teen standing his ground... wwyd?

Shelldean

Mojisola wrote: »

Is the main issue that he was late home or the lies and deceit?

Obviously I can't answer for op, but in this house it would be the lies and deceit that would cause me to flip. For lying my four know the punishment will be harsher than usual.
Since they were tiny they've been taught to tell the truth. Yes if they do something wrong they may get into trouble, but lie about and the punishment will be harsher.

ecgirl07

Can totally understand your reaction, we do things in the heat of the moment. Moving forward sit down with him and agree what the suitable punishments should be for things like breaking curfew, disrespecting house rules, etc then when he breaks the rules he knows what the punishments will be because he has agreed to them.

Mojisola

Shelldean wrote: »

Obviously I can't answer for op, but in this house it would be the lies and deceit that would cause me to flip. For lying my four know the punishment will be harsher than usual.
Since they were tiny they've been taught to tell the truth. Yes if they do something wrong they may get into trouble, but lie about and the punishment will be harsher.

Me, too. Ours knew that if they were going to be late, it was better to let us know because then we wouldn't be worried when they did get home.

I'm sure most of us have been there as youngsters - didn't notice the time, just having too good a time to want to leave, etc. Being late in occasionally isn't such a great crime - lying about it is far worse and making a parent feel threatened is just totally unacceptable.

kafkathecat

Shelldean wrote: »

Obviously I can't answer for op, but in this house it would be the lies and deceit that would cause me to flip. For lying my four know the punishment will be harsher than usual.
Since they were tiny they've been taught to tell the truth. Yes if they do something wrong they may get into trouble, but lie about and the punishment will be harsher.

Of course if you don't punish them when they tell the truth they have no need to lie. To me it is far better to find out what happened and why and how that could be avoided in future. Punishment doesn't achieve any of those things; it teaches children either obedience or sneakiness.

whodathunkit

kafkathecat wrote: »

Of course if you don't punish them when they tell the truth they have no need to lie. To me it is far better to find out what happened and why and how that could be avoided in future. Punishment doesn't achieve any of those things; it teaches children either obedience or sneakiness.

How far would you take that as a policy though?

Reggie_Rebel

You don't need to change the password or confiscate anything. Take the power lead out and keep it in your bag. He wouldn't be able to do anything then

Alikay

kafkathecat wrote: »

Of course if you don't punish them when they tell the truth they have no need to lie. To me it is far better to find out what happened and why and how that could be avoided in future. Punishment doesn't achieve any of those things; it teaches children either obedience or sneakiness.

Certainly making it easier or less risky for them to tell the truth is a good idea, but it's very common for teens to lie and be sneaky anyway: It's a fairly normal stage of development, and something to do with loosening ties to parents and learning to make judgements and decisions for themselves. Often parents will say "my child wouldn't lie to me", and unless the child is incredibly meek or the parents incredibly liberal, I tend to think "there goes one deluded parent" :rotfl:

tyllwyd

But although the OP has described the son's body language, we don't really know what her own body language was - if she was angry and trying to get his phone from him, maybe she was more aggressive than she realised, and he was responding to that? To be fair to him, she hasn't said he was aggressive to her, just that he stood his ground.


With my teenage daughter, I find that using humour and raising my eyebrows is more effective than shouting at her, and it's got to the point where we understand each other pretty well so she knows when she's overstepped the mark.

Mojisola

whodathunkit wrote: »

How far would you take that as a policy though?

The first time there would just be a discussion about "How are you going to make sure you're not going to be late next time?"

The second time, "We're not happy that you're not sticking to the rules - phoning us isn't an opt-out of curfew" and a discussion about the consequences if it happens again.

The third time, parents have had enough and consequences kick in.

As kids get to their teenage years, the relationship has to gradually change from parent/child to adult/adult. We didn't want our late teenage kids to behave a certain way because breaking our rules lead to punishments but because they could understand our reasoning and chose to manage their lives in a sensible way. We wanted them to be responsible for their own actions before they left home.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

Alikay wrote: »

Certainly making it easier or less risky for them to tell the truth is a good idea, but it's very common for teens to lie and be sneaky anyway: It's a fairly normal stage of development, and something to do with loosening ties to parents and learning to make judgements and decisions for themselves. Often parents will say "my child wouldn't lie to me", and unless the child is incredibly meek or the parents incredibly liberal, I tend to think "there goes one deluded parent" :rotfl:

as soon as I read this post it reminded me of a kid (older than myself) in my mums street who was a regular toe rag, his mum had an excuse for him everytime he did something wrong often said "oh no he wouldn't do that I know my son, you got it wrong or your child's a liar" she would even say it to the police when they would take him home after pinching someone bike or causing trouble or criminal damage "no he doesn't do things like that you got the wrong person" she defended him right up until his late teens, then he started on drugs (she denied that to hilt he wasn't on anything) then we all had a laugh (we shouldn't have due to the circumstance but it wasn't laughing at him but her) when he tripped out on magic mushrooms and started to run round the streets believing he was naked (he wasn't) and that things were after him, and even when the ambulance crew (who seen this type of thing allot) suggested he's on a mushroom trip of a lifetime she tried saying he's having a mental breakdown due to recent hardtimes, even the ambulance crew looked surprised!. The family moved away when he started burglarizing neighbors and stealing anything he could lay his hands on to fuel his addictions.