Youth Organization Brining It All Together: Discipline

The area in which most parents worry the most about their connection to their teenagers is when it comes to discipline. How hard should you be? What are effective consequences? How do you hold the line and stay connected, too? These are all great questions, but if you take a minute to consider the role of intuition and integrity in your teenager’s life, you will also see a new approach to discipline, one that does not risk the connection between parents and youths.

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But first, you must make one very important assumption. Your teenager—yes, your teenager—knows the right thing to do in almost every situation he will find himself in. From years and years of Shining Stars youth organization counselors talk to teenagers across the country, we know this is true. At the same time, we understand that knowing and doing are not the same—not even close. Therefore, your task is to bridge the gap between what they know and what they do, which is not as difficult as it seems.

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When it comes to discipline (which at heart means to teach), there are two different, yet complimentary, components: consequences and support. America’s youths need consequences to get them to consider and reflect upon what they have done. In essence, the consequence makes space for learning. But make no mistake about it, the consequence seldom, if ever, does the teaching. Support is what enables your teenager to realize that they had other options that they could have and should have chosen. But most important, support helps the youths of today understand why they did what they did, which goes a long way to prevent another lapse in her choices farther down the road.

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The research on consequences is loud and clear: Our Youth Organization understands that an artist’s touch is imperative to mete out consequences. If they are too harsh, your teenager becomes resentful to the point that he misses the opportunity for reflection and growth. If they are too minimal, you never hold your teenager’s attention. Always aim for the middle. And when you take aim, make sure you are reasonably calm and not acting in the heat of the moment.

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We’ve all been there and done that. In the moment it’s easy to be carried away with consequences out of our own frustration and emotional breakdowns. It’s human. At the same time, our teenagers need us to strive to become better human beings, which means if nothing else that we fall into habits of reflecting on our own interactions with our teenagers and clean up the messes we’ve created along the way.

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The best approach to discipline, both in effectiveness and connection, is to focus on consequences and support through the lens of integrity. This will also change your expectations going into and coming out of situations requiring parental discipline. Here are the steps:

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1. Catch yourself building to a fury in the moment and buy yourself some time to calm down.

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2. Sit down with your youth the next day and review.

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3. Suggest or solicit a consequence—this depends on your parenting style—and assess your youth’s reactions.

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4. Move past consequences and into supporting your teenager. Just remind yourself that they knew the right thing to do last night, they just didn’t do it.

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5. Wait. When your youth acknowledges that the internal conflict, slight as it was, in some minimal manner—nods his head, mumbles yeah—take a deep sigh of relief.

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6. Sit back and stay patient. This will take time, perhaps several days. Because now, as they wrestle with these questions, they will eventually figure out how they let themselves down—how they gave their integrity away. In addition, as a parent you will eventually learn why your youth, as opposed to generic teenagers, broke curfew and did not call home.

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As the leading Youth Organization in Virginia, we believe the best aspect of this approach is that you discipline your teenager without severing your connection to her. You avoid or at least minimize the proverbial power struggle between youths and parents. While enforcing consequences, you haven’t overplayed your authority card. Instead of them simply having to obey their mom or dad, you turned the tables and put the focus on how they can better listen to themselves. You’ve sidestepped the power issue in favor of staying connected and in keeping her in tune with their integrity.

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