The "No Questions Asked Rule"

[mahogany]

So I know that the kids are still young, but I’d be lying if I said that we haven’t considered what we’re going to do when they hit teenagehood. On the one hand, we’re both want a better relationship than we had with our parents. On the other hand, we want to make sure that the kids don’t confuse our understanding where they’re coming from, with condoning some of the things they might do.

Which brings me to the “No Questions Asked Policy”. Some of my friends in highschool had this happening with their parents. And in speaking with friends of mine that have teenaged children now, this philsophy is very much alive and well. If they were out and they had had too much to drink, or something had gone awry, they were to call their parents, and the parents would come get them - no questions asked. With some of my firends this acually worked pretty well. They were sensible kids who occassionally took things too far, and the parents stuck to their word (although it must have been hell), and didn’t ask questions, and didn’t bring up the incident.

But there were a few weren’t so level headed and they got into some pretty heavy drugs in a big way. At what point does the getting my kids home safely, and keeping open lines of communication turn into condoning dangerous behaviour, or enabling them? At what point should a parent break that trust?

Comments

[mahogany.livejournal.com]

I take it that you work with you in some capacity?

I've drilled it into my kids heads that no matter how upset I might be with their behaviour, there is nothing that they could do that would make me stop loving them.

[catdraco.livejournal.com]

That is the best thing you can do for them. I was at a ministry conference last weekend, and in a session on "marriage, family, and ministry" a woman was talking about her son, who is 16, in a goth band (though she never quite managed to say the word "goth"), and she's terrified that although he's on the straight and narrow now that he'll get into drugs etc (because all his bandmates are, or kids who wear black do drugs, or whatever it was that was concerning her). I told her that, based on my experiences, what parents do isn't so much about teaching their kids not to make mistakes - it's setting the foundation so that no matter what, their kids have an anchor to return to. I really believe that, mostly because that's how it worked for me. I had a pregnancy scare once when I was a teenager, and while the doctor and I were waiting for the result, he asked me if I'd get any support from home if I actually was pregnant. Despite knowing that my parents would have absolutely hit the roof, I said honestly, "Of course!" He raised an eyebrow at me, and I said, "Well, they'll calm down, and then it will be fine."

I don't work at all, in the wage-earning sense. However I do volunteer regularly with an organisation called Rosies. Generally I do street outreach, but every year I do a week (this year, two weeks!) full-time over Schoolies Week, which is in late November.

So I work with youth as I come across them on street outreach (though of course there are teenage/early twenties volunteers on the team I lead, but there are as many older people as youth there). I used to also do Youth Detention Centre (juvie) visitation (also with Rosies), and I'd like to pick that up again if I can. The majority of the youth work I do though is during Schoolies Week, and most of it is spent holding emesis bags, rubbing backs, and holding hair out of the way. Oh, and reassuring these kids that they're not actually going to die, even though they'll wish they had in the morning. ;)

During Schoolies Week, I see teens at their best and at their worst, often at the same time - the kid who's taken drugs or whatever and really isn't coping, and their sober mate who'll spend all night sitting with them instead of having fun, even though we're there. The very worst cases, though, are always the ones where the teenager/s in question refuse to call home for help, because they know they won't get any. And that's the saddest stuff of all - most parents will come to collect their teenager if we call them, and generally they're just glad that their kid is okay. It's scary how often kids are right, though - meaning their parents have no sympathy whatsoever, and say something like "well, they made their bed, they can lie in it". When we're talking about seventeen year olds, it's really serious stuff.