Parents, here's some good news.
If you've had a good relationship with your child through age 11, odds are he or she won't be a rebellious teenager.Such a relationship requires work, however. There will be some heartache on the part of the parent and child. It means allowing young children to experience failure but celebrating their triumphs.
It's giving children choices; teaching them there are consequences to their choices and behaviors and extending concern when they make bad choices.
Too many parents, according to Dr. Foster Cline, internationally known author and child and adult psychiatrist, "rescue" their children from pain and disappointment, when in fact, such experiences help children grow emotionally.
"When parents start giving kids choices and heavy consequences for making poor decisions . . . then there is very little adolescent rebellion because the parents have never said 'You have to do it this way because I said so.' "
Cline will headline the Davis County Council on Infants, Children, Youth and Families' 10th annual conference on building families on Friday, March 26, at Davis High School.
The daylong conference, funded by United Way of Davis County, will begin with registration at 7:30 a.m. The $40 fee includes a continental breakfast and lunch. Registration is limited to 1,500 people.
Many parents use what Cline describes as the "rant, rave and rescue" parenting technique.
Simply put, parents assume responsibility for their children's problems and fix them for them. They do their child's homework. They do their child's chores for them. Some go so far to hire lawyers to spare their children from jail or treatment programs when they break the law.
It's enablement, and it's a recipe for larger problems, among them juvenile delinquency and substance abuse, Cline said.
While it is appropriate to rescue a 2-year-old from the world's dangers, many parents fail to change their style as the child ages.
"The parent defines that rescue as love. The problem in parenting is, if love is not mainly shown through protection when the child is small, the kid dies," Cline said.
"If those parents don't change their technique and they're still showing love as mainly protection by the time the kids is a preadolescent, that kid is in danger of death, by driving too fast, picking the wrong friends or getting into drugs. The thing that was necessary at two become fatal in adolescence."
Some parents slip into a pattern of enablement without realizing it, Cline said.
As a matter of human nature, bailing a child out of trouble is a quick fix. "It does help that particular kid in the short run. Almost all enablement is short-term gain for long-term pain."
Making children responsible for their choices early on helps them develop their own moral compass, what Cline refers to "the voice in their heads."
Children whose parents who have provided all the answers and direction flounder when faced with the choices that accompany young adolescence.
They haven't been taught to think for themselves so they seek out others' counsel -- frequently their peers'.
Cline illustrates the point using the example of a teenager attending a party where alcohol is being served. An adolescent who has not been taught to take responsibility for his or her actions may externalize his or her behavior.
Instead of worrying how the alcohol will affect them, "They truly think 'If my parents could see me now, they would freak,' " Cline said.
Conversely, a teenager who has been taught to be responsible for his choices will rely on his inner voice to guide him.
"Those kids figure things out."