Q: I read your recent column about negotiating, and was impressed by the advice. We also have a negotiator in our house. The problem is he’s 15 and we didn’t hear this good advice when he was younger. Any thoughts on how to deal with a 15-year-old negotiator who also is a pretty good manipulator? He’s a great kid in many respects, but he does still like to negotiate, and does (because he wears us down) sometimes get his way. It seems like a different approach is needed in dealing with a teenager rather than a 7-year-old. Any thoughts? I feel like I’ve tried different things and none of them are optimal. Negotiating a deal all the time just seems lame. (Of course, video games are at issue here, among other things.)
Any suggestions?
A: I hear you, loud and clear. When I wrote that column about negotiating, it hit a nerve with many parents.
I received many notes from parents saying, “Yes! Enough with the back and forth!”
I also received many notes from parents asking, “What about choice? What about the power a child should naturally have? Should the parents be this prescriptive?”
And finally, much e-mail came flooding into my inbox asking about older children. “Meghan, we are well beyond cookies and TV. My child negotiates gaming time, opportunities to use the car, serious homework projects, you name it. It is different with an older child.”
So let’s talk this out.
Does a child have a right to his own power? To his own decisions?
Yes and no.
This is a matter of both relationship and timing.
When the baby is born, there is no negotiation. From eating to clothes to diapers, it is all about needs and taking care of those needs. This is how the parent/child relationship works.
As the child matures and grows, so does his ability to begin to know his mind and choose from different options. Yet, as all parents know, the young child often doesn’t make wise decisions. Nature has designed the parent/child relationship so that we must say “no.” Often.
This creates a great deal of frustration, and it is through this frustration — “No, the TV must be turned off” — that the child becomes angry, cries and changes. This change is growth, and it actually leads to adaptation and greater maturity. And so life goes on.
Essentially, it goes like this: Things don’t work in our day-to-day lives; we can adapt to or accept this, then we change, and the result is maturation.
Negotiation gets in the way of the maturation process.
There is a time to give children a choice and give them power; it just should not be in the midst of a negotiation or power struggle.
As the parent, you decide when the child can have more or less power. You decide when a choice doesn’t bother you. This doesn’t happen in the midst of a struggle; rather, this is a proactive decision on the part of the parent.
For instance, if you struggle every morning about breakfast choices and your child always wants to eat Goldfish crackers for breakfast (as happened in my house this morning), you would awaken one morning and ask, “You can have cereal with or without a side of Goldfish. What would you like?”
See what happened here? As the parent, you know the negotiation will be waiting for you, so you mindfully take back the power. You are the one who decides when and where, while also giving a little. But there is no negotiation in the midst of a struggle.
This is important because, as I said in the previous column, the more power children have, the more insecure they become. Why? Because it’s not the natural order. Children are not wise enough to be in charge and their brains panic when they have too much power.
But what about the teens? This is different.
If you put the hammer down on the negotiations and lead with hard “no’s,” you will most likely do serious damage to the relationship. Your child will most likely go completely ballistic or start sneaking or lying to you.
Again, it is not your teen’s fault that you have kept lax boundaries all these years. The responsibility lands squarely in the lap of you, the parent.
But let’s be reasonable.
The No. 1 rule with all children, but even more so with teens, is to preserve the relationship.
Younger children can handle more tears and more adaptation with their parents; their brains are built for a healthy amount of “no’s” and tears and angst.
But a teen’s brain is different.
If you have spent 15 years saying no but then being pushed into an “okay, fine,” you can’t create rigid boundaries now and expect it to go well.
So zoom out a bit and look at your big picture. You have at least three years with him in the house, I am guessing.
Write down three hopes for you and your son for these three years. It can be anything you want. Maybe you yearn to start hiking together. Maybe you want to learn more about his video games. (Seriously. They are fun!) Maybe you want him to learn more about your heritage. A trip for the two of you to plan, possibly?
The point here is that you can choose struggle or you can choose connection, and connection is the way to go with this young man.
As you choose to connect more, you can make small changes that result in less negotiating. The stronger your relationship is, the more likely you can say things like, “I’ve noticed that you’re gaming from 5 to 10 p.m. That feels like a lot. What do you think?” Allow a back-and-forth (which is not as much of negotiation as it is a conversation), and land on a plan that feels pretty good to both of you.
As for the negotiating in the moment, you really can choose to stop. You can choose to stay silent. You can allow him to have an adolescent tantrum; it won’t kill him. Just be careful to not allow your ego and the need to be in charge roar too loudly. Control is just the flip side of powerlessness, and it is equally problematic. You will trade one problem for another.
So, for all parents everywhere, and even more for parents with teens: connection first. The more natural connection, the less negotiation you will need to contend with.
Good luck.
Find this over on The Washington Post.