The Terrible Teens

Book explores Jewish approach to parenting a teen.

May 29, 2009

Rabbi Rachel Esserman
The Reporter (Binghamton, N.Y.)

Question: What’s the best advice you can give a teen?

One theme seems common to most works, fiction and nonfiction, dealing with teenagers: Parents wonder where their cute, loving, charming young children have gone and who are the argumentative, sullen strangers who replaced them.

The clash between generations can be difficult and the process is even more fraught with problems when the family is Jewish.

Joanne Doades discovered this the hard way—with her own children. However, instead of despairing, she developed parenting workshops, using them as part of her master’s thesis at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion.

The result of her work is “Parenting Jewish Teens: A Guide for the Perplexed” (Jewish Lights Publishing).

Ms. Doades, the director of curriculum development for the Union for Reform Judaism’s Department of Lifelong Jewish Learning, recognizes that the world has changed and that if parents are going to help their teens mature, they need to acknowledge this.

According to Ms. Doades, parents have to understand the three conditions that make it harder to parent a teen today:

The consequences of bad behavior have changed, with fewer children being held accountable for unacceptable behavior.
Cultural influences - television, movies, music and music videos—encourage teens to behave in inappropriate ways. “The relationship between the virulent sexual and violent images so pervasive in the media and the behavior of our adolescents” is especially a problem, she writes.
The influence of community is waning, with individuals and families becoming increasing isolated and alienated from communal organizations. Lack of community ties can cause emotional problems, including higher rates of depression and thoughts of suicide.

Ms. Doades finds that few parents have a realistic take on whether or not their children are involved in sexual activity and drug use (including alcohol).

These problems are not limited only to teens in the liberal Jewish community, but are also a problem in Orthodox yeshivot and day schools.

She writes that research has found that “Jewish commitments appeared to have little influence” on either of these behaviors once children hit their teens.

In addition to dealing with problem behaviors, Ms. Doades offers ways to help prevent sibling rivalry. While she acknowledges that are “no foolproof formulas” for anything she discusses, she does believe that parental responsibilities include:

Avoiding comparisons between siblings.
Focusing on the uniqueness of each child.
Articulating appreciation for good behavior. Too often teens only hear about what they are doing wrong and not what they are doing right.
Devoting adequate time to each child.
Having realistic expectations. Sibling rivalry has existed since the beginning of time and parents can’t prevent it completely.
Don’t take sides. Instead, listen to each child and acknowledge their feelings.

Perhaps the most important tips Ms. Doades offers are those on how to help teens through the separation/maturation process that must occur if they are going to grow up to be responsible adults.

She said that “while it’s okay to feel hurt and rejected when your teenager hurts and rejects you,” it’s not okay to act on those feelings. Modeling appropriate behavior is more important.

Parents also need to start letting teens, especially older ones, make their own decisions, even if parents disagree with them. (The one exception is with health and safety issues, when parents should intervene.)

This is true even if the teen fails. Sometimes people learn more from their failures than they do from their successes. This also allows teens to take responsibility for their decisions and to learn how to live with the consequences of their actions.

Parents also need to start accepting a teenager for who she/he “is becoming, instead of holding on to old dreams, hopes, and expectations.”

Ms. Doades recognizes that her book is only the first step toward successful parenting of teens, but it is an excellent one. This easy-to-read, but thorough, work should be in every Jewish parents’ library.