Adolescent Hormones…Yes, Love is in the Air!
Tips on Overcoming Defiant Behavior

Spring is here along with many first loves and momentary heartthrobs. If your adolescent is acting strange, consumed with talking on the phone with a new love, chances are you noticed the change. No, your teen has not lost it, at least not permanently. Regardless if your teen is enraptured in blind love that has you worried sick, or is in the depths of depression from a love gone bad getting through the next few months will be a challenge. Parents can find this phase worrisome if not outright alarming. Mood swings may vacillate between happy elation to pouting, shouting or unwarranted arguments that penetrate any sense of harmony in the home.

Focus is on Attraction Not School
School settings experience the same phenomena. Ask any teacher in middle or high school about the energy levels that rise during this time of year and all will agree. Heightened attention is spent scanning hallways and lunchrooms in search of a glance, a touch or a brief encounter with any student's latest romantic interest. This is the time of year when school work suffers the most, as all attention and focus remains that new love, good, bad, or non-returned love, however it may evolve.

Relax, It's Normal
What many parents forget is that experimenting with intimate or romantic relationships is a normal developmental process. What brings worries parents the most though, is when either a son or daughter gets so consumed with this new love interest that nothing else matters. This could be observed as all consuming obsessive behavior to be with the desired sweetheart, or if bad feelings developed between sweethearts, angry or hurt feelings erupt from your child that override any and all rational thought.

Be Wary of Extreme Reactions
If extreme reactions occur after being 'dumped' or 'rejected,' such as depression or withdrawal from all other activities, be sure to monitor behaviors for sign of deeper depression. In ugly or heated breakups, reactions may be as extreme as threatening suicide or harm to the person who rejected offered love. In either case, such extreme reactions warrant concern.

Set Dating Boundaries
Of course, the other side of the picture is when love is well received and a teenage romance causes your otherwise obedient and respectful adolescent with thoughts of flight from all house rules or intimate involvement of an adult nature. To offset such occurrences, dating boundaries must be set and consistently adhered to by parents who 'attempt' to curb such intense relationships. This is no easy task for sure, particularly given the strength of adolescent hormonal compulsions. But parents must remain firm. This would include setting and enforcing curfews, number of nights they might contact one another and certainly prohibiting overnight togetherness.

While some parents may believe it is fine to allow total freedoms for dating, others may set excessively rigid rules that are impossible to enforce. Yes, it is difficult to find the happy medium for boundary setting with your overly engaged teen, but age appropriate privileges are important guidelines to set if youth are going to find a common sense of balance between teen dating and mature decision-making. (Oops, talk about paradoxes!)

Family Values Will Outlast Early Attractions
It helps if family values and beliefs are set early. In fact, many social scientists believe that individuals acquire personal values as early as age 12. If solid values were adapted by your teen from early childhood, chances are no matter how outlandish a new love interest may appear, if a large discrepancy surfaces between your teen's values and his or her new love's values, rest assured that it may not be long before the relationship ends. Most parents worry to death if an undesirable dating partner were to capture your teen's heart. But for the most part, teens do not depart too far from original values upheld within the home. So, setting family values and personal decision making strategies starts during early childhood. Don't be afraid to set such values with consistency, sincerity and fairness to all involved.

Parents Need to be in Charge
All the while, parents need to find a balance between acting like a friend and behaving like a parent. When push comes to shove, the parent role must take precedence. Parental influences today can range from being too casual or non-existent, thus remiss of applying any discipline or authoritative rule settings. If you are too rigid, your child may be compelled to defy your wishes and thus continue to see this new love regardless of your dictates. If you are too relaxed and attempting to befriend your teen and all of your teen's friends, then you may set him or her up for opportunities to get into an intimate relationship much too prematurely. There is nothing cute about teenagers sleeping together as it usually leads to an emotionally complicated relationship that most teens are not emotionally equipped to deal with.

Tips on Overcoming Defiant Behavior
Make no mistake about it; hormones play a big role in how resistant our teen may be to our orders to curtail seeing a new love. A strong attraction often causes him or her to override your mandates regardless of how outlandish this new romantic obsession is, then you may need to consult with a profession on how to proceed; particularly if your teen defies your orders to ceases and desist. If this is happening in your home, try one of the following:

1. Try sitting down and talking over the good points and the bad points of this new love.
2. Avoid, if possible, ordering overly rigid or unrealistic mandates that cause a line to be drawn between your dictates and your teen's expectations. That sort of negotiating simply results in a power struggle. It is better to try to reason with facts than to draw mandates out of the air so that your teen may easily reject such unwarranted orders.
3. If you are really concerned that the new love is a totally bad influence over your teen, then attempt to find out further facts about the youth rather than rant and rave without sufficient evidence for your conclusions.
4. Follow your instinct. If something about this new love does not feel right or sincere toward your youth, do not be afraid to go to extremes to investigate. After all, it is your child's welfare that is at stake.
5. And as always, make every attempt to keep the lines of communication between you and your teen. Remember, our folks survived our adolescence and so will you with your teen. Healthy development requires constant input by a caring adult.

Good luck! May your teen make fewer mistakes than we did! In the meantime, prayer helps!

Dr. Felicia the ParentCoach
F. Felicia Ferrara, Ph.D.
Psychology Services
The Consultation and Evaluation Center
813-259-0303