One of the most challenging things about being a parent is knowing how best to guide and support your children as they enter their teenage years. As many of us can remember from our own lives, being an adolescent is a fraught and challenging experience. During the teenage years, the chasm between parent and child can seem like an unbridgeable distance. It is also a time when young people are statistically most likely to engage in risky behavior, with studies showing that risk-taking behavior peaks in late adolescence.[1] So how can we, as parents or concerned adults, provide the best care and support during this tumultuous time?
As I have written about before, I believe that we must consider the family as a system and introduce accountability as a key feature of this system for all members. We often speak about the importance of ensuring that parents are accountable for their actions through making and enforcing rules, providing adequate care and support, and being communicative and honest with their children. However, we less frequently discuss the importance of ensuring that teenagers are accountable for their actions as well and how this accountability can help give adolescents a critical sense of purpose within the family system.
Creating a Culture of Accountability in Your Home
Accountability is a significant feature of many therapeutic approaches designed to deal with conflict and family trauma. It is defined broadly as the understanding that our actions and behaviors have consequences that impact others and potentially affect them negatively. According to a systematic research review published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior, accountability is a fundamental element of every society and is at the heart of what makes much of human life work. Plato wrote that, “without accountability for our actions, we would all behave unjustly.”[2] If we consider the family as one of the foundational systems making up society, accountability becomes an obvious tool for ensuring that it works at its best.
Within the home, accountability can become a consistent and fair system of expectations and consequences that are understood and upheld by all. No one person is exempt from upholding the rules, and laying blame elsewhere to deflect from taking responsibility for one’s actions is not permitted. Promoting a fair system of accountability in the home means that each family member is responsible for their actions and behaviors – regardless of what someone else does.
It is important to recognize, however, that this means different things for different members of the family. Parents frequently make the mistake of enforcing “do as I say, not as I do” situations by creating rules and expectations for their children that they are not prepared to follow themselves. This becomes problematic and undermines the rest of the family unit, and what’s more, studies have shown that while young people are likely to say that they will behave in the ways their parents actively taught them to, they frequently engage in life practices which mimic the behaviors their parents displayed that they witnessed growing up.[3] Ultimately, science shows us that “do as I say, not as I do” does not work, and accountability for all starts with adults leading by example.
What does it mean to hold your young person accountable?
Once a system of accountability has been established, what does holding young people within that system accountable mean, and how do you follow through on ensuring that the rules are followed? This is another example in which getting angry doesn’t solve problems. According to Psychology Today, becoming angry with people when they fall short of expectations is not a productive way of holding them accountable[4], especially where children are concerned. All anger teaches them is that not meeting expectations is unacceptable. Because it doesn’t give positive guidance, it decreases their motivation and often diminishes their resilience.
The most important aspect of holding any loved one – especially a young person – accountable happens long before they fail to meet expectations; it happens when the expectations are set. Agreeing on reasonable expectations that realistically reflect the reality of the family situation and setting clear limits that make sense to all and that are grounded in prior experience is the only way to ensure accountability in the long run. Accountability for teenagers, in particular, becomes primarily about being fair, firm, and consistent in advance, not after the fact. Manage your home like the real world: don’t surprise your children with sudden rule changes or diversions from the agreed-upon expectations just because something different happened that day, and use reasonable consequences consistently.
Most importantly, use your compassion and care to support them as they adjust to new circumstances. Learning to follow rules, meet expectations, and accept consequences are some of the most challenging things we learn in our development. By drawing on your experience as an adult and being empathic to their situations, you can help the teenagers in your life understand and adhere to self-governance and become responsible for their actions. Accountability features in many areas of life, and home is a safe space for teens to try and fail without fear of shame or embarrassment.
If you’re a concerned parent or caregiver seeking further advice on how to help and support the teenagers in your life, please check out the other resources available on my website. And, if you’re seeking help for a teenager you believe needs support or counselling services, we’re here to help. Parenting isn’t always easy, but you aren’t alone.
Sources:
[1] National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine; Health and Medicine Division; Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education; Board on Children, Youth, and Families; Committee on Applying Lessons of Optimal Adolescent Health to Improve Behavioral Outcomes for Youth; (2019) Kahn NF, Graham R, editors. Promoting Positive Adolescent Health Behaviors and Outcomes: Thriving in the 21st Century. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); Dec 12. 3, The Current Landscape of Adolescent Risk Behavior. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK554988/
[2] Hall, A. T., Frink, D. D., and Buckley, M. R. (2017) An accountability account: A review and synthesis of the theoretical and empirical research on felt accountability. J. Organiz. Behav., 38: 204–224. doi: 10.1002/job.2052.
[3] Morrongiello BA, Corbett M, Bellissimo A. (2008) “Do as I say, not as I do”: family influences on children’s safety and risk behaviors. Health Psychol. Jul;27(4):498-503. doi: 10.1037/0278-6133.27.4.498. PMID: 18643008.
[4] Bergman, P. The Right Way to Hold People Accountable. (2016) Psychology Today. Jan 20. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-we-work/201601/the-right-way-to-hold-people-accountable
