Autonomy. A fancy word for describing your kid’s need for getting you out of their business and accepting them as an almost grown-up individual. It’s not a giant leap to say that your kid’s push for autonomy is one of the primary overarching themes during adolescence. And it can really suck for parents.

They’re going places without you, they’re talking to and hanging out with people you may have never met, they’ve developed major opinions about everything (often in opposition to yours) but they don’t seem to want to share much of their life with you anymore – everything seems secret, or vague and ambiguous…and frankly, a little scary.

This is Speaking of Teens, the podcast that helps parents who are struggling to find peace and connection with their teens. My name is Ann Coleman; I’m an attorney turned parent educator and a mom who has been there - and I’m on a mission to help you build a stronger relationship and decrease the conflict with your kid so you can help them grow into the young adult they’re meant to be.

All during adolescence, as a parent, you have to figure out how to balance their need for autonomy with your need for parental control.

They’re becoming their own person – individuating – and you want that (you don’t want a 35-year-old basement dweller), they want more authority to make their own decisions, more freedom, more say in their own life. They want you to listen to them and consider their side of things and to respect their need for all of this.

You have to respect it because if you don’t, you’ll be locked in a constant power struggle with each of your kids until the day they leave home.

One element of this autonomy they’re seeking is their strong need for privacy in certain aspects of their life. They feel as adult as you are and they don’t think it’s right or fair that you know everything about them – even if they’re not doing anything wrong – they feel they should be able to keep certain things private or secret.

And you, on the other hand, have a slightly different point of view.

First – you just want to know what’s going on in their life – they’re still your baby and you’re curious about their highs and lows and want to be involved and want to help and support them and make sure they’re okay – all of that.

And we’ve talked in other episodes about how your connection with them will help them want to share more with you.

 

You may also be looking at this from a more authoritarian point of view - where you’ve always called all the shots and demanded obedience and are used to having full-control, and it’s really tough to suddenly give that up, or

Maybe you’re just concerned about what could happen – you just want to make sure they’re making good choices,

or maybe you’re truly anxious – overly anxious - you worry about pedophiles and car crashes and sexting and drinking, and it really weighs on you.

You could also feel pressure from other parents to make sure you’re as “on top of it” as they are.

So, you have to examine your own motives – make sure they’re valid. You have to find a middle ground, where both you and your kids are satisfied with what you know and what they can keep private.

………………………………..

Obviously, this isn’t a new phenomenon. Our parents wanted to know where we were and when we’d be home. They wanted to know who we were with and what we were doing with them. Generally, usually.

What was different then? The big thing of course – when I was younger, there were no cell phones. Before I could drive, I remember being dropped off at the movie theater and then getting in line at the one telephone out front to call my mom to come pick me up.

Later when I was driving, I’d leave the house and know I had to be back 3, 4 or 5 hours later.

Maybe you grew up with a bag phone, later a flip phone – maybe even a smart phone.

Life 360 came out in 08 – a year after the iPhone and in the wake of hurricane Katrina – that’s actually why the founder created it – for relative to find each other. Today it’s used by 33 million people worldwide.

And of course, smart phones put online porn, pedophiles, cyberbullies, sexting, drug buying - right into kids’ pockets….so smart phones made it both possible to track and necessary to filter and monitor.

And with the phones, parents concerns about other risky business also increased – things like kids planning to sneak out in the middle of the night or meet up to buy drugs or snag a bottle of booze. This could be legit.

Again, examine your own motives for any monitoring or snooping before you decide what you think is necessary for your kids’ health and safety.

You have to weigh their own abilities to use self-control and make good decisions, and each child can be very different. You might have a real dare devil or risk taker and one major rule-follower. You know your kids. And just because you allow something with one doesn’t mean you do the same with the other.

But before putting anything in place, you have to engage each kid in a conversation.

You should come to a mutual understanding with them about what is private, what’s 100% under their control and what is open territory and under what circumstances that may need to change. These cannot be unilateral decisions on your part.

In other words, setting up any covert spying, snooping, monitoring, or tracking is a big no-no. Discuss it up front and get their buy in if at all possible. Talk about why you feel it’s necessary, get their opinion, ask for their input – and LISTEN. Give them the same respect you would another adult. Discuss values and risks and safety and give them good reasons for why you’d like these things are in place. And remember, to check your own motivation – make sure it’s justified.

Also, remember that any monitoring you do, cannot be done in a vacuum. As I said in episode 55 when we were discussing social media, you must balance monitoring with instruction and coaching and understandings up front – teaching them how to navigate their online world.

This goes for all monitoring, checking up on them or invasion of privacy…for anything – if it’s worthy of monitoring, it’s certainly worthy of teaching and guiding them how to navigate it. If you’re monitoring where they go – what is it they need to understand about this. Where should they not be going? What should they be careful of? What agreements have you reached about all of this?

Just remember that only putting external controls in place doesn’t teach them anything – and it could actually do more harm than good because they won’t understand why they shouldn’t be doing certain things – that does not support their autonomy – anything but.

If you’re not supporting their autonomy by discussing these issues, agreeing on the rules up front, deciding what type of monitoring or checking will be done,- and you just start going into their phone or their room or backpack or whatever…you’re threatening their autonomy and you can count on their resentment, which breeds arguments and rebellion and a rift in your relationship, which means they certainly won’t be voluntarily telling you anything and will be even less likely to listen to you about anything.

Also take a hard look at each app or each thing you want to do as far as monitoring or checking up on them. Ask yourself whether it’s just to make you feel better, to satisfy some need for control, or if it’s really going to help keep them safe somehow.

For example, in the case of Life360 – do they feel safer? Are you using it when they’re traveling a long distance, at night, by themselves? Or are you using it all day every day? Do you end up questioning them about everywhere that little dot shows up? Does it cause arguments between you? Does it actually stress you out to see where they are (like a couple of people mentioned to me this week)?

Let’s look at it this way – just because you CAN monitor them, doesn’t mean you should or you have to.

Back when I talked about overparenting or being a helicopter parent in episode 14 I said essentially the same thing. Ask yourself how necessary the particular support you’re giving is, relative to what your kid is developmentally capable of doing himself or herself?  (in this case that support is in the form of monitoring)

The point is to allow them the space to grow up with some safety features in place and slowly remove those features. As Amy Lang said about content filters in episode 83 about teens and internet porn, you use filters and monitoring when they’re younger, teach them what they need to know and at around age 12 you remove the filters and leave the monitoring – you gradually want to move them from the baby bucket in the backseat to the front seat with a seatbelt.

We have to gradually allow them more and more autonomy as they learn how to navigate certain things, make better decisions, fend for themselves. We have to consider the kind of “trouble” they could get into. We have to consider the likelihood that something bad will happen and how much good the particular monitoring will do. Because if all you’re doing with it is to catch them doing something wrong so you can punish them for it – you might as well not have it.

Again, our goal as parents is to teach our kids the skills, they’ll need by the time they leave the nest. Ask yourself how much control you actually need. How much does it take to keep them safe and still allow them the autonomy to make decisions and possibly make some mistakes, while they’re still living at home with you?

And last, consider what I said in episode 39 about the main reason teens lie to you. They often lie because they feel their autonomy is threatened, that you’re encroaching on their personal domain – their rights to make decisions about certain things, have a say in what they do – where they go, what they keep secret. When they feel you’ve stepped over the line, they’ll just lie to you. Another good reason to give them their space as much as possible.

This is what you’d usually consider in their “personal domain”

• Anything regarding their friends or romantic interests – who they like, who they’re upset with, why they may be upset, what they’ve said
• Anything they’ve written, texted, messaged on their phone or any app
• Anything that has to do with personal taste, like clothes, hair, jewelry, shoes, makeup, music, media, anything they read or listen to from blogs to podcasts
• Their bedroom, their bathroom, their backpack, handbag, gym bag
• What they eat or drink

And as I’ve said many times before – per Professor Laurense Steinberg, if it’s not dangerous, unhealthy, unethical, illegal, or likely to close some door better left open – it’s in their personal domain.

The exceptions to this would be when you have a real reason to believe something’s up – and you should be involved in their life enough to be able to use your intuition here – and if it does fall into one of these categories - that’s the only time to go poking around in their privacy. If you feel they’re doing something dangerous, illegal, etc. then you’re of course, obligated to check on it. It would be great if you could just discuss it with them but if you feel you can’t and it’s necessary to keep them safe or out of some bad trouble, you may have to risk the hit to your relationship with them.

But you have to be careful not to be constantly looking for an excuse to snoop or monitor. More teaching and guiding could mean that you could back off some of the monitoring, snooping, or invading their privacy.

Go back and listen to episode 15 on autonomy. Remember your goal is to teach them skills for adulthood, and to do that you must support their autonomy, listen to them, take their opinion into consideration, give them space, agree with them up front about monitoring and privacy and what going to happen and don’t breach that agreement without a darn good reason. Let them learn and grow and make mistakes as long as that mistake is not going to potentially put them in danger, it isn’t unhealthy, unethical, illegal, or likely to close some door better left open.

Be brave, take baby steps – you can do it. I’ll have links to the other shows I mentioned in the show notes for you.

That’s it for Speaking of Teens today. Thank you so much for listening. If you enjoy the show, I would really appreciate it if you share it with your fellow marines, your drum circle, Jazzercise class , your knitting group, your foraging partners, your cat lovers club…

And please join us in the Speaking of Teens Facebook Group – it’s one way we can support each other in this journey - the link is right there at the very bottom of the show description in your app.

Until next time, remember, a little change goes a long way.