How can I trust my teenager when they're always lying to me?
Have you been in that spot? By the end of this video, you're going to have some hope along
with an understanding of a model that is going to help turn things around for you and your teenager.
Here's the quick introduction, they want trust, you want trustworthiness. Do you hear me? Now, this gets
back to the basic model that I think every parent needs to understand about control and maturity.
Let's go there. Let's talk about how control and maturity are related. So, in this graph you'll see
that we've got maturity down there on the bottom. Meaning, how grown up you are? There's some other
elements of maturity that we'll get to in just a minute. Over on the vertical axis you see control
and control means control over your own life. Control goes from zero control down there at
the bottom to a hundred percent control up here on the top. Now, I told you there's different ways
to measure maturity but let's start with age. As we put birth over there on the left hand
side of the scale and adulthood over here. Now, how much control do you have over your own life
at birth? Hardly any, right? It's pretty close to zero.
How much control do you have as an adult? Now, before you get into all of the disclaimers
what do you think teenagers tell me when I ask them, how much control do the adults have? Oh, a
hundred percent they put it way up here. If we graph a line between birth and adulthood
we can see that control starts out really low and that it increases as you gain maturity until
it's up here near 100 percent. The part of the control under the line down here
is the part you get for yourself. The part over the line is the control others take in your life.
We can also refer to that as external control or internal control. Meaning, how much do I need
people or things in my life to control me versus how much can I control myself? Now, age is only one
of the ways that we can talk about maturity but we all know adults who are pretty immature and we all
know young children who can be quite mature for their age. So, what do we mean when we say someone's
being immature or mature? Let's break that graph down into these three chunks and I've very simply
labeled them for you stage one, stage two and stage three. Let's talk about stage one first.
Stage one is the least mature of these three stages and it's characterized by things like
selfishness. Okay, being very self-centered and and egocentric. At stage one there's usually a lot
of noise, fighting, yelling, screaming, manipulating, being very demanding or unwilling to cooperate. Is
this sounding familiar and lying by the way which brought us to this video in the first-place. Stage
one, do you see how selfish and demanding that can possibly be? Now, this is typical of very immature
two-year-olds. Have you ever known a two-year-old to throw a tantrum? Yeah, they really rock at it
but what about a 17-year-old? What about a 13-year-old? If they are throwing tantrums
or being demanding or manipulative they are on stage one as well. So it's about stage not age,
keep that in mind for just a moment. I know that you're probably trying to take some notes and
remember what we talked about here. Look, don't worry about that I've put this all together for
you in a nice clean PDF that's color-coded and everything. Just go to drpauljenkins.com/stages
and you'll get a copy of this model in full color. Let's take a look at what stage two looks like, at
stage two we stop fighting and start cooperating. If I were to write a word on that dividing line
between stage one and stage two it would be cooperation. This is basically how you can
tell if you're a teenager or your younger child is on stage one or two. If they're on stage one
they're not cooperating with you. If they're on stage two they will cooperate even if they're
not happy about it, okay. So this is characterized by wanting to keep the peace by negotiating with
you and being willing to work out some kind of a win-win proposition. You get a very different
feel at stage two. Now, look what's happening to the control line they get to have more control
over their own life. They get to have more say when they move to stage two. So you can see the internal
control is increasing and the external control is decreasing. Earlier when I said you know that part
under the line is internal control the part over the line is external control. Guess which part you
get to take as a parent? That's right, you're the ones who get to step up and take more control
if your kids are being less mature. Now, this is important because there's a lineup for the
control over your child's life. First in line for the control is them. They get first crack
at it to the extent that they're mature enough to take it. If they're not that mature and they can't
take the control you're next in line because guess who's third? The state. Yeah, the police, the division
of child and family services, youth corrections. Someone has to be in control of your teenager. Now
my strong preference is that we put your teenager in control of their own life but if they're not
mature enough to do that I want you next. Because as much as I love the state, the state doesn't love
your child, right? So, we want that control to stay as close to home as possible. That's why it's so
important to understand this dynamic. Stage three is the most mature of these three stages and it's
characterized by being committed and dedicated to moral principles and reasoning. Ethics and values
are important now morals. At stage three we do the right things for the right reasons. Stage three
is about empathy and service and compassion. See, this is a much higher level of moral development
and when we reach that level of development or maturity we get to have more control over
our own life. That is true for your kids too. The question that we started out with, how can I trust
my teenager when they're always lying to me? Do you see why now? When your kids get to stage three
over here you will trust them because they're showing you the kind of maturity that earns
your trust. If they're lying to you that's down on stage one and you can't trust them to take
appropriate control over their life because they're demonstrating that they're not mature
enough to do that. This is the color version of the model that I promise to send you drpauljenkins.com/
stages and I'll put a PDF copy of this right in your hand so that you can print it out put
it in your home somewhere. It's not your job to trust your teenager, it's your job to love them
no matter what and even if. Even if they're untrustworthy. Even if they're on stage one.
When they achieve a level of maturity and moral development that we've described here with stage
three you will trust them. When they're on stage three, think about it, they want trust you want
trustworthiness. So the more they're willing to step up and take moral responsibility for their
life the more they will get to have trust. Control over your own life is also known as freedom
but freedom is not free, it comes at the cost of moral development and solid principle-based
decision-making. That's why it's important for parents and kids to understand this model so
that we can work better together to move toward higher levels of moral development and maturity.