Sadly, advice rarely creates change.  You already know that because chances are you have been given advice before and have not taken it even if the source was someone you trust or someone who cares for you.

Therapy, when done well, is all about awareness and options.  Awareness is critical because without understanding what you are doing in your life, there is little chance for change.  

When you become aware of your behaviors and the consequences of those behaviors, you may be in a better position to change. 

Therapy is also about options.  Most of us go through life believing that our options are limited to what we already know or what we were taught as children by our parents or other authority figures.  Even though our existing options have not provided us with the results we want in life, we do not believe that we have any real choices.

Therapy can open our eyes to those other choices and we can come to understand that those choices are within our reach.  The only reason we haven’t realized this fact before is that we thought we had to believe what we were taught earlier in our lives. 

Therapy helps us challenge those long-held thoughts.  We begin to learn that we can make our own decisions knowing what the consequences might be. 

There are always consequences for every decision we make.  Some of those consequences are what brings us into therapy.

I hope that this limited explanation helps you in your journey.

That means, we need to be able to listen as well as we need to be able to talk.  If our partner doesn’t hear us (or worse, we don’t hear our partner), relationships have no chance of getting better.

What does it take to have better communication?  It takes a willingness to be present and to care about what the other person is telling you.  As you know, this is not always as easy as it should be.  We can all get distracted by external events or internal feelings.  Many times, our feelings get in the way of our ability to listen and really “hear” what someone is trying to tell us, particularly if it is not what we want to hear.

This is the time to be honest, really honest.  I mean, honest about what is going on inside us.  If we are struggling, hurt, angry or feeling so sad that we cannot be present, we need to teel this to our parent, child or other important person.  If they don’t know what is going on, they will react, escalate their frustration and the relationship suffers. 

IT DOESN’T HAVE TO BE THIS WAY.

1. Hurt your younger brother or sister

2. Destroy property that is not yours

3. Treat others rudely or have a bad attitude

4. Don’t listen to authority figures (parents, bosses, etc.)

5. Ignore the importance of school

6. Defy parents or school personnel

7. Don’t take responsibility for your actions and their consequences

If a child or teen does not have consequences, they live in a make-believe world in which no one has responsibility for themselves or others.  Because the real world doesn’t work that way, the sooner the child or teen learns that their actions have real consequences, good and bad, the sooner he or she learns how to function effectively and safely in the real world where mom and dad cannot protect them.

If you think that your children don’t want consequences, you are making an important mistake.  Limits and boundaries provide safety for children and teens and when there are no limits or boundaries (and the consequences that enforce them), children will push their limits and boundaries until they get a consequence.  By that point, you, as parents, may no longer be in charge and the consequences will be much more dangerous and long lasting. 

In my experience as a family therapist, I have listened to teens tell their parents (who are amazed and then relieved) how much they appreciate the fact that they have finally been given a consequence for the behaviors that they knew were wrong but for which they were never scolded or punished. 

Children want consequences and it is one of the most unfortunate family situations to watch when well-meaning parents try to avoid giving consequences because their own parents were too strict.  They do themselves a disservice and create serious problems for their children until they realize how important this issue is to their children and to their future lives.

Any and all of these reasons are real cause for parents to worry.  But because of that fear and worry, there is also the potential that parents will talk with their teens and, more importantly, listen to what they have to say.  Remember, listening and nodding that you understand doesn’t mean that you agree with what they say.  And if you disagree, you need to tell your teenager that even if they don’t like it.  That’s your job as a parent.  In talking with them, they will feel heard, will consider what you tell them, even if they disagree, and will remember it when the occasion arises.