FOOD, CLOTHING, SHELTER ©

Are your teens and pre-teens becoming more and more irritable and disrespectful? Are their grades falling? Are their friends questionable? Are you finding it increasingly difficult to communicate with them? Do you "walk on eggshells" around them? Then this section might be worth looking at. It is offered as an introduction to an approach I have developed over many years of counseling troubled adolescents and their parents. Please remember that this is just an introduction. The details of how to implement the approach will be specific to you and your child. In addition, I will be publishing a book on this subject in early 2011.

Also, it is not offered as a solution to serious conduct disorders, including such areas as violence, vandalism or drug abuse. These problems usually require additional interventions. "Food, clothing, shelter" is for parents whose children are basically "good kids" but who are becoming less and less manageable in terms of normal parent/child expectations. These are the kids who have parents substituting the term "terrible teens" for "terrible twos." Instead of enjoying the adolescent changes from child to adult, the parent has come to dread having to deal with them just about every day.

The major premise of this approach is the recognition that, as parents, we are obligated to provide only three things to our children until they reach the age of eighteen: food, clothing, and shelter. Everything else we give them or do for them is a "perk." Parents are usually more than willing to give their children these perks because they love them, want them to be happy or want to protect them from unnecessary stress. Unfortunately, parents too often find themselves giving perks because they believe their child will love them more, listen to them more, respect them more and disrespect them less. Their children have come to expect these perks as if they have a right to them with no obligation to do anything to earn them.

The idea here is to avoid punishments as much as possible and to substitute instead, withholding perks. When this is done consistently and with the child's knowledge, unwanted behaviors begin to disappear and are replaced by desired behaviors. Examples of how it works will follow at the end of this article.

WHAT IS A PERK?

A perk is anything that is not food, clothing or shelter (FCS) that when withheld will cause the child to connect their behavior with that loss. Let me first give examples of perks as they relate to FCS.

Food... always having food for your child to eat, whether it is at a scheduled meal time or if the child misses a meal, having the same or equivalent food available for the child to prepare him/herself.

Food perk...providing or preparing special food for your child; ex. "Sorry I missed dinner mom, can you heat it up for me?" (and mom heats it up), OR "I hate chicken. Let's go to McDonalds for a Big Mac!" (and the parent takes the kid to McDonalds) OR "I hate fish. Make hot dogs for me" (and hot dogs are made) OR(after the teen has opened the frig and not found anything they like even if the frig is loaded with food "hey how come there's no food in here?" and the parent responds with something like "well what do you want then?"

Clothing... making sure your child always has clean, comfortable and affordable clothes to wear.

Clothing perk... providing clothes that are beyond your budget limit, taking your child to the mall (at their request) to get new clothes when the clothing he/she has is perfectly ok.

Shelter... providing a safe place for your child to live.

Shelter perk... letting friends sleep over, letting your teen sleep over a friend's house, cleaning his/her room because they have not done so.

Of course perks are not confined to FCS. There are literally hundreds of perks that parents give their kids. Here are a few more examples:
WHAT DO KIDS HAVE TO DO IN ORDER TO EARN PERKS?

What do most parents ask of their children? Go to school on time, do homework, get grades equal to their capabilities, do reasonable chores around the house, adhere to reasonable rules, participate in family functions, and speak and act in a respectful manner to parents, siblings, friends, teachers and other adults. If children do these things most of the time, parents are usually quite happy to provide those extra benefits (perks) to make them happy.

However, when children do not do these things most of the time than perks must be withheld. Otherwise, the child is assuming they can behave any way they want and still get the perks.

HOW IS WITHHOLDING A PERK DIFFERENT THAN GIVING A PUNISHMENT?

Knowing when we are withholding perks and when we are punishing can sometimes be a little confusing. First let me try to define "punishment." A punishment is anything designed to reduce a certain behavior. One type of punishment is to take direct action. For example, when your three-year old child said something rude to you, you might have given him a spank on the behind. Your expectation is that the punishment (spanking) would reduce the unwanted behavior (disrespect). Another type of punishment is indirect or removing the child from something they find pleasurable. For example, when you ground your teen because they stayed out an hour over their curfew, your expectation is that the punishment (grounding) will reduce that behavior (staying out late) in the future. If you don't allow your 14 year-old to watch R rated movies because he is using too much profanity, than you would expect the punishment (not watching R rated movies) to reduce that behavior (cursing). Once again the purpose of a punishment is to inflict some sort of aversive or negative condition which we hope will reduce or eliminate an unwanted behavior.

If punishments as described above have resulted in your child discontinuing the unwanted behavior than you have no reason to keep reading. You should have a child who behaves appropriately almost all the time. However, if you think you should keep reading, than the punishments (often called "consequences") you have been using aren't working to eliminate that behavior.

So how is withholding a perk different than punishing? When parents withhold perks they are simply saying that the child is not entitled to anything beyond food, clothing and shelter unless they comply with basic family rules. Here are some examples:

Your son is expecting to be taken to the mall on Saturday to go to a movie with friends (a perk) but has been disrespectful (attitude, cursing, eye rolling, etc.) to you on Thursday. Knowing he has been disrespectful and still wanting to go to the mall, he will often apologize. Your "punishment" in this case might be to chastise him for waiting so long to apologize or threatening him with not "doing favors if he talks to you like that." But you still take him to the mall. Instead, regardless of the apology, you withhold the perk... it is lost. Although you should tell him you accept the apology, the perk cannot be reinstated at that time. However, it can be reinstated the following Saturday provided he has not been disrespectful during the preceding week.

Your daughter tells you she has been doing her homework and you find out she has been lying to you. A typical "punishment" would be to take away her cell phone, TV, etc. for some indefinite period of time. Parents often do not have the ability to enforce this type of “grounding” or aren’t sure when to end it. It usually creates resentment on the part of the teen and doesn’t change the behavior. Instead, try something like withholding the perk of going to a sleepover at a friend's house that Friday evening. Nothing she says or does can redeem the perk once it is taken away until that particular perk comes up again in the future. In other words, as long as she is doing her homework she will be allowed to go to the next sleepover but the one that was taken is lost forever.

Your teenage son is cruel to a much younger sibling after he has been told to cut it out. Typically, a parent will yell at the offending child but not much more is done. Try withholding the perk of going shopping for those new Nikes he has been bugging you about until he can treat his sibling appropriately for a certain reasonable period of time.

In all cases your teen must understand the "rules" of FCS, so he/she is never surprised when a perk is taken away. The situations that lend themselves to withholding perks are endless. The hardest parts are (a) knowing how and when to withhold a perk…each situation is different, (b) being as consistent as possible, (c) being as realistic and fair as possible and (d) being fearless in the face of your son/daughter’s manipulations, anger, tears, guilt-peddling, and whining. You will be amazed at how little of this you get once this approach is in place.