The Good Thing About Being the Bad Guy, Part 1

Action #1: Recognize that your teenager secretly wants the parent, not the friend

My guess is most parents of teens have tried to take the best-friend path at one point or another. Sometimes, as noted, this comes from the sheer exhaustion of teenagers pushing back on our boundaries. In other cases, we may be overcorrecting for our own strict upbringings – and so we determine to give them way more freedom than we were allowed. And let’s face it, sometimes we just want to be liked.

In the end, though, this is why we really hand them the reins: We think that’s what our teenager wants, and it will stop all the drama. We think our child is pushing for us to transition to the “cool parent” who will let them do anything they want. We think if we do so, we’ll finally – finally – have peace.

We think all that … and we would be wrong about all of it.

Here’s the astounding truth revealed in a nationally-representative survey of teenagers ages 15-17, for For Parents Only: Teens see you taking charge as a form of love and security. And they see you not taking charge as both a sign that you don’t really care about them and as a character flaw in you that is worthy of their secret (or not-so-secret) derision.

Your teen will probably never tell you this to your face – at least until after the high school years! But when asked to choose how they’d like their parents to relate to them, 77% of these anonymously surveyed teens preferred parents who set reasonable rules, stayed on top of them about homework, cared about who they hung out with, and stayed involved in their lives. Only 23% preferred parents who let them do what they wanted, didn’t bug them about homework, and didn’t enforce rules.

As one teen we surveyed put it: “I have friends at school. I need parents!”

As teenagers practice running free, they tell us it is exhilarating, it is what they are overwhelmingly motivated by… and it is also a bit scary. In the national survey, they confessed that no matter how much they might say otherwise in the moment, they know they need your guidance and reasonable enforcement of gradually-lightening rules. Your presence gives them the security they need to thrive.