Now that my kids are on the safe side of 20, it’s clear who they are. I sigh with relief and jump for joy that we raised two resourceful, kind, hard-working young adults who make good choices and have plenty of drive to do both good and well in the world.
But ’twas not always thus.
There was a time, when my son (a.k.a. Party Boy) was 14, and I made phone calls to four or five moms in the neighbourhood to talk about drugs. I said to them that I thought the boys were smoking a lot of dope, including probably on school nights, and I proposed that we parents meet to problem solve.
As individuals we were powerless against the lying, cheating teen juggernaut. Short of putting kids on house arrest, there was no way to stop them using any available “empty” (parent-free house) to smoke up.
I had been telling my kids for years to say no to drugs. This (the “ostrich” approach) worked great for my peace of mind — until I found out that my telling them not to do it was about as effective as telling my dog not to run away in the park. As parents it is so hard for us to accept that our teens disobey our directives routinely — almost for fun.
And once I accepted that, my parenting strategies became more realistic.
Hence my shock at the other moms’ reactions. They all said pretty much the same thing: “Oh, my son would never do that.” At which point I knew two things: 1) What my son would be doing at their houses and 2) I was on my own.
Those two realizations led to two choices: 1) Let it go or 2) Beard the lion in his den. The first alternative neither meshed with my parenting style nor offered peace of mind. I was terrified that my child was in danger of going down a bad path; it was clear that my admonitions about drugs being not good for him weren’t exactly achieving success.
I recalled my definition of “stupid” (the person who does the same thing over and over again even though it doesn’t work) and girded my loins for a new tack.
The only approach I could figure out was to start an honest conversation, in hope that if we could open those blocked lines of communication. I had a shot at gaining influence. Which began with the unimaginable (to many parents) admission that I knew what he was doing drug-wise and was not going to freak out about it. That surprised him, and suddenly we were in the room together.
The next step, which unfolded over several years, involved me sitting on my hands (oftentimes literally, as a memory aid) and listening non-judgmentally. This of course is that hardest thing for us to do as parents of teens because we persist in the pathetic illusion that if we talk enough we can change their behaviour.
Truth: We can only make them lie more — which is the opposite of communication.
So I listened … and listened. To stories of partying, drugs and alcohol. Pretty soon after I started listening, the miracle occurred: I could see his face change when we talked.
I could see his ears open occasionally to me. If we stay quiet enough, when teens talk, we catch those rare moments.
I thought out in advance what was really important to say to him and used those moments to deliver my key messages: 1) If you smoke dope on a school night I’ll kill you (just kidding, but it was important). 2) Never never never any other drugs. 3) Practice moderation. I think he preferred not lying to me, and I know that he was pretty good about the three big points — because I paid close attention.
Part of this strategy involved not being out of the house very often after 10 p.m. on weekends and smelling his breath (for smoke and mints) when he came home on weeknights. When teens hung around my house, I made a round every half hour to make sure everyone was safe.
The strategy made this phase of parenting as onerous as parenting a toddler — just a different kind of supervision. It was like teaching your little one to cross the street — far too important and risky to abdicate parental responsibility by looking the other way.
