An author who helps adults understand teens has some advice for navigating the risks of the teenage years, and it all revolves around the letter R.
Lisa Damour, a psychologist, author, and contributor to The New York Times and CBS News, recently shared her take on helping teens navigate adolescence with an audience of the GPS Parent Series.
She said a framework she calls the “three Rs” — for respect, rules and relationship — can help parents manage risks facing teenagers, even newer challenges including algorithm-based social media, legalized marijuana, vaping, and the presence of fentanyl in the illicit drug supply.
“If you want to keep teenagers safe from anything — social media, parties, risky driving — use respect, have rules and then have a good working relationship,” Damour said.
Counter the effects of social media on teens
Damour has presented free parenting talks for the GPS series in the past and returned Oct. 30 for a conversation called “Untangling Teen Challenges: Social Media, Relationships, and the Epidemic of Stress,” moderated by journalist and author Jennifer Wallace. Her talk addressed many of the hot-button issues concerning parents, specifically the harms of social media use.
Damour said she has empathy for parents navigating their kids’ use of technology they never had themselves at a young age. And she encourages parents to use the second R in her framework — rules — to set reasonable parameters about their teens’ social media habits.
But Damour also encouraged parents not to over-focus on the ill effects of social sites, especially not at the expense of the third R — relationship.
“There’s something about social media, that the way it’s talked about can threaten the relationship between parent and child — and this is the most valuable thing we have,” Damour said. “When I worry about social media, I almost worry more about how it can become a very combustible topic between parents and teenagers than I do about what’s on social media.”
Why teens respond well to respect
When parenting teens for prevention of any risky behavior, Damour said it’s key to approach them with respect. Teenagers understand that society has a “tremendous bias against them,” she said, and they often push boundaries to determine if the adults in their lives see them as a teenage stereotype or as an “interesting and valuable person.”
It can be tempting to remind teens who’s in charge when they test the limits, but don’t, Damour says. Respond respectfully or play it cool instead.
“They expect to be treated with very little respect, so, understand that they check this by being provocative,” Damour said. “Don’t flex your authority.”
Rules with rationale
Rules matter. Simple as that, Damour said, because rules help teens know what to expect. The trick to enforcing rules with teens is to have — and clearly explain — the rationale behind them.
Parents could set a rule saying no smartphones in the bedroom or no social media until a certain age — as long as they make clear the reasons why.
Rules also work well with teenagers because of how their brains are developing.
“They are so concrete in their thinking, they’re very hard to negotiate with — no matter how smart they are,” Damour said. “They are not yet cognitively capable of spinning the situation around and seeing it from another perspective.”
Growing as adults helps build relationships with teens
Teens become very perceptive of the shortcomings of the adults in their lives and can be quick to point out these flaws, Damour said. Responding with openness to teenage critiques can be one way to maintain and grow the parent-child relationship.
Teens can be critical of their parents because they’re beginning to notice that adults don’t have it all figured out, either. So they begin to push back.
“What do you do? You can grow,” Damour said. “Being a parent of a teenager is the most growth-giving thing, I think, that happens in our life.”
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