“The difference between the exact right words and the almost right words is like the difference between lightning bugs and lightning bolts.” — Mark Twain
Avoiding toxic words and wrong motivations helps maintain a solid relationship while effectively confronting your teen’s mistakes.
I haven’t met a teen yet who doesn’t want to know they will continue to be loved when they’ve made mistakes. Loving someone seems easy when everything is going well. It’s a quite different matter when your teen breaks your rules, and their life spins out of control. In those times, the best way to demonstrate your continual love for them is to take care in the way you confront their misbehavior, avoiding toxic words and wrong motivations.
The first step is to let your teen know why you are confronting their misbehavior. It is that you love them and want to help them avoid bigger problems later in life. Demonstrate your respect for them by your demeanor, assuring them that you will move toward them in times of difficulty and struggle, not away from them. Tell them that you can’t possibly love them any more than you do, and you’ll never love them any less, not even when they are at their worst.
Be mindful that your teen knows what they have done, and it’s already uncomfortable for them without adding verbal or emotional fireworks. Focus on fixing the behavior, not the person. Remember, behaviors can be changed, but people rarely do.
Keep the word “you” to a minimum when talking to your teen, other than when praising them or saying positive things about their character. For instance, instead of “You broke curfew,” say, “Curfew was broken.” It seems like a little thing, but as soon as you use the word “you,” the teen feels as though they are being attacked personally.
Here are inappropriate motivations to be avoided:
To unload your frustration.
Don’t dump on your teen, they’ll resent it. They probably already have enough frustrations of their own.
To prove yourself right and your teen wrong.
It is not a matter of who is right and who is wrong, it is a matter of dealing with the matter at hand, and solving the problem.
To crush them into submission.
This is an ungodly response to a poor choice, and sets a terrible example. It usually doesn’t work for the long-term, and will give your teen the desire to take revenge; another inappropriate response. Never threaten or demean a teenager into changing their behavior. They might appear to make the change when they are around you, but behind your back they’ll do the opposite.
To change them into something or someone else.
Teens don’t change based on what their parents tell them. They change when they want to and in response to the consequences or pain they experience from making a bad decision. And most kids are already uncomfortable in their own skin, so telling them that they need to change to be accepted by you only makes them more confused and uncomfortable.
To threaten them.
Anything more than stating that a consequence will be applied should they step over the line is just bullying them. Empty threats are even worse. Your teen will come to know you don’t really mean what you say when you don’t enforce threatened consequences.
Now, here are appropriate motivations and goals to focus on as you have that talk:
To be clear and concise, and make sure your teen understands your concern for them.
To better understand your teen, or communicate you’d like to better understand them.
To give them rest from a wearying situation — yes, their transgressions can be emotionally burdensome.
To more clearly communicate your household beliefs, rules, and consequences.
To solve the problem at hand and prevent it from happening again.
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