Expert: Kriss Mitchell, M.Ed, CRC, CNHP - 8/14/2010

Question
QUESTION: My ex was abusive to myself and the children as well.  My teenage children are now disrespectful as well. While this may be part of normal teenage rebellion, I don't want to see my kids grow up to be just like him. I get very concerned when I see them argue and reason like him, which is to deny and minimise their behaviour. My son always insists he didn't scream, or throw things, or didn't hit his siblings when caught. Then when he gets challenged, he escalates and may finally end up throwing things before stomping off, blaming me for accusing him and setting him off. I am afraid of being too harsh with discipline because they seem very sensitive to being disciplined and easily feel criticized or misunderstood. But if I don't, I may be letting them off the hook for disrespectful behaviour, even though I keep trying to tell them I will not tolerate disrespect. How do I share their pain of the abuse, show them that I care and am not at fault, and at the same time call them on their actions? Being teenagers, time-outs won't be any good. If I withhold food or doing their laundry, they don't seem to care - they just eat out and let their dirty laundry pile up. And yet at other times, they seem to be such considerate and thoughtful people. I hope that it is not a case of Jekyll and Hyde all over again.

ANSWER: Hi Chantel,
It seems as though you are dealing with the fallout of that abusive relationship.  Thank you for writing and I certainly understand how frustrating it can be when you are working with disrespectful teenagers.

In your family, you are dealing with boundary issues as well as dysfunctional modeling.  We teach other people how to treat us and it seems as though your children have learned very well where your boundaries are in regard to how you will allow others to treat you.  They learned that over time by watching the way your ex-husband treated you.  You now need to start retraining them.

What you may want to consider is teaching your children about honor and living their lives in an honorable way.  Talk to them about their future, about how they see themselves and what kind of people they want to be as adults.  Start working with them about those things and teach them that if they are going to become what they want to be, their words and actions need to be consistent with that goal.  Honor and respect are concepts our young people are losing contact with and it is up to parents to being teaching it again.  Talk to them about how you feel when you are treated dishonorably, relate it back to how they feel when they are treated badly, called names or disrespected...depending on how old they are, older teenagers go through a stage where parents become people, rather than parents.  You don't want them to feel responsible for your emotions, but just begin letting them know that you are a person as well as their mother.

In regard to the laundry, if you let it go long enough, they will do it.  What else do they hold near and dear?  Do they have cell phones, video games....assign them work out in the yard...give them additional responsibilities to work off their behaviors.  You might want to create a chart that gives point values to different behaviors.  When they do things that aren't OK, assign points and then they have to work off those points. Make a list of those jobs that they can work off the points and then they can choose what they want to do.  Make sure you list what you expect from them...for example if its yard work they have to clean up their mess, put the tools away etc.  You might make one of the jobs to say please and thank you for a week...assign higher point values for behaviors that you want to reinforce so they can work stuff off faster...then they might move into the positive point category and they can win something if they reach 100 points or whatever.  Positive reinforcement works so much better than negative or punishment.

For you personally, you need to let them know what the boundaries are with regard to how you expect to be treated and what will happen if those boundaries are crossed.  The key to this is consistency.  Conditioning requires consistent reinforcement to extinguish an unwanted behavior and that is what you are doing.  Simply put, its like training a dog...not saying your children are dogs, OK.  :)

I hope this gives you some places to start.  If I can be of any further assistance, please feel free to contact me.

Blessings,  Kriss Mitchell
Website:  www.livingwellcc.com
Blog:  www.livingwellcc.blogspot.com

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Kriss, your answer sounds rational and that was always my approach, but I found it really hardgoing with my oldest even before I left the relationship. For example, when the laundry finally needed to be done, it would be done in a way to still punish me, like with powder put everywhere, or the line completely used up, or clothes taken in at different times. Or if someone wouldn't be driven somewhere unless a room was tidy, it would be quickly be tidied by things being thrown and walls being damaged, or if someone had to cook their own dinner, the cooktop would be damaged. Even when the vacuuming was to be done, the walls would be damaged by the vacuum cleaner hitting it. One time, I put stricter boundaries when earlier boundaries were not respected, and it ended up with my handbag being secretly thrown away. When I tried to bring this up, I didn't get any response, not even anger, just that he didn't like simply being told what to do and punished with fining, but when I tried to discuss it further, he shut down. Later, a counselor told me that this was a typical reaction of a child living in domestic violence, and that to back off was best because whatever I did would get a reaction because there was underlying feelings of injustice.

I am wondering if housework isn't the most important thing right now and just to let them heal from the damage done and take the time to repair our relationship and show them that I can honour and trust them. My husband was so very harsh with discipline and housework (making them work for hours on end) that maybe they just react whenever they have to do something. They don't seem disrespectful at other times, and seem really helpful in other settings, eg school or church.

Answer
With this additional information, I believe you are correct.  The only thing I would add would be to engage the services of a family counselor.  Abuse is difficult to heal from and you need some additional support in this area with them.  It will help support you as well.

Blessings, Kriss