Are you a Balanced Parent?

Your teen makes a mistake and it unintentionally hurts another child. Your response is to …

Remind them how much you love them. Reassure them that they’ll learn from this event and do better next time.

Get angry. The behavior is unacceptable and can’t be tolerated.

Ignore the incident. Kids will be kids.

Your teen is 17 and breaks curfew. You ...

Get upset as soon as they walk through the door. It doesn’t matter how late it is. They need to learn immediately this behavior is never acceptable.

Tell them you are glad they’re home safe. But you make sure they know you’re unhappy. You tell them you’ll talk about next steps in the morning, when you’re not so upset.

Reassure them that you were a teen once and broke your share of rules. You ask them to detail how great the night was.

Your teen comes home with a bad grade. You react by ...

Not getting involved. You trust they’ll study more if they need to.

Expressing disappointment or anger. You ground them until their grades go up.

Encouraging them to figure out what may have affected the grade. You also listen to any concerns they have and help determine what they can do differently next time.