Features: The Secret Life of Your Teen

Of equal concern are parents who seem to have ceded power to their children. You see this manifested in two ways, starting with adults who have the “They’re gonna do it anyway” philosophy. They let kids drink beer in their basement, so at least they’ll be able to make sure they’re not driving. They’re free with contraceptives, so at least no one will end up pregnant. The intention is fine — “What we really want is for kids’ decisions not to be life-altering,” says Steve Piltch, head of the Shipley School in Bryn Mawr — but the effect may not be. What signals are kids getting of what is and isn’t okay to do? One of the hallmarks of this generation of parents — and educators — is that it tends to describe behavior as healthy or not healthy, appropriate or inappropriate, risky or not risky. Rarely is any action labeled simply, well, wrong.

“As a parent, the line you draw is often arbitrary and ridiculous, but you have to draw the line,” says Bucks County psychologist Michael J. Bradley, author of the acclaimed parenting book Yes, Your Teen Is Crazy! “It’s like the speed limit. We know people are going to exceed it by 10 or 15 miles an hour, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have one.”

Which brings us to John, another lawyer living on the Main Line, who has two sons. The oldest, a 17-year-old senior, is a bright kid (1300 on his SATs) who has driven his parents mad. He drinks, smokes pot, stole prescription pills, does whippits, and has had several drinking-related run-ins with the police. “He’s very blatant about it,” John says of his son’s behavior. “He leaves the beer bottles all over his room.”

To deal with the situation, John and his wife, who has a background in social work, have tried a variety of tactics, including several psychologists and drugs for the son’s diagnosed ADD. None of it seems to have made any difference. “When he goes to a counselor,” John says, “he becomes a Boy Scout and insists this is the norm — everybody in high school is doing this.” John also notes that while he and his wife have struggled with the issue of letting their son suffer the legal consequences of being arrested, in the end they’ve gone out of their way to get him off.

Now, I am in no position to judge John’s abilities as a parent; for all I know, he and his wife have prevented something even worse from happening with their son. But as we talked, I couldn’t help thinking about the wrath I would have felt from my own parents had I left beer bottles in my bedroom as a 17-year-old. One parent of a teen told me that she and her husband have come up with a standing rule: If it’s illegal, you can’t do it. How novel! It strikes me that many parents of this generation, a generation so uncomfortable with authority, have struck a deal with their children: You act a little more like adults, we’ll act a little more like kids, and we can all meet happily in the middle somewhere, free from the traditional generational tension. Only that doesn’t always work so well.

“To see your kid in a jail cell, screaming and cursing like he’s a common drunk … ” John says when I ask what it was like the night his son was arrested. He gets quiet, searching for the right words. “Well, it’s embarrassing, to say the least.” I got a feeling it was a lot more than that.

No wonder John and his wife are raising their 12-year-old differently: “With him, we’re trying to squelch it before it starts. Whenever he starts with any talking back or attitude, we tell him, ‘We’re not taking it from you.’ In a way, it’s unfair. We’re coming down hard on a kid who’s a good kid.”

It will be worth it, though, if all that’s piling up in his bedroom is laundry and Dr. Pepper cans.