When your five-year-old uses his hands to eat his spaghetti, your discipline options are pretty standard: after he ignores your request to use a fork, you remove the bowl of pasta until he’s willing to try his fork. Disciplining a young child using logical consequences is relatively logical, but what disciplining a teen looks like isn’t so obvious.
If teens don’t seem swayed by logic or consequences—yes, taking away their phone gets their attention but it’s the nuclear option which should be avoided (more on that below)—they actually do respond well to discipline strategies that don’t use the parent’s power over the teen, which is precisely what teens experience when a parent confiscates their phone.
Parents often find themselves in an impossible situation: disciplining their teen means they have to do something, but their teen doesn’t seem to care or respond to anything a parent threatens.
There is, however, one thing parents can do, and which teens will respond to: parents can “go on strike.”
First, let’s revisit the nuclear option: taking away the phone
Teens need their phones primarily to connect with each other.
Yes, I know: you wish they’d just get together with their friends rather than using social media.
I agree. But that’s a much larger issue, and the reality is that teens use social media as a way of connecting with each other.
To take away a teen’s phone is to cut them off from their friends, and while it’s unfortunate that social media plays such a huge role in their lives, it’s how things work right now.
Additionally, taking the phone doesn’t just cut off a teen from their supports; they experience it as a parent’s ugly power grab. They feel the parent is only demonstrating their absolute power. Rather than encouraging a teen to reflect upon their own problematic behavior, taking the phone focuses the teen’s attention on the parent’s behavior and power.
In the end, confiscating the phone sets up a power struggle which often leads to a contentious, conflict-heavy relationship between parent and adolescent at a time when teens so badly need a collaborative and supportive relationship with their parent.
What it means to “go on strike”
Think of all the things you do for your teen. If they’re not yet driving, you’re always picking them up and dropping them off. You cook for them, you do most if not all the house cleaning. You may do their laundry. You probably do all the shopping. You probably pay for everything, too.
The list goes on.
Going on strike means stopping doing all the things you do for your teen—except anything related to their health or safety. It means you don’t drive them anywhere—and if they drive themselves, they lose access to the car. It means you don’t make them any meals—assuming they can make themselves mac and cheese or PB&J. You don’t do their laundry. You don’t help with their homework. You do, however, buy food for them and take them to doctors’ appointments.
You can also make exceptions as needed: for instance, if they need a ride to an extracurricular activity’s event (a sports tournament, a theatre performance, etc.) which, were they to miss, would greatly affect their standing among their peers or affect their mental health, you may choose to drive them to the event.
Going on strike is not a hard and fast rule: you get to decide what you do and don’t do for them. You want them to significantly feel your being on strike, but you don’t want them to feel destroyed by it.
If you’re not sure what constitutes being on strike—if you’re unsure where to draw that metaphorical line in the sand—think of it this way: being on strike should not feel like a vindictive punishment. You’re not trying to decimate the factory; you’re encouraging them to recognize your needs and return to the negotiating table.
Why it works
Going on strike works because it’s not a power grab. The parent only controls what the parent does or doesn’t do, as opposed to exerting power over the teen. In fact, the teen can control the parent’s behavior (i.e. being on strike) based on what the teen chooses to do.
The parent is essentially saying, “I’m not going to do you; I’m just doing me.”
The power dynamic with teens is key here because developmentally, teens need to feel they have control over themselves and their lives. They’re trying to become adults who control themselves, not be controlled by someone else.
Your attitude while on strike matters
Going on strike is more effective when you’re able to remain cool and contained, rather than emotionally charged. After all, going on strike is not a punishment but a natural consequence: when your teen treats you poorly or refuses to help you out, you naturally don’t want to help them out.
Remember, too, that you want your teen to succeed: you want to end the strike ASAP. You want everyone to work together.
Your having a positive attitude while being on strike—that you believe your teen wants to help out, be a team player, treat you better, etc.—is key to its success.
Guilt
I’ve often wondered why going on strike rarely occurs to parents. In fact, parents often see going on strike as a nuclear option. But for teens, it’s not.
I think what’s at stake is our guilt: as parents, we’re afraid to do anything that might seem neglectful or rejecting of our child. To go on strike so intentionally can feel like we’re abandoning our child.
Were our child 8 or 9, this might be true. But a teen can make their own basic meals. A teen can figure out how to wash their clothes. A teen can miss soccer practice or fail a quiz.
I want to reassure any parent who feels that going on strike makes them a bad parent: you’re not.
Your teen will be okay. You’re only setting limits while maintaining their health and safety—and your love for them.
So let that guilt go and take a break.
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3 thoughts on “One of the Best Ways to Discipline Teens”
Great post, thanks. Love the bit about not taking away the phone. Totally makes sense. I think that alone will reduce the power struggle between me and my son. Thank you!
Great post and great approach! My theory is that it’s not (entirely) guilt that keep us from going on strike, but LOSS; because we like doing things for our kids, being helpful and being needed, and we don’t like to give that up.
Hi Mat,
Thanks for your comment, and you’re making a fantastic point! It really is hard to let go of being needed. After all the work we do raising a kid, letting them go is tough, and it really messes with our identity. If our almost-grown-up kid doesn’t need us, then where does that leave us? Who are we, and what makes us valuable if we’re no longer needed?
Or, maybe we’re still needed, just not in the same sort of ways…