You Want to Do What?: Instant answers to your parenting dilemmas. Karen Sullivan

There is no one more persuasive than a teenager with an agenda, and certainly no one more capable of making a parent feel inadequate or behind the times. Conscientious parents regularly fall victim to the supreme negotiating skills of their offspring, and have to adjust their own beliefs, values and moral codes in order either to keep the peace or fall in line with current trends. After all, times change, don’t they? Perhaps the way we were brought up is outmoded, and children can and should be allowed different sorts of freedoms and liberties, different levels of independence and trust, and a different role within the family.

There can be no parent in the land who has not heard regular wails of:

I am the only one not allowed...’ (to stay out late, walk to school on my own, take the bus into town, have my own bank account – add your own to this).

The only one who doesn’t have...’ (new trainers, a TV in my bedroom, a mobile phone with a camera, my own room, parties, pierced ears, a tattoo...).

The only one who has to...’ (clean my room, work for my pocket money, visit my grandparents, have my homework checked, do my own laundry, be accompanied to the doctor...).

The lists are seemingly endless, and from the word go, parents are put in the awkward position of trying to work out if their demands, expectations and rules are fair and realistic, or if they are, in fact, creating social lepers by denying their children the norms of today’s society.

There is no central database of currently acceptable thinking and practice when it comes to parenting. Indeed, most parenting manuals stop well short of the years when parents actually need the most advice. These days many parents are isolated and have less contact with others parents, the result of increased independence, and the fact that many parents work during the day. Couple this with frustration engendered by the impossible task of trying to glean information or make conversation with an adolescent – and it becomes obvious why we’re often working in the dark when it comes to parenting.

It’s no good relying on age-old wisdom handed down from our parents, either. Most of us will remember the irritation of being told that rules were rules, that things were ‘always done that way’, because: ‘that’s how I was brought up, so that’s how you will be too’. Many of us have chosen to forge our own path on the parenting front, and to make decisions based on our individual children and their capabilities, needs and demands, rather than create rules for the sake of them. But this too can be a minefield – one ill-chosen step off that path and a child could be in serious

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