Nerd Pride Radio

So here's my situation. The kids are basically good. This actually makes us worse as parents because we get lazy, kind of assuming they're going to do what they're supposed to and not cause a problem. When we have to rise up and intervene, then we have issues. The main issue that is beyond my understanding involves Junior High Aged Giant who is now about three times my height and stretches out all my good tennis shoes, the delightful novelty of "sharing" having fully worn off now. She kind of looks and sounds and talks like an adult, so we assume she will behave rationally like an adult. Also, good most of the time. But there are two Behaviors that have to be Altered, and I'm also totally ill-equipped to deal with the psychology o the Junior High Age.

So from kid perspective:
Behavior #1 is, I sit around and simply engage in a kind of non-compliant civil disobedience when I don't want to do what you tell me. And you have minimal punishments to levy against me - all your punishments are totally ineffective anyway. And your enforcement is poor and spotty at best. You're busy, distracted, have meetings, have things to do all day, have other kids, and so I wander off and just Don't Do The Thing like I'm supposed to. Three hours later you try again. I wait you out since I have all day. But I need to learn to Do The Thing you're telling me to do, so...

Behavior #2 is, I know how to use my technological devices better now than you do. I gloat about this, in fact, because it amuses me. You can take my phone and screens away but you don't know how to undo all I have wrought with it anymore. And now that I am big, sometimes i go places where you want me to have my phone for security purposes. My rules violations are not exactly the worst, but they are rules violations all the same and should be taken seriously. Yet you are in no position, again, to achieve enforcement, so why should I comply?

From my perspective, what solves this? I have basically minimal effective punishments. There's nothing I can "take away" from this Emo Goth person who enjoys being alone doing nothing all day anyway. And I have no carrots to use either - she doesn't want anything. What reward could be offered when you don't want any of the rewards? And she's smarter than me on some level - not on other levels, but on some levels, yes. She understands me better and I am in a weaker position with respect to this thing because I've got other stuff to do, and her only objective is to be left alone to proceed unhindered through life. And like I say, 90% of the time that's no problem because it's 90% good behaviors. Parenting is about the other 10 too, however.

So we take away phones and ipods, and its fairly effective. If it's an issue of you wanting them to have the phone for security, then the answer is that they're not aloud to go to those places if they've lost their phone.

I think the reason it's worked well for us is twofold: (1) one of our kids got their phone taken away permanently. That added real gravitas to the punishment; (2) we let a lot of things go in our kids behaviors- especially "attitude" stuff. We try to pick our fights and only do punishments when there's something pretty egregious (lying about something important or yelling "fuck you" at a sibling in public or something like that).

I wish I had advice in this field of parenting. The guys are 12 now, but really about 8 emotionally / responsibility wise.

Ah, the joys of parenting teenagers! Your daughter sounds a bit like our second daughter, who definitely marches to the beat of her own drum. The good news is that it is usually temporary. Like Kyle said, you need to choose your battles carefully. And I agree: if you take away a phone, then don't allow them to go places where you wouldn't want them to go without one. If that's not an option, consider getting a flip phone that can make calls but doesn't have data or texting and force her to use that phone. And periodically call her on it, so she needs to take it out in front of her friends.

And by the way, for overly-worried parents, the "Find my iPhone" app works pretty well for keeping track of your kids' locations. While we try not to use it very much, it's helpful when you have a new teenage driver who wants to drive into the city with her friend, so you can make sure they arrived at their destination without texting or calling them.

Tahlvin makes a good point. We have a cheap ass burner Trac Phone that we keep minutes on. It's only good for making calls. We call it the "House Phone." If a kid loses their phone but needs one because they're going to an event (like Venturing or something like that)- they have to use the house phone. They hate the house phone.