Successfully Raising Teenagers

Have any of you ever had a teenager slam a door in your house? If you want to get a reaction out of this bottom line, results-oriented guy, slam a door in my house.  Recently, I told my 16 year old daughter, “You’re grounded this weekend.” She looked at me and said, “Fine,” goes up the stairs… bam, bam, bam, bam, takes her bedroom door and just slams it.  In fact, the windows in my house rattled. I charged up the stairs, charged down the hall, ripped open the door and said this, “Young lady, as long as you live in my house, don’t you ever slam the door again.”  I was so worked up that my hand got caught on the handle and, as I left, I slammed the door. As I’m coming down the stairs, my wife, Kathleen, says to me, “Has it ever occurred to you that you might not have the full skillset to parent a teenage girl?  

It was about three weeks later that I looked in my mailbox and there was a flyer from the Poway Unified School District titled “How to Parent a Teenager without Killing Them” or something similar to that.  I went to this class for 6 weeks. I sat in a semi-circle and the first week you had to tell the class what drove you there. So, the first woman she said, “You know my husband and I told our daughter, no body piercing. And then one day she came home and she had a piercing here, she had a piercing here, she had a piercing here, she had a piercing here.”  And I’m sitting there thinking, thank goodness that one’s not mine. “She looked like she had been making out with a nail gun,” is what her mother said.

They got to me and I said, “You know, my daughter slammed the door.  I went up and I yelled at her and I slammed the door.” The teacher in front of the whole class said, “Do you know that is exactly what her goal was to get a reaction from you.”  I want to thank you for that feedback just like I thanked my wife!

I graduated from this class in six weeks. I got me a diploma for graduating from this class.  And I just had to wait for the next door slamming to try out my new skills. I waited six weeks post graduate from the new door slamming.  I told her, “You know what, I’m going to take away your car for a day.” She looked at me and goes, “Fine,” takes off up the stairs… bam, bam, bam, bam, takes the door, bam!  But this time, I used my new skills. I went out to the garage and I got my very best Craftsman hammer and I got my very best screwdriver and I so calmly walked up the stairs this time.  I walked down the hallway and being polite, I knocked. I kinda thought, this is the way Clint would handle this. I opened up her door, went behind it and went, click, click, click and I took the door.  Her eyes were this big and goes, “What are you doing?” I said, “It’s obvious that you demonstrated to our entire family that you’ve not mastered the full skillset to open and close an ordinary bedroom door.  And, until you do demonstrate to the entire household that you can do this new skill consistently, I’m going to keep your door in the garage. And, I hope that you don’t do this when you use the bathroom.” Do you know what the number one implicit need of a teenage girl is? It’s privacy.  

There’s nothing even close on the Richter scale. She was going and saying, “Daddy, can I do the dishes?  I know it’s not my chore tonight, but I want to earn back my door.” She said, “Daddy, I went out and raked some leaves.  That’s not my job, but I want to earn back my door.” Five days into this she came to me and said, “Dad, I’m just laying it on the line.  I’m begging. What do I need to do to earn back my door?”

Do you want to be successful raising teenagers?  When you try one skill and it doesn’t work, try another.