Dr. Dobson Answers Your QuestionsQ. You have recommended that parents be willing to apologize to their kids when they are wrong and to “stay on your child’s team” even when it’s a losing team. This is difficult for me because my son is in full-blown rebellion at this time. He’s using drugs, flunking his classes and giving us fits at home. Is there a time to forget the nicey-nice stuff and get tough with a teenager?
There comes a time to draw a line in the dirt and say, “Enough is enough!”
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A. No doubt about it. There are moments when it is appropriate to apologize, to accommodate, to compromise and to negotiate. But there comes a time to draw a line in the dirt and say, “Enough is enough!” For youngsters who have tyrannized their families, their parents’ willingness to “forgive and forget” repeatedly is interpreted as weakness. Appeasement, as we know, is never successful in pacifying a bully. It only makes him more angry and disrespectful.
Behavioral research has now validated that statement. Dr. Henry Harbin and Dr. Denis Madden, working at the University of Maryland’s medical school, studied the circumstances that surround violent attacks on parents by teenagers. They found that “parent battering” usually occurs when “one or both parents have abdicated the executive position” and left no one in charge. No one, that is, except the violent child. Rebellious, mean-spirited teenagers respect strength and disdain weakness — especially that borne of love.
Harbin and Madden also observed that “an almost universal element” in the parent-battering cases was the parents’ unwillingness to admit the seriousness of the situation. They did not call the police, even when their lives were in danger; they lied to protect the children, and they continued to give in to their demands. Parental authority had collapsed.
One father was almost killed when his angry son pushed him down a flight of stairs. He insisted that the boy did not have a bad temper. Another woman was stabbed by her son, missing her heart by an inch. Nevertheless, she continued letting him live at home.
Drs. Harbin and Madden concluded that appeasement and permissiveness are related to youthful violence and that both parents should lead with firmness. ”Someone needs to be in charge,” they said.
I agree wholeheartedly with these psychiatrists. Having been appointed by President Ronald Reagan to serve on the National Advisory Commission to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, I am very familiar with the pattern of youthful violence. I’ve seen cold-blooded killers who were no more than 13 years of age. Many of them came from homes where authority was weak or nonexistent. It is a formula for cranking out very tough criminals at an early age.
When you are faced with a potentially violent situation at home, you must weigh your options and take decisive action. The organization Tough Love, founded by Phyllis and David York, has been helpful to parents whose backs are to the wall. Tough Love is dedicated to helping out-of-control parents regain the upper hand in their own homes. Their basic philosophy is one of confrontation that is designed to bring a belligerent teenager to his or her senses. You might give them a call. To do nothing is to risk the unthinkable.
— Dr. James Dobson
This article was adapted from Complete Marriage and Family Home Reference Guide by Dr. James Dobson with the permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. Copyright 2000 by James Dobson, Inc. All rights reserved. International copyright secured.
