Parenting program offers tips on raising teenagers

Parents that display self-control get better results in raising adolescents

Wednesday, Dec. 20, 2006

by Peggy Vaughn

Staff Writer

So the advice to parents from an expert in teen psychology is this: Take a deep breath, step back — and end the madness.

‘‘You’re here to learn how to control your kids,” said clinical psychologist Dr. Michael J. Bradley during a talk he gave Nov. 30 at the Holton Arms School in Bethesda. ‘‘But I am here to help you learn a new mission statement: How do we help our children to learn to control themselves?”

The lecture hosted by the Parent Encouragement Program (PEP), a Kensington nonprofit that provides parenting training and support, drew a sold-out crowd of more than 360 seeking survival techniques on navigating the rocky teen years.

‘‘I need to know what to expect in the coming years,” said Giselle Mörch, a mother of three children ages 8 to 12 from Silver Spring. ‘‘I need to figure out how not to get angry with my daughter. Even now, she acts like she’s 20 sometimes. I’m here to learn how to keep my sanity.”

The sentiment was one shared by many parents.

‘‘I’ve got two kids age 11 and under, and we’re already starting to experience more attitude and rebellion,” said Marie Yu, of Potomac. ‘‘Any guidance we can get, I’m for it.”

The best selling author of such books as ‘‘Yes, Your Teen is Crazy!” Bradley said using respect-based parenting skills is crucial in raising teenagers.

Parents still need to be cops, but dispassionate ones that stay calm during a crisis so teens focus more on their own behavior rather than parental anger.

‘‘You don’t take control by being crazy,” he said, advising parents to walk away from shouting matches until they can return in a calm state. ‘‘We’re wasting our time using old-world techniques to raise teenagers. When you emotionally stress a teenager, they shut down their ability to learn.”

That positive approach is exactly what PEP promotes in its lectures and classes attended by some 1,300 parents over the past year.

‘‘It’s a grassroots organization that’s been around for 25 years, thanks to the effectiveness of the training it provides,” said Robbye Fox, of Olney, a PEP marketing coordinator and parent of three. ‘‘Kids don’t come with a manual on how to raise them, and PEP provides parents guidance in a supportive environment.

‘‘It teaches cooperative family life,” she said. ‘‘It’s asking a child to do something instead of just tasking them, letting kids know they have something to contribute to the family.”

The courses range from a series of classes devoted to raising babies and preschoolers, to workshops and seminars with titles like: ‘‘End Whining,” ”Helping the Under Achieving Child” and ‘‘Thriving with Teens.”

‘‘We teach practical skills that help build strong families, families that thrive on cooperation, respect and personal responsibility,” said Tory Joseph, of Bethesda, who serves as the PEP board president. ‘‘I was brought up in a pretty authoritarian environment. But times have changed and that doesn’t work anymore.”

And teens that respect their parents tend to absorb their parent’s values to a surprising degree, Bradley said.

‘‘Kids have to have a belief system or they’re not safe,” he said. ‘‘The safe kid is the one that says, ‘I don’t do that stuff.’”

But parents need to recognize the roller coaster ride of the teen years is just nature’s way of growing into an adult.

‘‘Stop fearing the conflict,” he said. ‘‘Your child is being reborn, breaking away and becoming an autonomous human being.”

Humans are hard-wired to become somewhat ‘‘brain challenged” due to neurological changes that occur in the teen years, so don’t blame changes in hormones for a teen’s moodiness, risk-taking and zoned out appearance.

And don’t equate a spurt in height with a growth in emotional maturity.

‘‘Teens may look like adults but that’s a veneer that is as thin as a sheet of paper,” Bradley said. ‘‘These are not small adults, these are large children ... existing in a world that tells them to do sex, drugs, violence.”

Unfortunately, those messages are being received loud and clear.

Studies show one in 10 American teens are alcohol-dependent, 30 percent binge drink, and every fifth teen has a sexually transmitted disease, Bradley said. While suicide and school violence rates are down overall, one-third of graduating high school girls report at least one instance of having been physically abused by boyfriends.

‘‘You used to be able to police a child’s environment,” he said. ‘‘You can’t do that anymore.”

The best defense a teen has is parents willing to be just that: parents.

‘‘We start to pull away from them because they don’t meet our needs anymore ... for the [cute] little kid,” he said. ‘‘But adolescence is the real game. You’re shaping the parent of your grandchildren.”