Parents, you’re in charge. Make sure your kids know it

If you have to tell your children you’re in charge, then you’re not, writes Dr Judith Locke. And if they’re already teenagers, you’ve left it too late to convince them. Start young and focus on these two factors.

Readers would be surprised by how many parents tell me that they can’t get their teen to do what they ask.

I’m not talking about requests such as putting a bit more effort into their homework or keeping their room a little tidier.

I’m talking about parents who cannot get their child to attend school each day or have no way of getting them off their computer.

These parents often live in fear of their children, who seem to be charge of the entire household.

How on earth does it get to this, where parents have no control whatsoever?

Of course, all families are different, but on this issue, there is one thing they seem to have in common and that is a reluctance of the parents to be any sort of authority figure with their child, from the very early days of child rearing

MORE FROM DR JUDITH LOCKE: Kids need to fail. And parents need to let them

Good parenting is made up of the high use of two factors.

The first is responsiveness — the loving bits of parenting such as quality time, hugs, and encouragement.

If you have to tell your kids you’re the one in charge then it’s likely they’re the one’s pulling the strings. Picture: Thinkstock.

The second is demandingness — parents using rules, clear instructions and appropriate consequences to guide children into age-appropriate behaviour.

Unfortunately, recent parenting advice has tended to focus on the warm fuzzy responsive techniques rather than encouraging your child to behave age-appropriately. It’s understandable — quality time eating cupcakes or playing on the beach together is much more Instagram-able than using Time Out or turning the TV off for five minutes because siblings were arguing over the channels.

MORE FROM DR JUDITH LOCKE: How to tell if you have a spoiled brat

Trouble is, with a focus on constant good feelings and always happy relationships, then authority gets a bad rap. In this, parents have started to worry much more on the short-term impact of the child being upset or not liking the parent, rather than the long-term skills it is developing in the child.

This makes parents much less likely to take the opportunity to show they are in charge.

Because of the bad PR of being firm, many parents use responsiveness techniques in lieu of proper demandingness.

They might use incentives, such as offering them a Barbie if they go to school, or a lovely dessert if they eat their vegetables.

MORE FROM DR JUDITH LOCKE: How to get your kids doing their homework at all ages

Or they might manipulate responsiveness, by telling their child that it would please the parent if their child did what was asked.

It’s too late in the piece to only start convincing your child you are in charge when they are in their teens.

Unfortunately, in the long term, these faux demandingness strategies don’t work.

At some point you can’t be still offering incentives to behave appropriately, such as buying them an iPad to make up for not allowing them to attend the midweek party.

And eventually your child will get to an age where the inconvenience of cleaning up their room will trump their desire to make you happy. When these strategies stop working, you will have no way to manage your child’s behaviour.

Unless you have been blessed with the most compliant child ever, at some point you need to be firm.

MORE FROM DR JUDITH LOCKE: Seven rules for how to praise your child

As the parent you have the adult brain, the ability to see into the future and understand that too much ice-cream will make them sick, avoiding school will make them less educated, and limitless time on the computer means their gross motor skills and ability to focus will be impacted.

Keep on doing the lovely stuff of parenting — spending time with them, hugging them, encouraging them, but make sure you do the tough stuff too. Truly loving statements are just as likely to start with the word “No” as the word “Yes”.

TAKEAWAY FOR PARENTS

● It is too late in the piece to only start convincing your child you are in charge when they are in their teens. You need to do it earlier.

● Establish clear rules from an early age, such as bottoms always on chairs, or speaking respectfully.

● Give clear, calm instructions and provide a short consequence should they not do what you ask. So, if your rule is to stay close when you are grocery shopping and they move too far away, have them hold on to the trolley for an aisle or two.

● Generally, if you have to say you are in charge, then you are not. It usually means that your daily interactions with your child are giving them some sort of doubt about your status in the family. If so, be a little firmer.

Dr Locke did her PhD at Queensland University of Technology on the changes in parenting and is now a visiting Fellow at QUT doing ongoing research on modern parenting, child and parent wellbeing and school environments.

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