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| ON TO THE PROM — Ozaukee High School students in Fredonia exit Holy Rosary Church after Mass in April 2005. According to family therapist Paul Gasser, when teens make mistakes, parents should react with empathy, not anger. (Catholic Herald file photo by Sam Lucero) |
For the fourth time in the last two hours, you’ve asked your teenage son to unload the dishwasher, or your daughter to put down her cell phone and start on her chemistry homework. Their promises — and excuses — are wearing on your nerves, and you ask yourself if a responsible teenager is a reality or simply an oxymoron.
Paul Gasser thinks it’s the former, although the marriage and family therapist at the Franciscan Skemp Lake Tomah Clinic in southwestern Wisconsin hears from frazzled parents and teachers of teenagers in the presentations he’s given at schools and parishes around the Milwaukee Archdiocese.
Parent/adolescent struggles are a familiar topic for Gasser, the father of four. Besides being a family therapist for more than 16 years, he’s a former junior high school educator and elementary school principal who currently teaches courses on child behavioral issues for the University of Wisconsin-Platteville Continuing Education Department, and speaks at parenting workshops for the Colorado-based Love and Logic Institute.
While setting up drug and alcohol prevention programs in schools near Moscow through a federal government grant years ago, Gasser found teenage struggles are a universal topic.
“This isn’t unique to American parents,” he said. “Russian parents have the exact same concerns.”
Teach individuality,
but also authority
In his presentations, Gasser teaches parents how to help their children master what he calls “the three R’s” — respectful, responsible and resourceful behavior.
One of the most common complaints Gasser gets from educators, including his wife, a fourth-grade teacher, is of disrespectful children who argue with and complain to their teachers about everything from grades to homework assignments.
“That (behavior) is, in essence, a basic social skill, and a lot of our kids lack basic social skills,” Gasser said. “Many times that can be traced right back to toddler-hood, where they had a struggle with authority.”
Many parents, he said, focus on developing a child’s individuality, but neglect to teach him about authority.
“If you’ve got a child who initially does not deal well with authority, can’t do what he’s told as a toddler, you’ll see that becoming a significant issue by about the time he reaches third or fourth grade. Because at that grade level, kids really have to put forth some degree of effort and struggle to do well in school,” Gasser said.
Children have inflated
sense of entitlement
“The struggle my wife has lots of times in her classroom is that kids don’t turn their work in, or they argue with her about why they have to do it.”
Generally, the problem stems from a child’s inflated sense of entitlement, Gasser believes.
“It’s the idea that ‘I’m entitled to have lots of quality things in my life. I’m entitled to have an easy lifestyle, but I’m not willing to struggle to get it.’ When you’ve got kids who have that sense of entitlement and they don’t know how to struggle, you’ve created a gap,” he said.
“Lots of times I’ll ask parents, ‘What’s your goal for your child in life?’ They’ll often say, ‘I just want him to be happy.’ Well, the problem is, you’ve created a kid who has no idea how to keep himself happy because he’s used to having lots of things given to him. Kids will start to develop what I call ‘hostile dependency.’ They’ll say, ‘I hate you. I hate you. I hate you. Give me money to go to the mall.’ Or ‘Buy me a new car.’ Or ‘Give me more stuff.’ Parents believe they must keep kids happy.
“Parents get locked into the belief that it’s their job to keep this child happy, versus stepping back and saying, ‘Look, you know it’s my job to teach you how the world is going to treat you. Because once you leave Camelot, guess what? Nobody’s going to care.’”
Parents may realize the problem, but often take what Gasser terms a “credit card” approach. Just as many credit card users put off paying their balance, parents delay talking to their children, and trouble escalates as kids grow older.
“A lot of the issues that were never dealt with when children were small recycle themselves in the teenage years, but now they’re recycled in much more significant, intense ways,” he said.
Kids who can’t make themselves happy look for ways to self-soothe and are often set up for at-risk addictive behaviors ranging from obesity to drug and alcohol addiction or even sex,” Gasser noted.
“When toddlers make mistakes, they can usually live with those because the price tag is a lot lower,” he said. “As kids get older, the price tag goes up. When teens make bad mistakes, they don’t always live from those mistakes.”
Respectful kids
are responsible kids
Respectful kids are also responsible kids and one way parents can help is to give their children chores to do around the house. The chores shouldn’t be connected with pay, but considered contributions to family life, Gasser said. Kids who want money for their chores should be reminded that parents also have unpaid jobs around the house, from doing laundry to buying groceries.
Chores serve the dual purpose of teaching children a work ethic and building self-esteem. That’s especially important today, when parents often feel that they can build self-esteem in their children with effusive praise.
“A lot of times self-esteem has to come from an intrinsic motivation, where a kid can tell himself, ‘I really can do this,’” Gasser said.
Poor self-esteem may lead to addictive behaviors, and although drugs and alcohol don’t dull that feeling of defectiveness, “some kids get what I call ‘druggie pride,’” Gasser said. “(They say) ‘I can’t do well in school. I can’t do well in anything else, but I know how to party well. I’m a good doper.’ Or ‘Look how much I drink.’”
Besides giving kids chores and developmentally appropriate tasks, parents can teach resourcefulness by letting teens find the solutions to their own problems — even serious ones.
Gasser referred to a recent phone call he’d gotten from a distraught mother whose son was caught trying to give away his Ritalin medication — a controlled substance — at a school dance; the boy was expelled from school and faced possible charges.
Gasser told the mother to let the legal system handle the problem, and make her son accountable for his actions. “(I said) Your approach is to step back and say, ‘Ahh, that’s really sad, but if any kid can solve the problem, it’s going to be you. You can handle it.’”
‘Helicopter parents’ hover over children
Solving their children’s problems is a natural instinct for parents, but the instinct can turn into hovering. Witness today’s crop of “helicopter parents” who have been reported to argue with college admissions directors and sit in on their adult children’s job interviews.
As difficult as it may be to step back, parents need to realize children don’t learn by being managed, but through experience, both good and bad, Gasser said. As teens begin to make their own decisions — and see the consequences when they choose poorly — they learn how to take care of themselves.
“What we want to do is let kids make lots of mistakes when they’re young, so they start to have this little voice go off in their head, ‘How’s this decision going to affect my life?’”
When teens make mistakes, parents shouldn’t react with anger, but empathy, sympathizing over the trouble, but still holding the teens accountable.
Deflect any arguments with “detachment statements,” such as “I love you too much to argue with you” or “This is really sad,” Gasser advised. But don’t use sarcasm.
“If you get sarcastic with your kid, then he’s got a reason to blame you, (saying) ‘My mom’s a jerk, or my teacher’s a jerk.’”
The Love and Logic message Gasser uses in his workshops fits naturally into Catholic and Christian faith, he said. Allowing teens to make choices on their own mirrors the free will we all have as humans, and the model of empathetic parenting is one we see in God.
“I’ll tell parents they need to handle their kids in the exact same way our heavenly Father handles us,” he said. “When we sin, God doesn’t tap us on the shoulder and say, ‘You sinned. Now straighten up,’ and yell and scream at us. He just says, ‘Wow, that’s really sad. Unfortunately, some bad things are going to happen.’
“As Christian parents, if we don’t teach our kids that they will never be held accountable for poor choices, why in the world would they ever follow Catholic principles? There’s no reason to. Nobody’s ever going to say, ‘Hey, this is going to be a problem. This is going to be an issue for you.’” |
