Coping with your Adolescent

By Larry Waldman

Packed with useful discussions and actual case history examples to help you better cope with your teen(s). No matter how good or bad your parent-to-teen relationships are, by following Dr. Waldman’s advice your relationships can be improved. This book helps normal families to function even smoother, It will help you understand your teen's behavior, and to successfully cope with situations.

• Language: English
• Publisher: UCS PRESS
• Release date: Oct 31, 2010
• ISBN: 9780943247168

Larry Waldman

Dr. Waldman has lived in the Valley of the Sun (Phoenix/Scottsdale, Arizona) for nearly 40 years with his wife, Nan, who recently retired after 30 years of teaching fourth grade in the public schools. They have two sons, Josh, an attorney in southern California, and Chad, who is completing his training in school psychology in Portland, Oregon.He started his private practice in 1979 after working for seven years as a school psychologist for Scottsdale Public Schools. Over the next 31 years he developed his private practice into one of the most successful practices in Arizona.In addition to his clinical practice he does forensic work, consults to Social Security and to a private school, teaches for Northern Arizona University, sells his books, and speaks professionally.He’s written four books:Who’s Raising Whom?: A Parent’s Guide to Effective Child Discipline, published in 1987, is aimed at helping parents learn why their children misbehave then how to correct that misbehavior with techniques that work.Coping With Your Adolescent, published in 1994, is designed to help parents appropriately cope and shape their adolescent’s behavior.How come I love him but can’t live with him? published in 2004, teaches couples, using a behavioral model, to better understand their relationship and to behave toward each other in a more mutually-rewarding fashion.The Graduate Course You Never Had was published in 2010. It's focus is on helping professional counselors learn how to better manage the business aspect of their practice.Over 24,000 copies of the print edition of Who’s Raising Whom? are in circulation.Dr. Waldman speaks professionally to the community, to educators, and to other mental health professionals. Topics include:parenting and managing children’s behavior; dealing with teens, marriage, stress management, understanding and treating ADHD; dealing with the difficult child in the classroom, solution-focused treatment; and private practice management and marketing.Print editions of Dr. Waldman’s books may be purchased at http://www.the-relationship-doctor.com and at http://www.marjimbooks.com.Look for e-book editions of all of his books at Smashwords.To arrange for Dr. Waldman to speak, please contact publisher @ marjimbooks.com. Remember to delete the spaces around @ so that your e-mail goes through.

Book preview

This book is for you

IF

you are a parent, be it

married,

single,

step,

working;

AND

you sincerely want to understand

why your adolescent is behaving

the way he or she does;

AND

you want to learn effective

ways to respond to and successfully

cope with that behavior.

****

Coping with your adolescent

Larry Waldman, Ph.D.

Published by UCS PRESS at Smashwords

Copyright 2007 and 2010 by Larry Waldman, Ph.D.

UCS PRESS is an imprint of MarJim Books

PO Box 13025

Tucson, AZ 85732-3025

Cover design by Patrick Smith

ISBN: 978-0-943247-16-8

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

This e-Book edition contains the entire, updated contents of the trade paperback edition first published by Hampton Roads Publishing Company, Inc. in 1994.

DISCLAIMER: Although thousands of couples have used the techniques described and explained in this book, and have achieved success in better managing their children’s behavior, there is no guarantee that you will have the same success. However, the tools to have that success are in this book. It is up to you to use them, and thereby benefit from what you learn.

****

Dedication

To my sons, Josh and Chad,

who, although difficult at times, were never as

challenging as teens, thankfully, as was I;

and

to Nan, who had to put up with the three of us.

Acknowledgement

Thank you to the hundreds of families who

trusted me to help them. I learned from them as

much as, or more than, I taught them.

****

Table of Contents

Introduction

Chapter One

Adolescence—What Is Normal?

The Peer Group is Primary

Common Traps for Parents

Unrealistic Standards

Chapter Two

Basic Coping Techniques

Positive Reinforcement

Give to Get

No News Is Good News

Extinction

Making Your Goat Less Gettable

Controlling Your Temper When Your Teen

is Losing It

Persuasion and Resolution—Lost Fantasies

Choosing Your Battleground

Walls

Logical Consequences

Owning the Problem

Chapter Three

Punishment

Goals of Punishment

Rules of Punishment

Types of Punishment

I-Message

Response Cost

Consequences, Not Control

Corporal Punishment

Chapter Four

Responsibility

Don’t Make the Teen Even

Making Responsibility

Learning Responsibility

Responsibility Testing

Chapter Five

Communication

Monopolizing

Lecturing and Preaching

Interrupting

Dismissing or Talking Teens Our of

Their Feelings

Judging

Denying Perceptions

Facilitating Communication—Reflective Listening

Communication as a Tool for Conflict Management

Let Me Get Back To You

Parents United—Even If They Are Wrong

Blended Families

Splitting

Arguing Constructively

Chapter Six

Curfew and Money Matters

Curfew

Money Matters

Allowances

Money and Clothes

Chapter Seven

Getting Help

Stigma of Mental Health Care

Warning Signs

Helping Professionals

Where to Look for Help

Questions to Ask

How to Be a Good Patient/Client

Coming in for Help

Progress in Mental Therapy: Tough Love

Hospitalization

Bibliography

****

Introduction

Most adults must fulfill three basic responsibilities: do their jobs, be mates, and raise their children. They are usually instructed how to do their work but receive little or no training in how to be successful spouses or effective parents.

To drive a car in this society, you must show that you can at least basically operate a vehicle and pass a written test. To become married, you need only to find a willing mate and pass a blood test. To become a parent, you must only be biologically capable.

In my first book, Who’s Raising Whom? A Parent’s Guide to Effective Child Discipline, I stressed that parents must learn the science of child management. Our greatest resource is our children. We, the older generation, must learn to manage this precious resource wisely. The rising crime rate, epidemic drug abuse, and alarming incidence of divorce and broken families is cause to wonder how well previous generations have raised their children. If we cannot raise our children more effectively than we were raised, we cannot expect the next generation to be more emotionally stable, be happier, or be better parents.

For more than thirty years I have counseled hundreds of parents who are confused, angry, tense, and depressed. They feel they are not in control of their children; that they are not raising their kids but simply reacting to them. As one frustrated parent aptly put it, I go from putting out one fire to the next—from one crisis to another. It was from working with such parents that I came up with the title Who’s Raising Whom?

I have never me a child who knows more about raising children than his or her parents do. This statement is generally true for adolescents as well—but most teenagers would strongly argue this point. Parents must discipline and guide their children and adolescents; they cannot simply react to them.

In my first book, I discussed in detail how parents can manage their children’s behavior. In this book, I refer to parents coping with their adolescents’ behavior. This is an important distinction.

Parents can shape, mold, and relatively easily change behavior in their children, especially in younger children. Such is not the case with adolescents. Parents simply do not have the power to significantly alter the behavior of their adolescents.

The purpose of this book, then, is to help parents learn to cope with and guide their adolescents—not necessarily change them.

Parents often do not experience major problems with a child until that son or daughter becomes an adolescent. Even if the parents are using marginal management practices, or if the relationship with their child is tenuous, they usually can keep the lid on things while the child is young.

But when the child reaches adolescence, the normal teenage stresses, coupled with the existing problems, cause the situation to explode.

Parents who muddle through with their young children will often pay the Piper during their child’s adolescence. If they have not leaned effective child management skills when their child is young, they likely will have to learn effective coping strategies by the time the child becomes a teenager.

In theory, if parents use the methods I explained in Who’s Raising Whom? when their children are young, they probably will have fewer problems when their offspring reach adolescence.

I often find when working with families that problems the parents are having with their adolescents can be traced to earlier management problems. It does little good, though, to