HOW TO
DEAL WITH PROBLEMS
CONCERNING
UNDESIRABLE COMPANIONS:
UNDESIRABLE COMPANIONS:
Problem:“Stephanie, Stephanie,” mother shouted. Stephanie came running in from the field.
“Come inside, I need to have a word with you. What on earth have you been doing?” mother asked when Stephanie got inside.
“I was playing mud monster with Buddy and Mike,” she responded happily.
“Buddy and Mike? Why are you still hanging out with those boys?
I thought I asked you to play with Linda and Heather, instead.”
“But why mommy? I like Buddy and Mike. Linda and Heather are boring,” she said in defense.
“Exactly, they’re too rowdy, and who knows what they’ll do. Look what a mess you are already. Now, I want you to go outside and tell them you have to come in for today, and then I want you to march upstairs and clean that dirt off of you before you make a mess of the house.”
“But mom,” Stephanie responded in discontent.
“No ‘buts’, Stephanie. I’m your mom and I know what’s best in this situation.”
Discussion:
According to Painter and Corsini, children grow up in three realms – the home, the school, and the neighborhood. It should be the parents’ role to train their children at home and allow them to manage school and neighborhood on their own.
According to Painter and Corsini, children grow up in three realms – the home, the school, and the neighborhood. It should be the parents’ role to train their children at home and allow them to manage school and neighborhood on their own.
In the neighborhood, children develop their own personalities and “social being,” no longer under the confines of adult supervision. It is important for parents to allow this natural progression to happen.
Children need to learn how to
interact with the world and others.
To do this they need to explore relationships. “If parents
has taught their children basic values, the children should be able to
meet life without being corrupted and the parents need not
worry.”
Parents become particularly
concerned about their children’s friends as
they approach adolescence.
Parents fear that their children
will be persuaded to smoke, drink,
have sex,
get tattoed, drop out of school, get pregnant, get into legal trouble
and use illegal drugs fuels this anxiety about any teen who deviates
from adult norms for appearance, behavior or beliefs. Adult-teen
relations often become mutually suspicious and disrespectful under this
pressure of serious, long-term consequences.
Solution:
There is at least one child in every neighborhood who is considered to be “bad.” And there are many teens who look and seem “dangerous”. What then should be done about this child or teen? Is it dangerous for your son or daughter to interact with these youth?
There is at least one child in every neighborhood who is considered to be “bad.” And there are many teens who look and seem “dangerous”. What then should be done about this child or teen? Is it dangerous for your son or daughter to interact with these youth?
It is important to try to like all
of your child’s friends. Your
child has good judgment and will, in time, stop hanging out with a
destructive person. S/he needs to learn on her own that “some
friendships are not worth it.”
If you forbid her to see a friend, this makes the person all the more attractive. If you engage her in a power struggle she will rebelliously dig in her heels and continue a bad relationship long after she has “seen the light of day.” The more aggressively you forbid the relationship, the more insistent she will be to prove her autonomy.
Painter and Corsini suggest that
parents “adopt” the neighborhood
problem-child, if their child likes that person. Invite the child
into your home – show him warmth, kindness, and above all
respect. This child will get the benefit of your warmth and good
sense as your child does. Doing this will help your own child as
well as another parent’s child.
In addition, it is important for
other children to want to spend time
at your house. They will do so if you welcome them, feed them,
listen to them and show you enjoy their company. When your child
becomes a teen, he and his friends will spend much time at your house,
sparing you a great deal of worry as to his whereabouts. In
addition, the teens will talk to you, relieving your anxieties about
the dangerous teen peer world.
In terms of underage drinking,
smoking, use of illegal drugs and
promiscuous and/or unsafe sex: it is important for parents to
model, at all times, appropriate behavior and to address these issues
directly in your family.
At regular meetings and when
members are relaxed it is important to
discuss why illegal and risky behavior and substances that impair
judgment are particularly dangerous.
At these meetings members should
set family rules such as “no use of
alcohol, tobacco or illegal drugs,” “no breaking the law,” and “no
riding with anyone who has been drinking” and “no driving after
drinking or when especially tired.”
Family rules apply to ALL members,
not just the children. Parents
need to make sure they drive at or below the speed limit, stop for
yellow lights, refrain from driving after drinking, pay their taxes
fairly, refrain from using company materials for personal use and other
“small wrongs” that many adults commit.
Family members also need to discuss how they will know if others in the family are following the agreed upon rules. Some families opt for voluntary, in-home alcohol and drug testing of everyone of drug using age. These urine tests are available on the internet. They enable parents to relax some about their teen’s behavior away from home and they secure for the teen a great deal of unquestioned autonomy—free of nagging.
Family members also need to decide
upon the logical consequence if a
person violates the agreed upon “no use” rules. In this
discussion, it is important to stress that teens earn adult privileges
when they show adult responsibility. Driving, use of the car,
staying out late, autonomy in going to the beach or city all depend on
legal and safe behavior. One logical consequence is for the teen
to give up these privileges. In addition, teens should pay for
any traffic or parking violations they incur.
(Discussion and Solution
information from Painter & Corsini,
1975)