Book Reviews

Boundaries with Teens  

Dr John Townsend, ISBN-10: 0-310-27045-6, Zondervan

Parenting teens is not like parenting at any other age, because children change dramatically during their teenage years. Parents may face many different issues and struggles in their efforts to parent teens effectively, but you can take some steps that can make major differences in the troublesome attitudes and behaviour of adolescents. Teens need to learn that freedom is earned and that they can gain freedom by demonstrating responsibility, but it is the task of parents to help teens learn responsibility and self-control so that they use freedom appropriately and live well in the real world. To do this, parents must help teens learn boundaries.

Teens will develop self-control and responsibility to the extent that their parents have healthy boundaries. Rules will hold little meaning unless you stand behind them and make them real. The more teens experience the negative consequences of their poor choices, the more internal structure and self-control they will develop.

Parents should have some significant relationships with other adults to be able to set, keep and enforce boundaries. As the parent of a teen, you will sometimes fail – you need friends to help you up again. Parents can’t support their teens if they are depending on them to be their support system. Look for adults whose friendships will provide you grace and acceptance with whom you can talk about your fears and failures, who provide you with identification and who live in your world to help you experience that you are not alone, who can provide you guidance and wisdom, and who will keep you grounded and centred in reality.

Guilt and fear often prevent parents from setting the right boundaries that helps a teen to learn responsibility. Guilt centres on the parent’s failures rather than on the teen’s difficulty and hurt. Remorse is the alternative to guilt and centres on the pain the teen feels and it is solution oriented.

When your teen withdraws, take the initiative to go after him and try to reconnect but keep your requirements and expectations in tact. Do also realize the teen’s normal need for withdrawal to form own opinions, identity and values. 

Adolescents get angry a lot. Teach your teen to accept responsibility in relationships without having outbursts. When parents hold to the established limits, it is normal that the adolescent will respond in anger. Your task as a parent is to hold the line but stay connected with the teen while he is angry.

When parents are far apart in their values and perceptions of a teen, the teen has no one to contain and integrate his internal divisions. It is natural for teens to play one parent against the other.

If you and you spouse disagree about your teen, mature your child by agreeing that the interests of your teen comes first. Defer to each other’s areas of strengths by getting the other one in on conversations with the teen. Don’t triangulate your teen by involving him in your conflict with the other parent. If one parent is resistant, don’t over compensate for the imbalance by giving in to be lenient. Work together, to become united rather than divided parents.

When you write rules down, they become known and agreed upon and are objective reminders to you and your teen.

Single parents have to do the work of two parents, yet they have more limited resources, both in quantity and in ability. Realize that you don’t have what you don’t have. You will need to get from the outside what you don’t possess on the inside. Get some strength from others so that you can stay attached to your teen. Surround your teen with people who have what you don’t possess.

If you are a single parent, restrain yourself from exposing a teen to your dates to soon. The teen will begin to transfer his needs for the other parent onto your date, but if you break up with that person, your teen’s life shatters again.

Teens often dismiss stepparents as having no authority in their life, even when they live with them, which means the stepparent has responsibility without having authority. Teens take time to attach, trust and respect. To better the situation, know what is going on inside the teen. As most children continue to desire that their parents get together again, you presence is an obstacle to that wish being fulfilled. Have patience and persistence in establishing a connection. Don’t try to replace the other parent. It is important to let the biological parent be in charge of disciple at first. Be sensitive to your spouse’s concerns. If the other parent is causing you problems, involve your spouse as he/she has more responsibility, background and knowledge. Decide as a team what your approach should be.

To a teen, being understood is everything. Therefore the author introduces the reader to the teenage world over a couple of chapters. Adolescence is a time of transition and change in a phase of life that connects childhood to adulthood. All these various changes happen at the same time, which means the teen has a lot to manage. Teens often don’t know what they think or feel, because on an almost daily basis, they are becoming a different person. 

The dependant nature of the parent-child relationship is designed to end at some point. Children can’t enter the world if they have not separated from their parents, but there are right and wrong ways of separation. Your teen needs to leave you while staying connected to you. Ask questions and make the teen feel it’s OK to have interests outside of you.

Your teen will interact with a set of behaviours and attitudes that their society exhibits sooner or later. Far better for the teen if you help him/her to deal safely with cultural influences while he/she is still with you than later on his/her own. The teen is bombarded with information, images and messages that are tailored for that age group, maturity and mentality. You need to help the teen move through all these messages. The more you know about the media your teen interacts with, the more you can be proactive and helpful. 

Teens need restraint, love, self-control, values and a sense of responsibility for their lives. But it is you as parent who has to create, establish and follow through with boundaries and limits to ensure that the teen progress toward maturity. The author guides you through several steps to help you think effectively about healthy boundaries and then how to utilize them. Parents often jump into a boundary setting approach too quickly, without understanding the real underlying problem. Teen problems have a context, and some of the issues are examined.

Every boundary setting situation must make use of four principles. Boundaries are not about just giving someone orders and then expect that it shall be followed. Let your teen understand and experience that you love him/her and then set the rules and requirements for his/her behaviour. Give the teen the choice to respect or reject the rules but state clearly what the consequences will be if the rules are rejected. If you state consequences without enforcing them, you will train your teen to ignore you.

The author then gives and discusses several keys to keep you on track when you begin to establish limits with your teen. Change is never easy and to suddenly require a teen to live in a new way is asking a lot. Before you set a curfew, think it through. Also most of the time, parents who allow their kids to charm them have a need they are allowing the teen to meet.

Removing something a teen wants is usually more effective than adding something the teen doesn’t want. Whenever possible, don’t intervene but allow your teen to face a natural consequence to an undesirable behaviour or attitude. Some situations do not have a natural consequence, and in those instances, you need to supply something of your own making. A consequence must matter to a teen. Rewards are good things, but teens should not be rewarded for doing what is normally required in life. Instead of rewarding, give them praise.

The final section of the book provides an overall approach for how to address specific teen issues, some of which result from hurt or injury rather than the violation of a rule. The topics have been arranged alphabetically in order to make it easier for you to find a particular problem. The topics covered are:

• Academic Problems
• Aggressive behaviour
• Alcohol, Drugs and Dependencies
• Argumentativeness
• Breaking Agreements
• Chores
• Clothing
• Curfew Violations
• Cutting and Self-Mutilation
• Deception and Lying
• Defiance
• Detaching from the Family in Unhealthy Ways
• Disrespect
• Driving and Cars
• God and Spirituality
• Ignoring Parents
• Impulsive Behaviours
• Internet
• Money
• Moodiness
• Parties
• Peers
• Phone
• Runaways
• Se%ual Involvement
• Silence

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