My wife, Danielle, and I don’t always agree on how to parent our teenage sons. If you ask our boys, I am the strict one and Mom is the lenient one. Although, I would argue that because I am routinely asked to take on the role of enforcer, I end up naturally appearing a lot more strict than their mother.

My wife, on the other hand, would say, “Chris, you forget that they’re just kids. Stop treating them like short adults.” I have to admit, there is a lot of wisdom in those two sentences.  She’s right, teenagers should not be treated like short adults. The tricky part is that her and I have different interpretations of  “just kids.”

A most recent example involved our oldest son, who is now a freshman in high school.  He’s not allowed to sleep with his cell phone in his room. He does have an Amazon Echo Dot, which is great for music, telling time, setting a timer for homework, knowing the weather before getting dressed, etc.  

The problem with the Echo Dot as an alarm clock is that all he has to do to turn it off is say, “Hey Alexa, off” and then curl back under the covers and continue dreaming about running around carefree at overnight summer camp in early August.  

It’s gotten so bad that he now has a Digital Alarm Clock that he keeps across his bedroom.  This forces him to get out of bed to turn it off. It’s working great for now. He’s such a heavy sleeper, though.  If he’s like this at 14, we’re expecting that he’ll be much worse as he gets older.

I have no doubt that we’ll end up doing what our friends did with their high school junior, who is completely unphased by parents yelling “time to get up,” lights flickering on and off, and a blaring alarm clock.  “When the time comes,” my friend Paul says, “just bring in the Sonic Bomb. It fixes everything.”

For now, we’re sticking with the digital alarm clock, but there’s a good chance that Sonic Bomb is going to be one of this year’s stocking stuffers.

Anyway, one morning after saying, “Hey Alexa, off,” our son has to be dragged out of bed 15mnis before he needs to get to the bus stop.  While he’s frantically trying to get dressed, fix his bed-head, make his lunch, shove some food in his mouth, and put everything in his backpack, my wife says, “Don’t worry Lucio, I can drive you to school.”  

And that’s when my internal smoke detector goes off. “Hold on,” I say, “why are you going to do that?”

She proceeds to explain that he’s “just a kid” and it’s not a big deal to drive him. She sees her son “freaking out” and like most parents (or at least like one of the parents) wants to alleviate that stress.  I completely get it.

As a high school teacher, however, I see kids “freaking out” all the time.  Kids will freak out over the mention of homework, over a low battery sign on their laptop, over a B+ on a test, over a pimple, over a tiny food stain, etc.  So, you could say I’m pretty immune to typical teenage freak out.

My approach is often to let the teen freak out if they want to and then suggest ways to cope with the problem. I truly believe it’s important to let teens feel stressed so they learn to handle it and feel empowered so they learn to overcome it. This helps kids succeed at school and in life. 

If they want to freak out, that’s up to them. I do not make it a personal mission to stop/control that. I do, however, insist that they try to figure the situation out.

In my ideal world, Lucio will get to the bus stop right as it’s pulling away and will have to sprint to get the attention of the kids on the bus, who will then notify the bus driver to stop.  Seriously, this is the ideal situation in my mind. “You’re too hard on them,” my wife says. He’s just a kid.

Because I see at least two or three teenagers in some kind of frenzy on a daily basis, this “freak out” that my son is going through has absolutely no effect on me. I’m not cold-hearted, I swear. As I write this, I’m thinking…geez, I kind of sound like a jerk. Am I cold-hearted?

Let me just explain why I want my son to go through this and to nearly miss the bus. If you understand my position and still think I’m a jerk, then fair enough. But, please try to understand my position before you decide.

My overall theory is this: teachable moments are driven home by  discomfort.  

To illustrate, let me take draw upon an experience that every high school teacher faces hundreds of times. Thousands of schools are currently using Google Classroom as an online management tool.

One of the features is that teachers can set the the date and time an assignment is due. On the first day of class, I tell the kids that homework assignments are always due 5mins before the bell rings.  

This has made collecting homework so much easier.  No more freak out about leaving it in my locker or can I go print it or shuffling through stacks of papers to find it.  Kids now submit the homework electronically and bamm…finished!

What used to take up anywhere from 5 to 10 minutes of instructional time (longer for kids who had to leave the room to print) is no longer an issue. It’s a true technological improvement.

The thing about having a time deadline is that there will always be someone who is 1 or 2 minutes late.  At first, I’d say, “Don’t worry about it.” But, now I count it late. The penalty is small–1 point. But, if hw is 10 points, then 10% could seem like a lot.  

The reason I do this is because I believe that missing a deadline should sting a little. Missing a deadline by one minute shouldn’t sink a kid to a 50%, but it should sting.  

If you think this is too strict.  Ask yourself this, “Why shouldn’t it sting?”  That little sting is what drives home the teachable moment.  There MUST be discomfort for the lesson to sink in, right? Think about any valuable lesson you’ve learned where the pain of experience was the teacher.  I bet that “pain” is what helped you prevent that mistake.

If I keep saying, “Don’t worry about it,” there’s no incentive to meet the deadline. There’s no incentive to worry about getting the assignment in on time.  

I understand that 1 minute makes no difference.  I honestly really don’t care that an assignment is one minute late.  That 60 seconds has no effect on me, and I have no interest in being the time police.  For me, this is about teaching responsibility and accountability.

In fact, I could make the argument that “Don’t worry about it,” is irresponsible.  If one of our jobs, as teachers, is to help kids understand the importance of deadlines, then what message does, “Don’t worry about it” send in this case.   

The remarkable thing about kids, by the way, is how adaptable they are.  If they know that they cannot get away with turning in a late assignment for teacher A, then they won’t try it.  That same kid, however, might repeatedly turn in late assignments for teacher B, who accepts late assignments until the end of the day without penalty.  

Kids figure out very quickly what a teacher will tolerate and what a teacher won’t. Trust me, they do the same thing with their parents as well. Watch out for the emotional manipulation.  For example, yelling, pouting, not talking, or isolating themselves right after you’ve said “no” to a request.

So, as my son freaks out about getting the bus, I’m thinking “great” if this gets uncomfortable enough, then he’ll do a better job of getting out of bed on time.  I mean, he’ll keep trying different ways to get himself to wake up and get out of bed instead of mindlessly turning his alarm clock off.

He might even be open to suggestions from his mom or dad.  Well…maybe I shouldn’t push it! 

Understand that teachable moments are driven home by discomfort. So, we need to look for opportunities to let things sting a little bit.  That’s not a jerk-thing, is it?

There’s a big difference between punishment and discipline. Discipline means to “instruct, educate, train.”  Parents and teachers are expected to discipline their children and students. The question is how?

For me, the answer is by way of allowing manageable discomfort. Discipline is just one aspect of parenting. For a more complete picture, read this excellent post: 10 Steps to More Effective Parenting.

Items mentioned in this post: