Will Smith was on my favorite Ellen show the other day and started his interview with an exasperated sigh about raising teenagers, saying that it should be treated as an illness/disease you catch because of how hard it is. “Hey man how are you doing?” “Well you know…I have teenagers.” “Wow man….that’s too bad. Feel better soon.”
I laughed a bit in my head because we are really getting the brunt of some teenage action in our house from our not-so-little WonderGIRL. Most parents get a bit of an on-ramp when it comes to teenage behavior, but when we got WG at age 11, we knew we were in for a hard couple of years. Not only did we have to work on attachment, holes in academic learning, and full-blown anxiety around her criminal trial approaching, her hormones were raging and we needed to stay ahead of the curve. We knew she needed some quick interventions to rewire her brain and connections about how to behave in a stable, consistent family with parents that care enough about her to create boundaries and set limits for her.
Now that we have some breathing space from a stretch of particularly hard behavior this Fall (if I claim that it’s better, then it can’t get bad again right???), I decided to share some creative solutions we have tried so far…..with her traumatic history and low, low working memory, constant revisions to our methods are definitely a must.
LYING behaviors – “The Trust Bank”
We wanted WG to understand that lying not only gets her in more trouble, but it hurts a relationship between us and her because then we can’t trust future statements. We also wanted her to learn that by admitting mistakes and telling the truth, even after a lie or 2, she would earn trust back. We used play money from a board game and she earned money from telling truths. Obviously, she got money taken away for lies. She was able to save money for rewards (involving quality time with parents, fun activities/adventures, etc.) in her own handmade wallett. We could gauge how much money to reward/take away based on the severity of the lies. This method also was a visible sign of how much she was lying/telling the truth which helped her and her low memory when problem solving as well.
CONTROLLING behaviors – “You’re in Charge” game
WG is still learning that having loving, caring parents not only creates safety and a loving environment, but their job is to guide their behaviors and create a responsible adult as well. She pushes these boundaries often but not as much as when she began stealing from us at our home and from teachers at school. When resisting a consequence that fit the “crime” as it was, we decided an alternative solution would need to be tried. We told her that she was now in charge. In charge of her own bedtime, morning routines, homework, and even making her own meals. Upon hearing this, she was absolutely thrilled. It took one meal time for her to realize that we really weren’t going to step in and parent her. She created a pretty darn disgusting mix of luke-warm microwave macaroni and cheese and then interestingly enough, went to bed early that night. The next day, there was some begging involved for us to parent her again. We again reassured her how much we loved her AND that we wanted her to feel what it might feel like to truly be in control of herself so we weren’t budging. This day also included an extravagant dress up outfit and tap shoes walking down the 7th grade hallway (outfit choice is often a struggle for her). Later that night, we found WG atop the stairs blocking our bedroom stating “I am not going to bed until you are my parents again.” To which we replied sweetly, “Good night! We love you!” (insert eye rolls, foot stomping, and arms crossed here)
We woke up the next morning to a two-page letter under our bedroom door documenting her lessons learned with the most heartfelt apology we had ever gotten from her. This letter also served as a valuable reminder to her lacking cognitive ability about this exercise. Now, when she pushes boundaries with our parenting, we simply remind her to read the letter and she will then apologize and turn her behavior around.
DESTROYING PROPERTY behaviors – “Guess the price” game
Learning how to properly take care of our belongings is a fundamental lesson that children learn at a young age. When you don’t have belongings to take care of AND the adults don’t help take care of anything around you, these lessons obviously don’t get learned. After a stint of multiple ripped clothes, cut-apart stuffed animals, and lost objects, we asked WG to lay out each item in her room and estimate how much each item cost. This allowed a valuable conversation about how much objects actually DO cost (she undervalued everything by at least $10-50) and how hard we work to give her clothing and objects that will keep her safe/warm and keep her busy at home. Along with this lesson, we are also very careful about talking through our buying decisions by saying no to her requests with the line, “We are choosing not to spend our money on that” versus “We don’t have money for that.” We want her to learn that we are blessed with good jobs and money to spend on our family and that’s wonderful, but we are still responsible on how we spend that money.
IMPULSE CONTROL – “Three Post-It” Questions
If you have a child that has a hard time holding in their curiosities, thoughts, random musings, this strategy may help a long car ride or those dreaded homework sessions. We have tried to find a balance with WG especially, where we can honor and listen to her voice yet make sure she is also able to self-regulate her thoughts. Sometimes, it seems like she doesn’t keep anything inside, mostly because she is constantly seeking adult approval. I love how joyful and observant she is, but I want her to have confidence in her inner dialogue as well, which also has to serve as a self-regulation device. On long car rides or homework sessions, WG gets three post-its that represent three questions or statements that she gets to ask. When the impulse comes, she has to evaluate whether or not the thought is WORTH giving up one of her post-its. This visual seems to really help her and creates a bit more peace and quiet during potentially stressful times. Her teacher even tries this in class and it’s been working wonders in the classroom as well.
As much as this period in WG’s has been hard hard hard, we have seen so much life-change in her throughout the past two years that we are lucky her behaviors are relatively minor up to this point and normal in the life of a typical teenager (“normal” is certainly a celebration in our little family). I could write a long, long post about all the things I truly love and cherish about her that definitely make all this work 110% worth the struggle but I will save that for another time and another post.