Child Discipline Tips For Teens
Child discipline can be a challenge at the best of times. Different children respond in different ways. But one thing remains the same, the consequence should match the crime if at all possible. Allow me to share an example of something that happened at our home just last week. This had to do with one of my teenagers, but the principle remains the same whether your child is five or nineteen:
My son David needed to buy a drum kit and he was $100 short with his money. I made a decision to lend him the money but I told him that he needed to pay me back as soon as he received his next lot of money (it was just a few days away).
The problem came when David received the goods but all of a sudden decided that it wasn’t so important to pay his mother back the money she had loaned him. To his credit he did pay me back $75 of the $100 I had loaned him. Then he sent me a text one day saying “mum, I haven’t been wise with my money and I spent the other $25. Sorry, I’ll pay you back whenever I get some more money coming my way”.
I decided that David needed to learn a lesson and here’s why: the real world doesn’t operate like that. As an adult if you can’t pay your rent you get kicked out of your house. We must always pay back our debts to one another. Now I didn’t urgently need the rest of my money, but I did need my teenager to understand that his behaviour was not acceptable in this instance.
I calmly waited until David was out with some friends, went to his drum kit and took back the snare drum (in my mind that was one quarter of the drum set). I drove down the road to Cash Converters, the nearby Pawn Brokers Store. They happily gave me $25 for the snare drum and put the drum away into safe keeping for my son. I didn’t sell it; I just told them to mind it until my son decided to pay to get it back, with interest of course.
David was not very happy with me (OK, he was pretty bummed and very angry). But here’s the thing: I didn’t need to nag or beg him to repay me now because it was all up to David to take action if he ever wanted to see his snare drum again. I told him that when he had the money including the extra interest payable, I would drive him to the shop to get his snare drum back again. Then I walked away.
Can you see what I am doing here? I am helping David become prepared for the world and to live in it as an adult. I am doing my son no favours if I bail him out of a sticky situation if it is in his power to act but he chooses not to. It took David five days to find the money to get his snare drum back. Interesting – suddenly he found a way to make the money appear. Now he was motivated.
If we give our children suitable consequences for their actions they will learn quickly in life. Don’t bail your child out when they need to experience a consequence. Let them learn from it and child discipline will become much easier.
