When We're in Public, Pretend You Don't Know Me by Susan Borowitz

Author:Susan Borowitz [BOROWITZ, SUSAN]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: FAM034000
ISBN: 9780446554503
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2008-12-14T00:00:00+00:00

9. Punishment and Discipline

What’s this new rule—‘Don’t breathe oxygen’?

—Sarah, 13

An Unpopular By-Product

The unfortunate corollary to privilege is punishment, but those same privileges give you the means by which you can exact a sufficiently onerous punishment. If your teen works hard for a privilege, she’s not going to want it revoked. It’s a good way to keep her in line—just make sure her life is enjoyable enough so that she won’t want to rock the boat. Of course this is no guarantee that she'll never disobey or misbehave; it’s just one more stumbling block to put in her way to slow down her progress toward an appearance in the “My Teen Is Out of Control” segment of Jerry Springer.

Parents’ authority and their ability to punish effectively a teen who’s fifteen to eighteen years old doesn’t make much sense on the surface. Kids are younger, sprier, and sometimes bigger and stronger, and it seems that once they get to that size, they could easily ignore their aging mater and just do whatever they want, or in some cases, simply pick her up and toss her out a second floor window. But don’t, whatever you do, doubt your own hegemony.

So for those of you who have waited until the teen years to try to instill a sense of responsibility in your child, I recommend not living in a house with a second floor. Responsibility is the sort of stuff that has to be attended to very early on, which is why the Uncool philosophy is pertinent for all ages. If you try to be her friend, her pal, her playmate even when she’s little, who is going to show her the way to responsible behavior? Better to be the Uncool Mom who can send a little miscreant to her room with one hand, yet can play a mean game of Candy Land with the other.

One of the sappier bromides about parenting is that you only get a few years with your kids—make the most of them (obviously coined by someone who never had to share air space with a teenage girl who failed a test, got grounded, broke up with her boyfriend, and got her period all within the same twenty-four hours). The truth, I maintain, is that we get even less than we thought. You get the early years—before teenage-hood and the rebellion that it brings—to establish a good foundation based on ethics and personal responsibility. After that, they no longer idolize you and listen to you as if you know everything. So you've got to get to it early. Once that foundation is set, it’s your best defense because when she’s internalized these values, they're always going to be there, guiding her, even if just a little.

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