the eight hundred dollars for the repairs on the other driver’s headlight. That meant four months of work with little take home pay for herself, but she internalized an excellent lesson without the resentment that might have built up from a lengthy grounding or loss of cell phone privileges.
We want to hear from you! Send us your real life example, of how your teenager has followed the concept that freedom is often their biggest motivator for bad choices. Please give us a brief explanation of the event and we would love to have a picture of that teen to go along! Tell us all about it!