Do You Know Where Your Teenager Is?

by Ruth S. Angaran & Tricia L. Bachus

Parents know that teenagers today face many temptations and could be exposed to risky situations and bad influences. Moreover, parents cannot be physically present in most of the everyday situations facing adolescents.

Because parental knowledge of exactly where they are, what they are doing and whom they are with is limited, parents have to trust their teenager to be responsible, not to break rules and to do their best in school. Knowing where your teen is at all times, or parental monitoring, is crucial. The teenager will tell you, “So is trust!” This monitoring, albeit a very important parenting skill or motivation, has two-edges. Parents’ trust in their teenager and the teen’s view of how much trust they have are both important to the relationship. As Peter Benson of the Search Institute said, “Relationships are the oxygen of human development.”

Let’s talk about the level of vigilance needed in effective monitoring first, then we can get to the discussion of the role that trust plays. You are held responsible for your teen’s behavior whether you are present or not. You must, therefore, be vigilant about their whereabouts. Both communication and monitoring have been found to be related to fewer adolescent problem behaviors in both two-parent and single parent homes (Hartos & Power, 1997; Cohen & Rice, 1995).

Do you know, for example?

• How they spend their money?
• Where s/he is when s/he is not at home?
• Do you really know who his or her friends are?
• How much stress s/he is operating with?
• What his/her romantic concerns are?

Monitoring of adolescents activities, (their stresses and concerns, too) when they are not supervised may prompt support that the adolescent needs to facilitate positive adjustment in stressful times. Even though adolescents are learning to become autonomous and independent, they need—and it is advantageous for them to have—their parents involved in their daily lives.

How To Monitor And Maintain Trust At The Same Time

Parental trust is primarily based on knowledge. How you know and how you find it out are important questions in effective monitoring. We refer to “effective” monitoring as that which preserves the trust and mutual respect in the relationship. Your view of the relationship with your teen will relate directly to your level of trust in your child. Your child’s view of your relationship will correspond to their perception of how much you trust them.

Even though the word “monitoring” implies that parents are actively engaged in supervision and tracking of their children’s activities, it is parental knowledge that is key. We do not support a tracking-and-surveillance approach to monitoring. The relationship you have with your teen is quite similar to any adult-to-adult relationship or partnership. The more you know of how your partner has behaved, and will behave in all situations, the more you trust them. Your partner’s actions are predictable and dependable. In other words, the more knowledge you have, the more certain you are that you can predict their future behavior in any integrity-testing situation. The same holds true for parent-to-teen relationships.

Another source of knowledge involves the teenager’s feelings, concerns or worries. These reveal what their values and attitudes are. Attitudes and values are sure indicators of the likelihood that they will expose themselves to people and situations that you would consider undesirable. The willingness of your teenager to disclose feelings and concerns suggests two things: your teenager is being honest and straightforward because s/he has nothing to hide, and more importantly, there is a mutual trust present.

When you know what your teen does during school, after school and when out with friends in the evening, you know something about their judgment. You know what kinds of situations your teen chooses to become involved in and how responsibly your teen acts in those situations. This might provide a relatively stable basis for predicting how s/he will behave in specific integrity-testing situations or whether s/he would actually become involved in those situations in the first place.

Your major source of information is your teenager. S/he alone is the most viable source of information about his/her feelings and concerns. There are at least three ways for parents to obtain this knowledge:

1. The teenager tells you spontaneously—disclosure.
   
   
2. You can ask for the information from them or their friends—solicitation.
   
   
3. You can impose rules and restrictions that would require them to give you the information about their whereabouts and associations before making any plans—control.

These ways do not all contribute to parental trust. The teen’s willingness and comfort with disclosure obviously portrays trust. Alternatively, exercising a high level of control might make you more trusting because you might feel that their behavior is highly predictable because it is under your control. It does not, however, engender a climate wherein your teenager feels comfortable spontaneously chatting about what goes on at school, or after, let alone what may be troubling them.

Even if you know where they are, whom they are with, and what they are doing, the question of how you got the information is important—to the relationship.

The following is a true story, related to us by one of our COMMON GROUND instructors about a conflict that arose between her and her daughter around this issue of parental monitoring:

“The last few days Mary and I have had some intense discussions about her going to the beach with her friends this weekend. She wanted to go with three of her friends and the designated driver is an inexperienced, newly licensed driver. Mary knows that I have an enormous fear about that road to the beach; many teens (and others) have been killed on that road.

When she asked me for permission to go, I said “No” and explained why I was not comfortable with her going. She attempted to negotiate and I told her flatly that it was non-negotiable. I did tell her that I was willing to drive them over there myself. She was understandably very angry with me and I felt guilty, but righteous.

Yesterday she called me at work and told me to expect an email from her, and would I call her when I had finished reading it. This is an exact, word-for-word copy (except for the names):

Mom,
I’m writing you this email, because it’s a lot easier for me to write, than to say. Yes, this has to do with going to the beach tomorrow. Please hear me out. I wasn’t just upset about _____ (boyfriend problem). I was also upset about your not letting me go to the beach. When you say, “no” to these types of things, without listening to me, it really makes me upset. Ever since I was little I had this image of me when I was sixteen, driving to the beach with “my girls.” It is freedom; it is having no parents around, and bonding together. No, not having parents does not mean we all get drunk and smoke weed together. It just means that we are able to bond on another level, a more mature level. We all have to be responsible, and to watch out for each other, BECAUSE there are no parents around.

I learn so much about myself and about my friends when I’m out doing things without parents. I know you think by just going to the beach for a day by myself is not going to affect me that much, but you have to understand it will. The most fun I have ever had was cruisin’ in the car with just _____ and _____. Because I am getting a glimpse of what and how my friends and I will act when our parents aren’t around anymore. I know you are afraid that we will get into an accident because of the dangerous roads, and I understand that, and I appreciate your looking out for my safety (really). But Mom, I would call you every 30 minutes if you wanted me to! And I can guarantee _____ is a safe driver and all four of us have our license. This was supposed to be our “road trip” together. If I don’t go, I will be missing out on the “bonding experience” with them. This trip means a lot to me. I only have two friends with whom I am really close, and this gives me a chance to get closer to _____, _____, and _____. That would mean a lot to me. And I know you are thinking I can do that another time, where we don’t have to drive so far, but that is the point:

Going far away with them and not being in _____!

It would be a whole different experience that I would never forget. Like that afternoon when I drove myself home for the first time. It was scary, but it was something I had to do. Something I had to “experience.” PLEASE Mom, let me experience a “just girls road trip.”

Why you should let me go:

1. to bond with my friends
2. to be able to handle adult situations, without you there
3. to let me get a sense of real freedom (you have to do it so that when I really do have all the freedom, I will know what to do with it.)
4. to be responsible
5. to trust me
6. to let go
7. to worry about me, even though I will be fine!
8. because a lot of kids (who are still alive) have done this and told me how much fun it was!
9. because there is about a one in a million chance that we will get into an accident!
10. to let me go because I went through this effort to email you.

We discussed it over dinner and now she is at the beach! What I liked about her presentation to me was how she got my attention by doing something different from arguing with me, and how she was honest about how important it was and why, and then her 10 arguments to persuade me!”

Trust With Vigilance

I recently heard an accomplished woman talk about her early recollections that related to her development as a woman. As a teenager she had asked for permission to drive alone to a distant city. Her father, in this case, listened as his wife and daughter discuss the idea. Finally, he said with much conviction, “Of course she can.” She recalls that to this day—that affirmation. That father did what we must create with our teenagers: he trusted.

This is not to say they get wholesale, unqualified trust. That would be totally naïve. They are not yet ready as adolescents to anticipate dangers as well as we do. They seldom know what to do if things get out of hand. Beyond that, they may feel compelled to deceive in order to achieve a degree of independence from us. For all these reasons, we recommend a vigilant trust:

• Believe in your child’s ability to make good choices, but be informed about what is going on with her and her peers.
• Talk with teachers and other parents, but do not spy.
• Know what drugs are popular in your town and whether or not kids in his/her group are sexually active.
• Talk to them about dangerous behaviors.
• Listen empathetically and validate their feelings when they share with you about their day.
• Recognize their emotions as an opportunity for intimacy and teaching.
• Help them to label their feelings.
• Set limits while helping them to problem-solve.

(These last three are from the Five Steps of Emotion Coaching in The Heart of Parenting, by John Gottman, PhD., p. 75.)

This kind of vigilance when it is coupled with trust will seldom be resented. The teens will feel relieved that they do not have to shelter us from the realities of their lives. Our vigilance reassures them that we care, and that we are watching and engaged in their lives on a day-to-day basis.