The Self-Driven Child Read online

  If a kid hates or resists homework, suggest a homework club at school, find older kids to work with him, or approach your child’s teacher about minimizing mandatory homework. If your child’s strong negative reactions to homework are out of character, have your child evaluated to rule out a problem like a learning disability.

  Help your child create an effective learning environment and, if necessary, develop her own system of rewards for completing goals. If she does not meet a goal, respond with compassion: “I’m sorry you weren’t able to meet your goals tonight.” Don’t get angry or threaten punishment. Your job is to help her develop ways to motivate herself.

  Express confidence in your child’s ability to figure things out.

  CHAPTER THREE

  “It’s Your Call”

  Kids as Decision Makers

  WHEN MATT WAS IN HIGH SCHOOL, he had an insatiable need for independence. Give him a rule and he’d break it. Set down a curfew and he’d sit in the driveway an extra half hour rather than comply. Matt wasn’t a jerk. He was just allergic to complying with other people’s imperatives. He suffered from anxiety, and feeling out of control gave him acute stress.

  His parents set a high value on their relationship with their son, and a fairly low one on determining the choices he made day by day, even choices that could—and did—affect his future. Here’s what happened, in Matt’s words:

  I turned eighteen halfway through my senior year of high school and my mom signed a notarized letter to my school making me my own legal guardian, which meant that for the rest of that year I could sign myself out of school anytime I wanted and my parents couldn’t access any of my private information, including grades. I don’t really know why she agreed to do this. I think she wanted me to know that she believed in me as an individual, that I had an adult life fast approaching, and that I’d better decide for myself what I wanted to do with it. Anyway, it meant a lot to me. So much so that I never abused the privilege.

  That’s not true. I completely abused the privilege, and it was amazing. The lady working in the student services office at school would have a slip already filled out for me every day and I would walk into her office, skip the line of students waiting for her to help them, get my slip, and leave. Maybe somehow my mom knew how awesome that would make me feel. For once in my life, I felt I was in control.

  It was tough for Matt’s parents to give him this freedom, but they realized at some deeper level that this was what he needed. Matt graduated from high school, and then bounced through a few different colleges before getting his degree. By his midtwenties, he had conquered his anxiety. Now, years later, Matt runs a successful think tank in Washington, DC, and draws on his childhood lessons to parent his own children.

  Matt credits his parents’ support for his long-term success. “Though I went to several different colleges before getting my degree, I wouldn’t have gone to college if they hadn’t helped me learn to figure this out myself, without breathing down my neck.”

  As you can probably sense, if Chapter Two nudged you to the edge of your comfort zone, this chapter is likely to push you over the edge. We’ve talked about your role as a consultant. Now it’s time to delve into the point of view of your child and to consider what it actually looks like when he or she is a decision maker.

  Panicked yet? Don’t be. Start with the basics, by adopting the following three precepts when it comes to your kids:

  “You are the expert on you.”

  “You have a brain in your head.”

  “You want your life to work.”

  When you buy into these three things, it’s much easier to tell your kid, “It’s your call. I have confidence in your ability to make informed decisions about your own life and to learn from your mistakes.” The trick is, you can’t just tell them this—you have to follow through. Sometimes you won’t like their decisions, but unless they’re outrageous, we suggest that you let them go with them anyway.

  Bill recently sat with Greg, the father of a bright twelve-year-old girl who was unhappy at her new private school and wanted to return to public school. When Bill suggested that he let his daughter decide where it made the most sense for her to go, Greg practically laughed and expressed the common view that important decisions by definition are too important for young people to make themselves. “I’m not letting a twelve-year-old make that kind of decision,” he said. He assumed that he knew what was right for his daughter, and he didn’t want to entrust the decision to her because he was fairly sure she would not do what he wanted. Many other parents come to this conclusion, too, reasoning that young people do not have anywhere near the range of experience or knowledge about life that their parents do, and that they are likely to prioritize emotional concerns like familiarity and friendship.

  This is true. But when we say we want children and teens to make their own decisions as much as possible, what we really want is for them to make informed decisions. It’s our responsibility as parents to give the information and the perspective that we have—and that they lack—in order to enable them to make the best possible choices. Once properly informed, kids usually do make good decisions for themselves—and their decisions are almost always as good as or better than our own.

  In this chapter, we’ll first clarify what kids as decision makers does not look like, and outline the exceptional cases—the kids who are just not ready. Then we’ll make a compelling argument (irrefutable, really!) for why you should encourage your kids to make informed decisions, and be willing to go with these decisions unless doing so would be nuts. We’ll also explain what kids as decision makers looks like as children grow, so that you are equipped to implement this strategy whether your child is two or twenty-two. Finally, as in the previous chapter, we’ll cover why giving up control is so hard to do, and will recount the most common questions and concerns we get from parents on the subject. We’d bet money that some will sound familiar.

  What “It’s Your Call” Doesn’t Mean

  “It’s your call” does not mean kids get to call all the shots at home so that the family is ruled by its youngest members. (“Chocolate cake for dinner every night!”) You have rights and feelings as a parent, and you shouldn’t bury them. If your five-year-old is dead set on going to the zoo but you’re tired, we’re not suggesting that you take her. And if your sixteen-year-old wants to drive at night to a concert in another city but you have safety concerns, trust your instincts. As a parent, you have to do what feels right to you, and you should help your child understand that. “I can’t in good conscience let you make that decision. It doesn’t feel right” is a perfectly reasonable thing to say. So is “It’s your sister’s turn to pick a movie tonight. You get to choose next week.”

  “It’s your call” does not conflict with limit setting, which will always be an essential part of parenting. If a young child refuses to stop doing something he’s enjoying, like playing in the park, you want to stay calm, practice empathy, and offer choices. (“Would you like to finish up your game? We need to move on now, but would you like five more minutes?”) If after that he still won’t comply, it’s entirely appropriate to say, “Do you want to hold my hand or should I carry you?” If the child will not agree to hold your hand, pick him up and carry him to the car—even if he’s kicking and screaming. Before the next outing to the park, you might say, “I’m willing to go to the park if you will follow a five-minute warning when it’s time to leave. I’m not willing to chase you around or fight with you, and if leaving is a big hassle again, we’ll wait for a couple of days (or a week) before we go back to the park.”

  Though we can’t carry a kicking adolescent around, there are still ways to set limits with teens when it’s necessary, and that’s by limiting what we are willing to do for him. We can say to a teen who spends too much time texting that we cannot in good conscience pay for their phone. We need to set clear ground rules, while keeping in mind that o
ur ultimate goal is not to produce compliant children as much as children who understand how to act and interact successfully in this world.

  “It’s your call” isn’t about giving kids unlimited choices. That, in fact, is a sure way to stress them out. As we mentioned in Chapter One, kids feel most secure when they know that adults are there to make the decisions they’re not yet ready to make themselves. Part of the reason why laissez-faire parenting doesn’t work very well is that kids find it stressful if they have to do something they’re not prepared to do. We know kids feel most comfortable when the world feels safe, and the world will feel safest to them when we create an environment that’s predictable and structured.

  Finally, “It’s your call” isn’t about manipulation, or sneakily getting kids to think a decision is theirs when it’s really yours. You want to parent with honesty—that’s what builds trust. You want to show your kids that you have respect for them. And if you’re going to foster autonomy, you have to genuinely let them have more control, bit by bit.

  So what does “It’s your call” mean? Most simply: When it comes to making decisions about your kids’ lives, you should not be deciding things that they are capable of deciding for themselves. First, set boundaries within which you feel comfortable letting them maneuver. Then cede ground outside those boundaries. Help your kids learn what information they need to make an informed decision. If there’s conflict surrounding an issue, use collaborative problem solving, a technique developed by Ross Greene and J. Stuart Albon that begins with an expression of empathy followed by a reassurance that you’re not going to try to use the force of your will to get your child to do something he doesn’t want to do. Together, you identify possible solutions you’re both comfortable with and figure out how to get there. If your child settles on a choice that isn’t crazy go with it, even if it is not what you would like him to do.1

  “Crazy” will be defined differently by different people, of course. A helpful yardstick is to ask if most reasonable people (like an aunt or uncle, a teacher or coach) would consider the choice to be a terrible one. We wouldn’t consider it crazy for Greg’s bright twelve-year-old to decide to go back to her local public school. The school may have had fewer resources than the private school her parents decided to switch her to, and some of the classes may have been less well taught, but if she felt at ease and surrounded by supportive friends, it is possible that she would perform better and be happier. If she decided she wanted to leave home and join the circus, that would be another matter.

  There are a number of situations in which a child can’t be trusted to make a good decision. If Greg’s daughter were not willing to listen to pros and cons and solicit advice, it may not be her call after all. Your kids have to be willing to listen and to think the options through, period.

  Beyond this, if a child is seriously depressed or suicidal, all bets are off. Her logic is impaired and you cannot start with the baseline belief that she wants her life to work out. People who are depressed can’t think clearly, as depression is defined, in part, by disordered thinking. Likewise, if a kid is dependent on alcohol or drugs or engaging in self-harm, he or she cannot adequately weigh the pros and cons and come to a good decision. We at times need to make decisions for kids who are temporarily not capable of making reasonable informed decisions for themselves, but the general principle still holds.

  6 Reasons Why We’re Right

  1. Science is on our side.

  When you are given room to make your own decisions, it allows you to feel in charge in other contexts. The brain is learning to make hard choices and protecting itself from the stress of feeling helpless. It is also benefitting from the internal motivation that comes from autonomy. The more experience kids have of managing their own stress and overcoming their own challenges, the more their prefrontal cortex will be able to regulate their amygdala.

  Many of our clients are familiar with research on adolescent brain development. They know that teenagers have a tendency to take seemingly stupid risks, especially when they’re around friends. These parents know that the prefrontal cortex hasn’t fully matured. But as we pointed out in Chapter Two, it doesn’t make sense to wait until your children’s brains have fully matured before entrusting them with decisions, or you would be waiting until their late twenties or early thirties. The brain develops according to how it’s used. This means that by encouraging our kids—and requiring our adolescents—to make their own decisions, we are giving them invaluable experience in assessing their own needs honestly, paying attention to their feelings and motivations, weighing pros and cons, and trying to make the best possible decision for themselves. We help them develop a brain that’s used to making hard choices and owning them. This is huge and will pay big future dividends.

  2. Kids shouldn’t feel like an empty extension of their parents.

  When we try to direct our kids’ lives, we might see short-term gains, but there will be long-term losses. Kids often resist doing what is good for them if they feel pressured to do so (remember Matt, sitting in the driveway so as not to be on time for curfew). If they happen to be the type of child who will comply rather than rebel, there’s still a problem: if they succeed later in life, they’ll feel like impostors, like the success isn’t really theirs. Therapist and writer Lori Gottlieb wrote an article for the Atlantic questioning why so many of her twentysomething patients were unaccountably depressed, even though they had great parents and on the surface great lives. This category of patients stumped her until she discovered the right questions to ask. “Back in graduate school,” she wrote, “the clinical focus had always been on how the lack of parental attunement affects the child. It never occurred to any of us to ask, what if the parents are too attuned? What happens to those kids?”2

  She explores this question through the example of a toddler who falls and whose parent swoops in to pick her up before she even has a chance to register what’s happened. The parent is working like mad to make sure the child doesn’t suffer—but why? Suffering, though painful to watch, is essential for the development of resilience. Does it hurt them too much to see their child suffer? Or do they need to feel needed?

  We see this type of helicopter parenting, and its consequences, all the time. Sarah, a student of Ned’s, came to see him with her parents before going abroad for a semester. At the meeting, her mom and dad explained their goals and concerns about the coming semester. They asked questions like, “What should we do about the math she’ll miss? How will we handle the SAT?” Her parents did most of the talking, and though ultimately a plan was agreed to by all, Ned couldn’t help feeling that Sarah was uncomfortable. So the next time he met with her alone, he asked her how she really felt about it.

  “The plan’s fine,” she said. “The problem is the we.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “It’s all ‘We have to get a good score on this,’ and ‘We have to get good grades this year,’ and ‘We have to write better essays.’” Clearly, Sarah had been holding her frustration in for a while. “My parents aren’t writing the essays, I am. There is no ‘we’ here, and it drives me crazy when they talk that way. It’s my life and it’s my work, and it’s my stupid essay that I have to write.”

  Remember that magic line: “I have confidence in your ability to make informed decisions about your own life and to learn from your mistakes.” Sarah’s parents were communicating the exact opposite to her. It’s the same, really, as the mother who refuses to let her toddler fall. Sarah was a bright, motivated girl and all she could hear was that her parents didn’t trust her decisions, or even consider them hers to make.

  3. Giving kids a sense of control is the only way to teach them competency—in decision making, and in whatever skill they’re learning.

  As the adage goes, “Wisdom comes from experience, and experience comes from bad decisions.” Kids need to practice making their own decisions before they can do so legally. Telling ou
r children how to make good decisions (or telling them how to do things for themselves) isn’t enough. It’s not enough to show them, either. They need to actually do it. They need practice. They need to experience the natural consequences of their choices, ranging from being uncomfortably cold when they decided not to wear a coat, to getting a bad grade on a test because they decided not to study. We commonly see adolescents and young adults go off to college without having had much of an opportunity to make decisions about the things that matter, including how they want to structure their time, what they want to commit their energy to, or whether they want to be in school at all. Not surprisingly, they have difficulty setting and meeting goals and making good decisions when it comes time to pick classes or a major or more generally to manage their day.

  This is true for a variety of other life skills, too. One mom who brought her two kids in for tutoring with Ned asked if he accepted checks. Though she knew a credit card was easier all around, she wanted her kids to have the experience of actually writing a check so they’d know how to. It reminded Ned of how he had once stopped to check on a car by the side of the road with its hazard lights on. The car had a flat tire, but none of the kids in the car knew how to change the tire. Presumably, they’d all been shown how to as part of driver’s ed. But you can watch a hundred videos on changing a tire and still be helpless if you’ve never actually done it. Sure, AAA would have been there in an hour. But that is an hour in the dark by the side of the road when you could be taking care of the problem yourself. Agency takes practice.

  4. You don’t always know what’s best.

  This may be a hard one to swallow, but it’s really hard to know what’s in your child’s best interest. In part this is because you don’t know who your kid wants to be—that’s for him to figure out, ideally with your help. Also, what seems like a disaster often turns out to be a blessing in disguise. There are many paths to success, and sometimes we only find the right one by getting a little lost.