One of the most common mistakes of parenthood is to be drawn into verbal battles with our children. These usually leave us exhausted and without any added advantage. What we want to say is don’t yield to this impulse. Don’t argue with your teen. Don’t subject them to perpetual threats, finger-wagging accusations and insulting indictments. And most importantly, don’t nag them endlessly. Adolescents hate to be nagged by “Mommy” and “Daddy”! When that occurs, they typically protect themselves by appearing deaf. Therefore, the quickest way to terminate all communication between generations may be to follow a young person around the house, repeating the same monotonous messages of disapproval with the regularity of a cuckoo clock.

During the 1950s, a popular rock ‘n’ roll song creatively expressed this kind of harassment. It was entitled appropriately, “Yakety Yak (Don’t Talk Back),” and was recorded by the Coasters.

Take out the papers and the trash
or you don’t get no spending cash;
If you don’t scrub that kitchen floor
You ain’t gonna rock and roll no more.
Yakety Yak (Don’t talk back)!

Just finish cleaning up your room.
Let’s see that dust fly with that broom.
Get all that garbage out of sight,
or you don’t go out Friday night
Yakety Yak (Don’t talk back)!

You just put on your coat and hat
and walk yourself to the laundry mat.
And when you finish doing that,
bring in the dog and put out the cat.
Yakety Yak (Don’t talk back)!

Don’t give me no dirty looks,
your father’s hip; he knows what cooks.
Just tell your hoodlum friends outside
you ain’t got time to take a ride.
Yakety Yak (Don’t talk back)!
Yakety Yak Yakety Yak

If yakety-yakking is not the answer, then what is the proper response to slovenliness, disobedience, defiance and irresponsibility? Since it is unwise (and unproductive) to spank a teenager, parents can only manipulate environment circumstances when discipline is required. They have the keys to the family automobile and can allow their son or daughter to use it (or be chauffeured in it). They may grant or withhold privileges, including permission to go to the beach or to the mountains or to a friend’s house or to a party. They control the family purse and can choose to share it or loan it or dole it or close it. They can “ground” their adolescent or deny him the use of the telephone or television for awhile.

Now obviously, these are not very influential “motivators,” and are at times totally inadequate for the situation at hand. After we have appealed to reason and cooperation and family loyalty, all that remains are relatively weak methods of “punishment.” We can only link the behavior of our kids with desirable and undesirable consequences and hope the connection will be of sufficient influence to elicit their cooperation.

It has been my contention that the early years of childhood are vital to the establishment of respect between generations. I’ve devoted several books to helping parents of strong-willed children create a relationship of love and control during the preteen years that will contribute toward adolescent sanity. Without that foundation – without a touch of awe in the child’s perception of his parent – then the balance of power and control is definitely shifted toward the younger combatant. I would be doing a disservice to my readers if I implied otherwise.

On the other hand, we must do the best job we can during the teen years, even if that foundation has not been laid. Our avowed purpose in that situation is to prevent the emerging adult from making costly errors with lifetime implications, including drug addictions, disastrous early marriage, pregnancy, school failure and alcoholism. There may be occasions when these serious threats require a radical response by mothers and fathers.

My parents were once in that position. When I was 16 years old, I began to play some “games” which they viewed with some alarm. I had not yet crossed the line into all-out rebellion, but I was definitely leaning in that direction. My father was traveling consistently during that time, and when my mother informed him of my sudden defiance, he reacted decisively. He canceled his three-year speaking schedule and accepted an assignment which permitted him to be home with me for my last two years in high school. He sold our home and moved the family 700 miles south to give me a fresh environment, new friends and the opportunity enjoy the outdoors. I didn’t know that I had motivated this relocation, but now I understand my parents’ reasoning and appreciate their caring enough to sacrifice their home, job, friends and personal desires, just for my welfare. This was one way they revealed their love for me at a critical stage of my development.

The story does not end there, of course. It was difficult making new friends in a strange college. I was lonely and felt out of place in a town that failed to acknowledge my arrival. My mother sensed this feeling of friendlessness and, in her characteristic way, was “hurting” with me. One day after we had been in the new community for about two weeks, she took my hand and pressed a piece of paper into the palm. She looked in my eyes and said, “This is for you. Don’t tell anybody. Just take it and use it for anything you want. It isn’t much, but I want you to get something that looks good to you.”

I unfolded the “paper,” which turned out to be a $20 bill. It was money that my mother and father didn’t have, considering the cost of the move and the small salary my dad was to be paid. But no matter. I stood at the top of their list of priorities during those stormy days. We all know that money won’t buy friends, and $20 (even then) did not change my life significantly. Nevertheless, my mother used that method of saying to me, “I feel what you feel; I know it’s difficult right now, but I’m your friend and I want to help.” Every troubled teen should be so fortunate as to have parents who are still pulling for him and praying for him and feeling for him, even when he has become most unlovable.

In summary, I have been suggesting that parents be willing to take whatever corrective action is required, but to avoid nagging, moaning, groaning and growling when possible. Anger does not motivate teenagers! How foolish it is, for example, for the vice principal of Kamikaze High School to stand screaming in the parking lot as students roar past in their cars. He can solve the speeding problem once and for all by placing a bump in the road which will tear the wheels off their beloved cars if they ignore its sinister presence. In Russia, by the way, students who were convicted of taking drugs used to be placed at the end of a waiting list to obtain cars. This policy had a remarkable impact on the unpopularity of narcotics there, I’m told.

These two illustrations contain the key to adolescent discipline, if in fact one exists. It involves the manipulation of circumstances – whatever they may be – to influence the behavior of youngsters, combined with an appeal to love and reason and cooperation and compromise. It ain’t much, as they say, but it’s all we’ve got.

This article was written by Dr James Dobson of Focus on the Family. For further enquiries, kindly contact Focus on the Family (M) Sdn. Bhd., 6-2 Jalan Bersatu 13/4, 46200 Petaling Jaya, Selangor, Tel 03-7954 7920, Fax 03-7954 7858, focus@family.org.my or www.family.org.my

Focus on the Family 90-second commentaries is aired over TRAXX FM at 9.30 a.m. Monday to Friday)