Helping your teen learn to become accountable for their behavior is important. One methods that can be used to accomplish this goal it to put together a Teen Family Contract. The purpose of any contract is to establish some formal understanding of a desired outcome. Establishing a Teen family Contract will bring about a purposeful understanding that may be referred to often when problem arise and clarification of rules, boundaries and desired outcomes need to be re-examined for the welfare of the teen and family members.
Purpose of a Teen Family Contract
A Teen Family Contract is a written set of expectations that adults have of their teens. The contract includes basic rules, consequences and privileges.
Teen Family Contract is for teens to be held accountable for their behavior while allowing parents to maintain a reasonable amount of control. A Home Rules Contract will teach teens that there are consequences to breaking rules, the knowledge of which hopefully will transfer in the teen’s mind to school rules as well as the legal system.
This contract will not resolve the issues of feelings and emotions involved within the relationships between parents and teens. It can only act as a basic agreement that may allow you to work toward a resolution for problem behaviors, minimizing the disruption and interference that can many times occur during the process of getting bad behavior under control and restructuring a family’s rules.
What to Include in a Teen family Contract
We recommend that ALL PARENT FIGURES with whom the teen has contact be involved in the creation and enforcement of the Home Rules Contract. This includes biological parents, step-parents, adoptive parents, custodial persons, noncustodial persons who are responsible for the teens for all or part of a day, and legal guardians. It is very important for divorced parents to put their differences aside and come together for the purposes of creating a unified front for the child, so that one parent does not end up sabotaging another’s efforts to bring the child’s bad behavior under control. Kids will manipulate and undermine parents who are at odds with each other, but will conform much more readily to a unified front. Even if the divorced parents do not agree on other issues, it is tremendously important for them to agree on how to manage an out-of-control teen. In situations in which two divorced parents really don’t get along, the Home Rules Contract can sometimes best be accomplished with the help of a third party, such as a qualified therapist. Again, parents must put aside their differences for the sake of their wayward teen!!
Other adults who may be present in the home but are not actively involved in limit setting and the process of raising the teen should be excluded; for example, an aunt or uncle who is staying with the family. Adults will tend to have different expectations of a teen depending upon their own outlook, and many times, adults who are not ultimately responsible for the teen may not enforce the rules and consequences which you are taking the time to carefully plan, in essence, undermining and making your contract ineffective.
ALL TEENAGERS in the family should be included in the Home Rules Contract. In order to be effective, all children need to see the Home Rules Contract as fair. Therefore, it may not work to single out the child with the bad behaviors and exclude siblings, as the offending child will see it as unfair and will most likely refuse to follow it. If the compliant siblings protest their involvement as they are already following the rules, remind them that this is a family effort and they are part of the family. They can be told that since they are already following the rules, this home contract should be a piece of cake for them and that you value their input. By including all siblings, you are firmly establishing the fact that you are a FAMILY, and that getting the family to work as a functioning unit requires the input and cooperation of each family member. This also establishes that children of all ages need to be held accountable for their behavior.
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