Principle #2: Parental Leadership is Essential to Healthy Families

It is important that you do not confuse “nurturing the relationship” with “being your child’s best friend.” You will find it is not possible to be friends with your children in the traditional sense of the word�at least not while your children live at home. The primary reason for this is that effective parents do not share equal power with their children. You need to have the final say when necessary.

Parental leadership means that as a parent you set the expectations and rules. You make decisions about what is best for your children and the family. You hold your children accountable for their choices and enforce consequences when appropriate. Just as executives do not share all the information with their employees all of the time or include them in all discussions, you also must maintain appropriate boundaries by holding some discussions “behind closed doors.”

As your children grow they will undoubtedly test your leadership and hierarchies in general. As a result, you will inevitably find that your children may be mad at you fairly frequently as they test both your relationship and your leadership.

You probably cringed the first time your toddler said, “I hate you.” By the time your toddler is a teen there will be an array of such phrases they may use to test your relationship or to attempt to flip the family hierarchy in their favor. In those moments, do not give in to such phrases, reverse your decisions, or focus solely on attempting to make the child (or yourself) feel better.

Who is at the top of your family hierarchy?

Activity: List your family members in order of who has the most power in the family to who has the least power. Compare your observations with those of your spouse.

Do you think you have given some power to your teen that should belong to parents? If so, in what ways? Compare your answer with that of your spouse.

What parental leadership is not

Parental leadership does not mean you should refuse to listen to your child’s opinions, ignore family members’ needs, or routinely make decisions without consulting family members involved. Parental leadership also does not entitle you to break agreements, have double standards, or mistreat your child for misbehavior. It does not release you of the responsibility to admit fault and apologize for your own mistakes.

In fact, parental leadership means you set the tone for the home and must therefore lead by example. Stephen R. Covey once noted, “The key to your family culture is how you treat the child that tests you the most.” It is part of your responsibility as the leader to model kindness, demonstrate respectful behavior, teach patience, and set the standard for positive, complimentary, communication.

Giving away the power – how it happens

Often parents don’t overtly recognize the ways in which too much power has habitually been given to a child. A common struggle many parents face is consistent arguing once a decision has been made. The continued argument frustrates parents and leads them to give up, allowing the teen to have his/her way. It is in this moment that parents give away some of their power to their child.

One mother stopped enforcing rules and consequences with her daughter in an effort to decrease the arguments they were having. Before too long this girl’s mom felt completely powerless and hopeless about her ability to parent. The hierarchy had been flipped and mom was at the bottom. It took time and the support of her husband, but the mother built her courage up and was able to take her place in the family hierarchy.

We have found that when teens ask for permission to do something, some parents have a tendency to immediately respond with “no” before understanding all the details. The teen then begins to argue for why it should be okay, giving additional details which lead the parent to change their mind. At other times, teens simply refuse to take “no” for an answer no matter when the answer is given. Eventually the teen wears the parent out and is successful at getting the parent to reverse the decision. No matter how it occurs, reversing a decision generally teaches teens to believe that “no” does not really mean “no.” As a result, parents give their authority away and actually invite more arguing.

Guilt is another thing that can lead parents to abandon their rightful place in the family hierarchy. When children don’t get their way and are frustrated, they may try to make parents feel guilty, often by bringing up perceived wrongs from the past hoping this will make the parent be more lenient. Parents need not feel guilty for mistakes they have made in the past. Rather, they acknowledge wrongs, seek to make amends and move forward. The best way to make up for a past wrong is to do things right today. Giving permission when you feel you shouldn’t will increase, not decrease your guilt.

What things have contributed to the current hierarchy in your family?

Maintaining parental leadership

These basic guidelines and ideas will help keep an appropriate and healthy balance of power in a family:

• Make decisions based on what is best for your children, not what you think will please them or result in less conflict. Be able to say “no.”
• Recognize that children won’t always be happy with decisions. Don’t argue with them over a decision they don’t like. Some simple phrases can help. For example:
  • “I understand your point; nevertheless, we still feel the same way.”
  • “I know you disagree, but we’ve made our decision.”
• Have courage to stand by decisions you make and not give in no matter how much your teen argues. Giving in brings short-term peace, but long-term conflict.
• Watch out for the guilt button. When your teen says something that triggers your guilt, find a way to respond that helps combat the guilt. Here are some examples:
  • Your teen says, “You just want to make my life miserable!”…You might think to yourself, “Someday he’ll understand.”
  • Your teen says, “If you loved me, you’d let me go out.”…You might say, “If you knew how much I love you, you wouldn’t say that.”
  • Your teen says, “Mom lets me. She trusts me. I wish I lived with her.”…You might think to yourself, “I’ll bet when she is at her mom’s she tries the same guilt tactic there.”
  • Your teen says, “I hate you! I wish you weren’t my parents.”…You might call a friend on the Home Team and ask for encouragement and reassurance that you are doing the right thing.
• When a teen asks for permission to do something, get the needed information and ask them to give you the reasons they feel it should be okay. Doing so helps them feel that you understand their point of view and have taken it into account in your decision.
• Choose not to involve your children in conversations that are not appropriate for them (e.g., financial details, marital problems).
• Lead by example, giving children a model of how to treat others with respect (e.g., keep promises, admit mistakes, demonstrate patience).
• One family who struggled with having given a teen too much power had a history of bartering with or blackmailing their teen and vice versa. The daughter would often say things like, “I need a new outfit, and if you don’t buy me one, I won’t go to school tomorrow.” To which the parents would reply something like, “If you don’t go to school tomorrow, you can’t go out with your friends on Saturday.” To which the teen would reply, “If you don’t let me go out with my friends on Saturday, I’ll…..” With coaching the parents were able to recognize the power struggle of arguing about rules and the cycle they were in. They built their authority as parents without getting taken in and led around by their teen’s threats. It looked something like this: “I need a new outfit, and if you don’t buy me one, I won’t go to school tomorrow.” “If you’d like to earn a new outfit, we can consider that when you are willing to talk about it with us respectfully.”
• What could you start doing (or stop doing) today to maintain the power that is appropriate for parents in a family?

From Your Trustyy Coach

Remember, when you effectively maintain parental leadership, there will be times when your children are mad at you. Your first priority must be to do what is best for your children, not simply what will minimize conflict.

We have found that when children have held a lot of power in their families for most of their lives, it is very difficult for them to let go of this power. While some parents have successfully reclaimed power from older children still at home, others have found it too overwhelming. As a result, there are some circumstances when parents should move to de-emphasize imposing restrictions and the need to obtain permission. At the same time, they seek to improve the quality of the relationship by maximizing respectful interactions and increasing communication.

They also focus on assisting the adolescent in making the transition to adulthood, where they experience the consequences of both their wise and poor choices. This includes setting up teaching opportunities for the basic skills they will need to live on their own. The bottom-line boundaries center around what the teen must do to continue to live at home or what they must do to continue to receive financial support from the parents.(A Homeward Bound transition coach can help you determine whether this approach is the right one for your family or not.)