The Fear of Being a Parent

Certain stories, such as those involving school shootings, leave a lot of people wondering how. How do parents and children become so out of touch? As I was surfing the web, reading parenting forums, some answers began to emerge.

A lot of parents fear the role of parenting. They are simply caught between the reality of being a parent and the desire to be a friend and the result is chaos in their households.

Fear of Parenting

One lady wrote about her two teenage daughters. The girls spent more time at the mall than she was comfortable with. Furthermore, she was convinced that they were blending in with the wrong crowd, shoplifting and perhaps smoking pot. She said that she tried to confront her daughters but they always got extremely upset and accused her of not trusting them.

In other cases parents’ suspicions of drug use, theft or other inappropriate behavior had been confirmed. However, their children were not responding well to their attempts to be parents. Examples were given of teenagers who slammed doors in their parents’ faces or of teenagers who started screaming and stormed out.

Thereafter, the parents retreated, like wounded soldiers. They logged into online forums and discussed their problems or sought advice.

Every time I read a post and it included how the teenager reacted or stated that the teenager (who is still a child by the way) felt that his/her freedom or trust was violated, I thought to myself—so what. There is a job to be done. Actually, I even screamed and cursed a couple times due to uncontrollable frustration as parents begged for help with long, detailed descriptions.

It is no surprise that so many parents can say that their teenagers are out of control. Little else can result from situations where the roles are so blurred.

Being a parent is tough job. Parenting teenagers is an especially tough job. However, the difficulty of the task is not an excuse to throw your hands up and surrender. If you are a parent and your teenager is showing signs of unruliness, you need to act quickly and swiftly before your teenager gets too far out of control.

A few things to keep in mind when the job gets tough:

Teenagers operate on much the same basis as they did when they were younger­— they test their parents to see how far they can be pushed. And teenagers take advantage of those gains. (I know, I was one once.)

Children cannot be allowed to dictate how they should be parented. Children need boundaries that are appropriate for their age and those boundaries need to be unyielding. Teenagers are often under the impression that being an adult means total freedom. As a parent, you know better and you have to show your child that there will always be rules.

Act on your suspicions. Personally, I have never heard of a shoplifting teenager who had a positive response when confronted about stealing. I have never heard of a teenager who smokes pot sitting down with the parents and openly discussing the pros and cons over coffee.

If you think your child— by child, I mean that minor that you feed, clothe and provide shelter for— is using drugs, you need to have him or her tested. No, you do not need to talk it out. You do not need to worry about what the child is going to say, do or how she feels. You need to be a parent who recognizes the urgency and danger involved. The same is true for other ill-behaviors.

Always keep it clear that you are the authority in your home. There is a time and place for discussion, of course. But when your child is displaying behavior that is unacceptable, it is not the time to want to be best friends. It is not the time to opt for peace over solutions. It is the time to be committed to your responsibility of parenting.