The following spring, as a workman and his teenage assistant were building my porch, the young apprentice kept asking when they would be done because he, too, was . . . ““saving’’ himself. Aside from saving their energy for channel-surfing, telephone tag and videogames, I’m convinced that teens’ energies are used to skillfully manipulate us, the parents.
Others routinely criticize bad teens – the juvenile delinquents, the criminals and the all-round troublemakers. I choose to incriminate the majority – the typical, seemingly innocent American teenager – the ““good kid’’ who is the best rested; best fed; best recreated, clothed, transported, and the most manipulative individual in the history of the world.
So many parents work extra hours or at two jobs to meet the demands of their teenage consumers. I see parents working the fast-food drive-throughs, in jobs too demeaning for their kids to have, in order to provide their children the good life. We have far less control over our teens’ lives than they do of ours. This is because we haven’t recognized their strategic maneuvers and formulated an organized parental response.
The ““good’’ kids claim to be doing their best even when they’re not. That’s supposed to end the discussion because you can’t do better than your best, right? Whether in schoolwork or chores, they figure you’ll either blame someone else for their shortcomings or finish the job for them. If they do a bad enough job at some assigned task, chances are you won’t ask them to do it again. They know if they hold back it always gives them the cushion needed to show improvement and maybe even be rewarded. I’m still trying to find out when parents got sucked into the bad habit of bribing or rewarding kids for schoolwork or other duties they’re supposed to do anyway.
Another teen ploy is to wait until the last minute to request something or ask for transportation. This creates a greater sense of urgency for you to act upon. Inaction brings the accusation that we just don’t care enough about them.
Because of selective hearing, teens can detect us talking about them in another room yet block out what we tell them when they’re right in front of us. They accuse us of not understanding them, which to them means that we must fully accept and condone their view in order to claim to be understanding.
Crying may work when used selectively, as well as reminders that we’re not keeping up with the times. Some parents feel younger and more hip when they comply. Portraying some material desire as not just a casual wish but as something ““really needed’’ imposes the fear of being negligent parents if we don’t respond immediately. I often wonder why, if ““everybody is going,’’ no one else ever seems to have a ride until I am conveniently volunteered.
Then there’s that barbaric invention, the sleep-over; often used as a means to be in a crowd for a whole night that might not even be desirable company during the day. It provides ““sleepees’’ an alibi for two days to catch up on sleep, during which time it is ““unfair’’ to ask anything of them.
How many parents don’t have serious doubts about their mental competence when their children claim they got permission to do things during alleged conversations that the parents can’t remember?
I’m still waiting for perpetrators to say that some wrong deed was actually their fault and not that of someone else – usually a convenient someone I don’t know and can’t question ““because he doesn’t live around here.’’ Maybe he’s the one who leaves lights on, doors open and empty dishes in the fridge.
Lies come easier since so many of the plots in the movies and TV shows involve successfully putting one over on dumb, unsuspecting parents. There’s an assimilated herd mentality that says if it’s OK for those cool television and movie teens, it’s OK for them, too. After all, ““everybody’s doing it.’’ Have you noticed how indignant they are, how offended they act, when squarely caught in a lie? But then they turn it around and accuse us of the crime of not trusting them!
It is easy for them to stretch a given permission to cover a later curfew than was granted or a different destination than was approved. When we later point out that they didn’t keep their part of the deal, they quickly remind us that we came up with the deal but that they didn’t agree to it. Parenting should invoke binding arbitration.
Then there’s the trap of being the first parent to say yes – on which all their friends base their request for permission when approaching their own parents. Sometimes your name has already been offered as an endorsement before you’ve been asked.
When permission is denied and they proceed anyway, they are fearless of our meager punishments – few of us hold the line for the full term of our original grounding sentence. Besides, how austere can it be to spend time in a bedroom where there may be a television, stereo or VCR?
Playing one parent against the other is an essential and fundamental skill of adolescence. It may involve some truth-twisting, especially when teens are routinely told to go ask the other parent for a final ruling. In separate-parent households interparental disdain falls right into teens’ manipulative little hands.
The reason we have trouble controlling teenagers is they’re too busy controlling us. They have more time and energy to organize a battle plan. They so often position themselves in win-win situations. On the other hand, we seem to ““win’’ cooperation or peace only if we give in. However, that might be less the case if we start regularly comparing notes with other parents. That always makes teens nervous.
It might just allow us to ““save’’ ourselves.
