Children
have the right to be children and not be loaded with age-inappropriate
responsibilities. One mother was
taken aback when her daughter exclaimed with some exasperation ‘Mum, I’m only four.’ This response alerted Mum to the fact that
her expectations were unrealistic and needed to be tailored to the child’s
age-level. If children have the
right to be children, so, too, teenagers have the right to be teenagers, but a
teenager’s definition of their right may differ markedly from that of parents,
teachers and other adults.
Belonging to a group is an important part of being a teenager and the
‘right to party’ is an aspect of this need to belong and be accepted by his or
her peer group. When such partying
results in drunkenness, destructiveness and riotous behaviour, then ‘rights’
become ‘might’ and, of course, cannot be tolerated. One of the challenges that teenagers face and struggle with
is that parents are legally and morally responsible to their well-being up to
age eighteen years. After that,
teenagers are one hundred per cent responsible for themselves; (of course age
is no guarantee that they are psycho-socially ready to take on such
responsibility!). Parents who are
wise and mature start that responsibility-giving process at the earliest stage
by creating opportunities for age-relevant responsibilities and maintaining
boundaries between the world of the child, of the adolescent and of the
adult. When this process is
maintained, teenagers ‘right to party’ is accommodated in mature ways by both
the parents and the young person.
However, when such effective parenting has not been present, then
teenage rebelliousness is likely to emerge and literally ‘all hell can break
loose.’ I have worked with
families where children and adolescents are grossly verbally abusive of parents,
are destructive or property and threaten, rob, steal and lie to get their own
way. In such a situation, it is
the parents who urgently need help and support to create boundaries around
their own responsibilities as parents and maintain those boundaries in the face
of what can be an onslaught of threats from their teenage offspring.
There is a
wise rule of thumb that needs to operate with teenagers and that is ‘freedom
and responsibility go hand in hand’; the more responsible behaviour shown, the
more freedom is given. However, if
this is true for teenagers, it needs to be also true for adults.
A new book
written by a Montessori teacher, life skills lecturer and mother of five
children and grandmother of eight children addresses ably the issue of
responsibility and freedom, as well as many other pertinent
responsibilities. The book is
called The Conscious Parent: becoming a
Reflective and Creative Parent and the author is Clare Healy Walls, a
native of Cork. The book’s
philosophy is very much influenced by Marie Montessori’s ideas and educative
approach, as well as Clare’s own life experiences. Clare defines responsibility as ‘the ability to
respond.’ She says that if a
person is responsible for a situation then he or she should provide a response
suitable for that situation. She
believes that parents need to ‘fully understand what being responsible means
before they are able to understand their responsibility to children.’ The distinction she makes of ‘being
responsible to’ rather than ‘being responsible for’ children is important
because many parents feel that society makes them ‘responsible for’ their
children. However, Clare pulls no
punches when she declares: ‘We are not directly responsible – the child is
responsible. But we are
responsible to help children be responsible for themselves.’
In order
for children to become responsible, Clare rightly points out that children
require freedom, which ‘allows children to learn to respond to situations in a
responsible manner.’ A child
requires freedom to be able to take responsibility. Clare asserts that ‘a free person will by nature be
self-responsible.’ Nowadays, there
is a confusion between providing children with ‘licence’ to do what they want
and freedom. The difference
between these two is when children are given ‘licence’ they are not required to
take responsibility for their choices; whereas when children are given
‘freedom’ taking responsibility is integral to their actions. Clare points out that ‘if a parent or
other adult interferes by removing that freedom or interferes by imposing
limits that allow no flexibility, then the child loses interest in responding with a solution. They give up being responsible. They hand over control for their lives
to others.’ She reminds parents
not to forget that children enter life full of desires and excitement to manage
their own lives. The echo of this
innate desire is the toddler’s assertion: ‘I want to do it myself.’
Dr. Tony
Humphreys is a Clinical Psychologist and Author.
