I don’t have kids and I don’t work with kids, so on the surface I may not seem to be the best person to write about out-of-control kids. But I do have a unique perspective, because I was a problem child myself. I began suffering from depression when I was 11, and I was eventually diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder aged 18.
David Jester
I spent most of that time hiding from society, reading, writing and generally being anti-social (it’s basically what I do know, only now I get paid for it) but between the ages of 15 and 18 I went a little nuts. Everything came to a head, I started using drugs, drinking, shoplifting, and generally making my parents regret telling me I needed to “get out more”.
I spent time in police cells and psychiatric hospitals, I came close to losing my life on several occasions and at one point I was one good lawyer away from spending several years in prison. I eventually turned my life around, becoming a published author and freelance writer, and now, hopefully, I can use that experience to help others going through the same thing.
10. Don’t Look for Someone to Blame
No parent wants to think that their child is at fault for anything. My parents thought that my best friend was the bad influence, his parents thought I was the bad influence. The truth is, I was at fault for my mistakes and he was at fault for his. Stories of kids getting in with the wrong crowds are true, but not for everyone.
It always amazed me how blind some parents could be to their child's problems. I met someone who had been using drugs since he was 11, when I still wore Spiderman pajamas and watched the Power Rangers. He had been kicked out of five different schools before he was 15 and he would eventually die of alcohol poisoning aged 17. Yet throughout all of that, his mother insisted he was a saint and that everyone else was to blame for his issues.
Hs mother was oblivious, weak and ignorant. She blamed his bad grades on poor teaching. She blamed his criminal record on corrupt policing. In her eyes, he was Gandhi, to the rest of the world he was just a prick. He had serious issues that were never addressed because she refused to admit that anything was wrong.
He never learned to take responsibility for his actions—he never had to. As a result, he was basically a feral human, and it’s no surprise he went the way he did.
You should always back and support your child, but don’t gloss over all of their wrongdoings and don’t absolve them of all blame.
9. Don’t Use the Police as a Weapon
It’s important not to panic, even though that’s easier said than done. Parents that threaten rebellious kids with phone-calls to the police are only going to alienate the child and create a divide where there needs to be more of a connection.
I always had a lot of respect for my mother. I put her through hell, but with the narcissism of youth and the chaos of mental illness, I didn’t really think about that. That connection and that respect was what made it easy for me to seek help and to end the chaos when I was ready. If the police had been involved, if I had seen my parents as the enemies and not the saviors, then I might never have drawn a line through my stage in my life.
By all means phone the police if their life is in danger because of others. But don’t use them as a weapon against your own child. Even though they appear distant, hateful and angry, they still have a lot of love and respect for you and it is those feelings that you need to nurture if you’re going to help them through this.
8. Be On Their Side
I knew several kids who stopped using drugs and eventually got their lives together. I also knew many who continued to abuse drugs and either ended up dead or in prison. One of the main things that separated the two was a stable home life. The ones who struggled to put their lives together were the ones whose parents frequently kicked them out of the house and rejected them. The ones who made it were the ones who had a loving family to go back to.
Eventually, every kid going through that period realizes that enough is enough. They all want to change. The problem is, not all of them have the opportunity to do so. I had a loving family so it was easy for me, but I watched many of my friends struggle. They were forced into being independent before they were old enough or wise enough to make it work.
It was difficult to see. One of my closest friends at the time had grown up in foster homes. His mother decided she wanted him back when she realized the government would pay her for it, then she kicked him out when she got a new boyfriend. He was rejected like a puppy she didn’t want pissing on her new carpet and that rejection meant he never had anywhere safe to turn to.
Always make sure that your child has a home. You need to be the person they can run to when they’re ready to quit, and your home needs to be the safe haven.
7. Support Them
There was one exception, one friend who had a supportive family but never managed to get his life together. That's because when he was just 15, his mother died unexpectedly. His father wasn’t patient enough to help him. He wasn’t able to support him or to provide the safe haven he needed, so he never turned it around.
Death will always make the situation worse, both for the surviving parent and the child. But you can’t blame them for it, you can't take your anger or your loss out on them. Parents who have remained strong and supportive often lose it when their spouse dies and they are left to guard the fort on their own. But doing this could mean your child is lost forever.
Sit them down, tell them that you need them, that you need to be there for one another, and that no matter what happens, you will always be there for them.
6. Reverse Psychology Never Works
Reverse psychology is a passive aggressive way of insulting your child and then passing it off as some perverted form of help.
“At this rate, you’ll be dead before you’re 21”
“If you were as smart as I thought you were, you wouldn’t be doing this to yourself”
It’s bitter, it’s nasty and it never works. It’s really just a way for them to unleash their bitterness. It creates a divide between parent and child, it creates a bitterness within the child. It also never works, so stop it. Most kids are in that position because they feel lost, helpless. That attitude just makes them feel worse about themselves.
5. Get The Right Help
When I stopped going to school I was assigned a social worker who visited me in my home, asked that she speak to me alone, and the proceeded to threaten me in an unnervingly calm voice. She scared me into silence and then, assuming I was on the ropes and was ripe for the kill, she told me, “I am well within my rights to drag you to school by the hair If I choose.”
I was 11 at the time. Looking back, the vigilante social worker clearly had more issues than I did, but this was my first contact with a team of professionals who had been assigned to help me. It’s why I instantly hated everyone that followed, everyone who announced that they were there to help.
They’re not always helpful. They don’t always do the right thing, because they don’t always have your child’s best interests at heart. In the case of the social worker/child abuser, she just wanted to get me to school and when I disobeyed her she resorted to threats. If my mother hadn't been eavesdropping she might have even followed through with those threats. As it happens, the social worker left our house with a sore scalp and the knowledge that my mother’s bark was just as bad as her bite.
By all means get help for your kid, but make sure it comes from the right place, make sure the end goal is for your kid to be happy and healthy, and no matter what happens, you should always be the main helper.
4. Listen, and Never Assume
I didn’t stop going to school because I was being bullied. I was never bullied in any way throughout my entire school life. But try telling that to my parents, my teachers or everyone else assigned to help me. They spent years focusing on helping me with an issue that never existed.
The attitude was “He’s not willing to admit he’s being bullied, so the bullying must have been severe”. It was laughably tragic and it made the situation much worse.
I was suffering from depression, but I was 11 and didn’t know what was wrong. I told them that, but they wanted answers, so they found them.
Kids lose faith in parents that don’t listen to them and healthcare professionals who make assumptions. It sets a real diagnosis back and it alienates the child.
They are probably gong through something that scares them, something they can’t explain, so don’t take offense when they tell you they don’t know what’s wrong. Don’t go digging and don’t go making things up. Just try to figure it out with them.
3. Keep Drugs Out of the House
Teenagers who spend their days finding and taking drugs become very skilled at stealing alcohol and other substances from under their parents’ noses. But if that problem exists, then those things shouldn’t be in the house to start with.
I knew someone who developed an addiction to sleeping tablets purely because his mother had them in abundance and he stole them at will. I knew someone who would steal his father’s prescription painkillers and then swap them for weed. In both cases the parents knew there was an issue, but they never realized that they were the cause.
Out of control teenagers will also take more risks. Everything becomes a drug, a way to get high and to beat the monotony of life. Educate yourself on household items that can be used to get high and make sure they are not accessible.
2. Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff
Teenagers need to experiment and to play the role of the rebel. If your kid is dying their hair, changing their style or getting a tattoo, don't be too harsh on them. It could be so much worse and you might just encourage them to become more rebellious if you start acting out every time they express themselves.
If they get a stupid tattoo then let them know how stupid it is but don’t overdo it. Kids get stupid tattoos because they want a reaction, if you don't give them that reaction then you’re leaving them to come to their own senses, to realize that they just branded themselves for life with something that will stop being funny long before the swelling goes down.
You can react when you find out they are using drugs, smoking or drinking; you can shout at them when you discover they have stolen or when they spend a night in the cells. But don’t go overboard with something as minor as a piercing, dyed hair or a tattoo.
1. Medication Should be a Last Resort
No child responds well to being told they need medication to control their moods or their behavior. This should always be a last resort, not only because it might have a negative impact on how they live the rest of their life, but because by insisting they need to be medicated you’re telling them that you’ve given up. You’re telling them that you don’t like the person they are and want to chemically alter their personality until it better suits you.
It’s not unusual for doctors to recommend medication for kids under the age of 10 these days. Most of the time it comes via the recommendation of a pill pushing psychiatrist or doctor, someone who may not have the best interests of your child at heart. Sometimes it’s the parents who immediately opt for medication, convincing themselves that it’s harmless, effective, and that it will make their life easier.
The latter may be true, but it’s never harmless, it’s not always effective and it should be seen as a last resort, not the first step. Medication is rarely the answer and where kids are concerned, I don’t think it ever is.
You need patience and support to get them through. It takes time, there is no quick fix. This thing can go one of two ways. They’ll either be like that forever, or they’ll turn their life around and will use those experiences to alter their life for the better. If you do things right, you can make sure it’s the latter.
