Integrity is learned best by your example. Image courtesy of Teerapun / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Why Teach Integrity to Teens?
We must be teaching integrity to teens because it creates a sense of wholeness. It is a discipline in many religions that prevents us from experiencing internal distress. Likewise, it is hard to be internally incongruent with how we present ourselves. Similarly, teenagers who are taught integrity are able to feel high levels of self-esteem.
What Is Integrity and Why is it Important for my Teen?
1. Integrity: This means you are the same person in the light as you are in the dark. When nobody is watching your behavior, is the same as it is when everyone is watching? If you own your own business, do you declare all your income, even your cash? If you tell your children they cannot be sexually active outside marriage, are you sexually active outside marriage? Over time your teenagers can tell whether you are hypocritical when you can get away with it. They follow your example. If you exhibit and value integrity, they will too.
By modeling integrity to your teenager, you are teaching them how to earn trust. Teenagers trust their friends who don’t gossip about them, pay them back when they borrow a few dollars, and who keep secrets they promise to keep. Correspondingly, your teenager is much more trustworthy to others when your teen has integrity. This means that your teen will keep friends, earn respect from teachers, and get along better with you. Consequently, your teen will have high self-esteem.
How Does Therapy Help Teach Integrity to Teenagers?
Counseling for teens can be very important in teaching teens integrity. One of the main goals of therapy is self-discovery. It is a lot easier to be congruent to your values if you’ve explored what those values are. Counseling then encourages you to examine whether you are being true to those values.
For example, I (Lauren) profess to live by Christian values. When I went through my own counseling, I discovered I was spending an inordinate amount of time exercising. After more exploration, my therapist helped me see that I was not living to my professed Christian value of having God before all else. I was putting my own body shape and appearance before all else. In Christianity we call this having an idol. No wonder I was living with emotional knots! I wasn’t living with integrity. Things in my emotional and spiritual life improved significantly after this discovery because I got my behaviors in line with my heart.
What Can I Do to Teach Integrity to my Teen?
There are a few steps you can take to teach integrity to your teenager. First of all, take a few minutes to write out what values you hold in your heart. Secondly, write out how closely you live to those values. Thirdly (and this is the hardest one), write out the values you are showing with your behavior that you don’t actually want. Fourthly, commit to a few small changes that will help you line up with your values. Once you have this down for a few weeks, try repeating the exercise with your teen. Most will go along with you if you first admit that you also needed a tune-up.
If you think teaching integrity to your teen is too hard given what is happening in your family, don’t hesitate to contact us to see if counseling can help.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Having a good parent-child relationship with a teenager is an achievable goal. Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Improving relationships with our teens is effort well spent. To some, the idea seems daunting. “How will I ever get my teen to respect and like me?” you wonder. Still, teenagers who have one caring adult in their life fare far better as adults than those who don’t (see developingchild.harvard.edu article). Hopefully, this means the interactions have an element of friendship underneath; this gives you more permission to have the parental interactions when they are needed.
Steps for Improving Our Relationship with Our Teens
Tracking The Improvement in Your Relationship with Your Child
That said, if you decide improving your relationship with your teenager is one of your new goals, then it’s time to plan. Firstly, let’s figure out a few reasonable ways you can track yourself to see how you’re doing. For example, if you yell when you’re frustrated, try writing a quick note on a calendar at the end of each day: “Good today,” or “Yelled too much today.” While it’s simple, holding yourself accountable is the key to changed behavior. The other key is sticking with it. It supposedly takes 7 weeks to change a habit. That’s 49 days. In theory, tracking behavior every day for a month and a half elicits change.
Be Patient with the Process of Improving Your Relationship with Your Adolescent
Secondly, you must be patient. When you become nicer to people in your family, they won’t even notice at first. They will go on reacting towards you the way they always have. Keep in mind, you probably have to give it about three weeks before you notice them starting to be kinder in return. For their part, your adolescents won’t even realize they are being nicer in return. It eventually just starts to happen. Sadly, many parents I work with lose patience with this process because it is hard to make a huge effort for three weeks. Also, it’s very challenging not to get caught up in the garbage your teen can dish out.
Give Yourself Grace When Learning to Get Along with Your Teen
Thirdly, have grace towards yourself. Unlike a New Year’s Resolution to run 4 days a week, you can’t measure your behavior and emotions in the same way. You can resolve to do 4 nice things for your teenager per week that you wouldn’t normally do, but you can’t decide to be kind 4 times per week and then have a perfect relationship. We have to be trying ALL the time to improve our relationship with our teens, while constantly forgiving ourselves for returning to our old ways. In essence, you have to push the reset button in your mind 20 times a day. When you do speak harshly to your teenager, or allow them to push you around, or whatever you’re trying to change, just take a deep breath and get back on the path. Eventually, this gets easier. I promise!
Eyes on the Prize (Getting Closer to Your Teen)
Finally, don’t lose sight of the reward at the end. You need to consistently visualize what things will be like once you’ve achieved the goal of an improved relationship. To this end, maybe you imagine hugging your son each morning when he’s on his way out the door to school. Similarly, perhaps you picture your daughter wanting to take a walk with you on a Saturday morning. Or, maybe you see yourselves sending funny little text messages to one another throughout the day. Whatever it is, don’t lose track of where you’re headed. Dave Ramsey always says, “If you aim at nothing, you’ll hit it every time.” While he’s a money guy and I’m a psychology lady, I wholeheartedly agree.
To put it another way, you need a tangible goal to achieve. Don’t try and picture being best friends with your teenager. That’s not likely to happen anyhow (And you want them to have their own friends). Just keep your focus on things looking a little better than they do right now.
When to Seek Counseling to Get Along Better with a Teenager
For some of you, improving your relationship with your teenager feels like it’s beyond a simple blog post. In those cases, our counselors at Teen Therapy OC can help. We’re always happy to spend a few minutes free of charge on the phone with you or to answer an email or two. This helps you determine next steps such as whether therapy is the right direction.
In summary, counseling usually helps when there is little to no respect between you and your teenager. Also, some parents come to the point where they cannot trust their adolescent child. If that is you, therapy is a good place to start. And, if you suspect your teen’s mental health is a factor in why things aren’t going as well between you as they used to, therapy becomes vital.
Our Hope for You as You Improve Your Relationship with Your Teen
Our hope and prayer for you is that this is a year filled with joy and blessings in your relationships with your children. We pray also that you learn as much from them as they do from you. Yes we want times of teaching and learning, but we also want you and your teen to have fun and joy!
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
If you’ve recently discovered your teen is self-harming, you have to be wondering, “Why do teenagers cut themselves?” Cutting seems like a somewhat recent phenomenon. It’s been around for a long time, but it has grown in notoriety and popularity. The majority of teenagers I work with who have tried cutting mostly did so because a friend told them about it, or they hear about it on Tik Tok. They wanted to try and see if it was a helpful way to cope with emotional pain. Most find that it isn’t, and do not continue to cut.
By contrast, the teens who cut more seriously and regularly give us great concern. For example, when I see a teenager in my office who cuts frequently and/or deeply, I worry. Firstly, we immediately begin the discussion of the teenager completing an evaluation with a psychiatrist (We have several referrals we can offer, including Oak Health, Progeny Clinic, and Mind Health Institute, among others) having the teenager see a psychiatrist for an evaluation. This is not cutting for attention as much as a deep emotional disturbance. Oftentimes medications are needed in these situations.
A teen telling her mom about her self-injury.
Credit: freedigitalphotos.net/David Castillo Dominici
Why Do Teenagers Cut Themselves: Where On the Body Tells a Story
When considering why teenagers cut themselevs, it is also important to note is that teens cut in a variety of places. The most common location is the inner forearm of their non-writing hand. So, if they write with their right hand, the cuts are on the soft side of their left forearm. Also, there are other common locations such as the inner thighs, and the stomach. Usually, cutting on the thighs and stomach is done to avoid detection. By contrast, teenagers who cut on their arm often want to be found out. This is particularly true if they cut and then wear short sleeves.
Cutting as a Coping Skill
Importantly, why do teens self-harm? There are of course a variety of reasons. Cutting is not a one size fits all venture. However, the best explanation I’ve ever heard was by Richard Bautzer, MFT. He told me he believes teens cut as a coping skill to control their pain. You would naturally ask, “Why would they inflict more pain on themselves as a way to control pain?” This is because there is some emotional stressor that feels uncontrollable to the teenager. This stressor really could be anything. For example, the teen who is cutting might be managing the stress of parents going through a divorce.
Another Reason Why Teenagers Cut Themselves: Cutting to Control Emotional Pain
Cutting to control pain works like this: A teen can control when they cut, for how long, with what device, and how deeply. This is untrue of emotional pain. For an adolescent, emotional pain often seems random and unmanageable. Also, many teen clients have explained they can see the blood, which represents the inner pain. Somehow, it’s more tolerable to have tangible pain than invisible emotional pain.
Steps to Take if Your Teen is Cutting Themself
What do we hope you take away from this discussion as a parent? The most important thing is that cutting is serious. If your teen is self-injuring, then they might be suicidal. Self-harm, whether done for attention or something deeper, is abnormal. Your teenager needs an evaluation by a professional. Call a therapist, school counselor, pediatrician or psychiatrist. Whatever you do, call someone. While it is tempting to hesitate if your teen tells you they can stop, my experience tells me you cannot assume this is something you should handle on your own.
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy is one type of counseling commonly used to help teens who are cutting. It teaches tolerance of uncomfortable emotions as your teen explores why they’ve been using self-injury as a coping skill. DBT helps a teenager recognize emotions, consider their cause, and then permit themselves to have those feelings instead of trying anything to neutralize them (i.e. cutting, lashing out, drugs, etc.). DBT also explores why teenagers cut themselves so that it is easier to find healthy alternatives. While most Teen Therapy OC therapists are comfortable with DBT, Jazmie Albarian has taken the extra step of becoming certified in DBT. It is worth calling her to find out how DBT can help your teen.
A Final Thought on Teen Cutting Behavior
A final thought for parents who have children that self-harm: It is terrifying. I realize that finding out your child, whom you love more than words can ever express, wants to inflict pain on him or herself is one of the scariest things you’ve dealt with. Don’t hide this from everyone because you feel ashamed. Talk to one or two close, trusted people so you can have support. You have to make sure you’re not spending a lot of energy and time blaming yourself. Instead direct that energy toward finding a solution.
Also, don’t blame yourself. You need all your emotional resources available to confront and control the problems your teenager is facing. You will eventually have time to dig in to what you want to change, but that comes a little later.
All in all, finding out your teen is self-harming is beyond overwhelming. From one parent to another, my heart goes out to you. As a therapist, I want to walk alongside you through this incredibly difficult time.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Are you codependent with your teen addict? How do you ever stop chasing the addicted teen? Almost certainly you have heard the advice that someone must reach rock bottom. But you fear, ‘What if rock bottom is death?’ That is such an overwhelming, driving fear for parents that codependency with a teenage addict is almost impossible to avoid. In my case, when I look into the faces of my children, I can tell you I will give my very life to save them.
Sometimes I think about how much Jesus loves us. Since he gave his life to save us, it seems like he is codependent. But then I remember he gave his life to save those who want saving. As a result, his gift on the cross doesn’t save someone who refuses it. In contrast, this is what codependent parents of teens deal with. They give gifts of a path to freedom from addiction to a teenager who doesn’t want it. Sadly, it ends up breaking the parent down and the teen doesn’t get better. Somehow, some way, you must wait (or force rock bottom) until your teen is ready to accept the gift.
A Poem Written About Codependency with an Addict
Addiction is heartbreaking for everyone in the family.
If This Poem is About A Parent Codependent with a Teen Addict…
What a powerful poem! It is soul-crushing to watch someone we love battle addiction. The author of this poem covers the extreme internal angst of codependency. Although I don’t know what the relationship of this author is to the addict, I picture it as a mother talking to her teenager. I imagine her seeing the child she knew inside and taking every desperate step to save that child. Unfortunately, as each step yields her no results, she realizes she is codependenct with her teen’s addiction. As a result, she eventually makes the gut-wrenching decision to stop preventing this child from hitting rock bottom. Thus she sees that is a step needed to stop teen addiction. Consequently, she is no longer willing to be codependent with her teen addict.
To sum up, if your teenager is coping with addiction, then my heart breaks with yours. I have watched teens fall into the deep pit of addiction to drugs, alcohol, pornography, or an unhealthy significant other to the extent they became almost unrecognizable. It is agonizing.
Helping teens grow, and families improve connection,
Disciplining teenagers doesn’t have to be a fight Image courtesy of photostock at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Disciplining Teens Effectively
Teen phone addiction is a growing problem, and it sometimes requires consequences to break the cycle. When your kids are little giving consequences is easy. You sit them in time-out for a few minutes if they misbehave. If your kids are throwing a temper tantrum you completely ignore them until it stops and they ask nicely. When they misuse a toy you take it from them. As they get older it gets harder. However, a lot of parents try and use the same techniques (albeit modified) with teenagers for teen phone addiction, ditching school, and talking back (among other behaviors) that they used with small children.
This is what I mean. A teenager violates a rule such as ditching school. You put them in “teenager time-out,” which means you ground them. Your teen “throws a temper tantrum,” which means they are talking back to you and possibly even screaming obscenities. You ignore them or argue back. Your cell phone addicted adolescent sneaks the phone at night, or in other words, “misuses a toy.” You take it from them. Some of these techniques work for certain kids, but for others, these types of consequences seem ineffective.
When Teens Ditch Class
How do you give consequences to a teenager? Your teenager is nearing adulthood. They need to feel the pain of adult consequences while you’re still there to guide them through it. When your teenager ditches school and the school calls to ask where your child is, it’s better not to bail them out by telling the school your kid came home sick, with the idea that you will handle the punishment. It’s usually better for your teen’s character development to tell the school that you don’t know where your child is, and you assume they must have cut class. You then ask the school to levy an appropriate consequence such as Saturday school. When your teenager comes home you very calmly tell them you received a call from the school today. You tell your teen it will be a bummer to serve Saturday school. If they ask you to help them move the Saturday school because they have work or a big game, etc., you just say calmly, “Well you felt old enough to decide whether or not you should attend class, so I guess that means you’re old enough to figure it out now. Good luck with that.” Don’t be sarcastic when you say this. Tell them also, “I have plans Saturday morning by the way, so I won’t be able to get you to the Saturday school. You’ll have to figure that out too.” Then you don’t discuss it or bring it up again. In fact, you act like you don’t really care. They might ask you, “Are you mad at me?” You respond, “I was at first, but then I figured that it’s your problem to solve.”
Why Grounding Your Teen Doesn’t Always Work
Do you see how much more effective this is than grounding your teenager? You refuse to take on their problems. Also, if you ground your teen then you have to enforce it. That makes you the bad guy when you refuse to let them attend their Saturday soccer game, or it makes you appear weak if you do let them attend. It also means they think of how “unfair” you are when they are grounded instead of the mistake they made; they don’t learn as much.
How to Deal with Teen Backtalk
Now for scenario number two, when your teenager is being disrespectful in the way they talk to you. If you don’t win the argument, you’ve lost. Even a stalemate means you’ve lost. How do you avoid this problem? Don’t argue. At all costs, avoid engaging in an argument. Keep repeating, “I’m not going to argue with you right now,” in a calm tone. You can also say, “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.” That gives you time to think and your child time to reassess their position and approach. Finally, if your teenager keeps at you, ask them, “What did I say?” Stay calm and avoid the argument, but don’t completely ignore them. Another thing you can say sometimes is, “I see what you’re saying. Let me think about that and get back to you in a few hours.” Just remember that nothing is ever on fire. Most of the time your adolescent thinks it is because adolescents are an impatient group, but it’s not. Do not let their urgency force you to respond faster than you can think through something. Buy yourself some time.
An Idea for Excessive Teen Phone Use
Scenario number three is when you’re dealing with teen cell phone addiction. Your first temptation is to take their phone away. This actually creates problems for you in staying connected with them. It is better if you get the cell bill, highlight their cost, and set it on the kitchen table. When your teenager comes into the kitchen, ask them to take a look at the cell phone bill. Tell them calmly, “It looks like you have violated our request to moderate your cell phone usage, so you will need to pay for the phone on your own this month. We pay the bill on Friday, so by Thursday you need to come up with a plan for how you will get me that money.” Then go back to what you were doing and let them solve the problem. They will likely argue with you or say, “I don’t have that kind of money.” Let them know you are here to help them find a solution if they’d like your help.
The most important thing to take away from this is that you are letting them have most of the say in how they resolve the problem. If you come at your teen and angrily say, “You have screen addiction, so now you’re going to mow the lawn for the next ten weeks!” what have you taught them? They will mow the lawn and think about how you are unreasonable. If THEY come to you and suggest they will mow the lawn until they’ve worked it off, every time they mow the lawn they will think about how they watched too much Youtube. You avoid being the bad guy, and your teenager learns a valuable lesson!
Love and Logic- A Helpful Resource
For more great ideas on how to effectively, and calmly discipline a teenager, read https://www.loveandlogic.com/pages/preparing-kids-for-the-teen-world. It’s a wonderful, easily digestible resource for better parenting. We all know the “screenagers” of today need a lot of help with teen phone addiction, disrespectful talk to parents, and a million other things. As a parent, I greatly empathize with you in trying to parent today. There are many, many challenges. We are each doing our best because we love our teenagers. Sometimes setting things up a little differently makes discipline a lot more effective.
Helping teens grow and families improve connection,
Hello, I’m Lauren! If you notice your teen struggling, you might be feeling helpless, hopeless, frustrated or concerned as a parent. Try to remember, there is hope. I want to help your adolescent feel better. My hope is for them to enjoy their life again. I want them to feel confident they can handle whatever situations arise.
