Do You Know Where Your Teenager Is?
by Ruth S. Angaran & Tricia L. Bachus
Parents know that teenagers today face many temptations and could be exposed to risky situations and bad influences. Moreover, parents cannot be physically present in most of the everyday situations facing adolescents.
Because parental knowledge of exactly where they are, what they are doing and whom they are with is limited, parents have to trust their teenager to be responsible, not to break rules and to do their best in school. Knowing where your teen is at all times, or parental monitoring, is crucial.
The teenager will tell you, “So is trust!” This monitoring, albeit a very important parenting skill or motivation, has two-edges. Parents’ trust in their teenager and the teen’s view of how much trust they have are both important to the relationship. As Peter Benson of the Search Institute said, “Relationships are the oxygen of human development.”
Let’s talk about the level of vigilance needed in effective monitoring first, then we can get to the discussion of the role that trust plays. You are held responsible for your teen’s behavior whether you are present or not. You must, therefore, be vigilant about their whereabouts. Both communication and monitoring have been found to be related to fewer adolescent problem behaviors in both two-parent and single parent homes
(Hartos & Power, 1997; Cohen & Rice, 1995).
Do you know, for example?
- How they spend their money?
- Where s/he is when s/he is not at home?
- Do you really know who his or her friends are?
- How much stress s/he is operating with?
- What his/her romantic concerns are?
Monitoring of adolescents activities, (their stresses and concerns, too) when they are not supervised may prompt support that the adolescent needs to facilitate positive adjustment in stressful times. Even though adolescents are learning to become autonomous and independent, they need—and it is advantageous for them to have—their parents involved in their daily lives.
|
