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" I am the meanest mother in the neighborhood. I&amp;#039;m too strict. I ask too many questions. No one else&amp;#039;s parents are as difficult as I am. Don&amp;#039;t I know that all the cool kids are out until 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning and can go wherever they want? This is the point of view of my 16-year-old daughter. Although she is frequently annoyed when I try to gather what I consider basic information \u2014 about where she&amp;#039;s going, who&amp;#039;s driving, and what the plan is for getting home \u2014 I know she is also relieved that someone is watching out for her.  Discipline \u2014 or, to use today&amp;#039;s more popular phrase, setting limits \u2014 takes on a whole new meaning when your child hits adolescence. &amp;quot;When kids are very young and do something unsafe, parents have no trouble saying no,&amp;quot; says Daniel Kindlon, Ph.D., assistant professor of child psychology at the Harvard School of Public Health, who has two daughters, 15 and 12. &amp;quot;You don&amp;#039;t care that your two-year-old cries if you don&amp;#039;t let him put the fork in the toaster. But saying yes to your teen can almost become a reflex, because you so desperately want to avoid conflict.&amp;quot; New research confirms what parents have known all along: Adolescents simply lack the ability to make smart decisions consistently. For example, peer relationships \u2014 which are so important to teenagers \u2014 can easily overwhelm the need to be safe. Scientists have discovered that this has to do with the way the human brain grows. During the teen years, the brain develops rapidly, but some areas mature much earlier than others. &amp;quot;Teens are likely to be impulsive and push back intensely,&amp;quot; says David Walsh, Ph.D., a psychologist and the author of a book on teen behavior. But you have to hold the line. Your teen is secretly counting on you to do so. And too much is at stake if you don&amp;#039;t. With their immature brains, teens routinely underestimate the risks they take, whether they&amp;#039;re experimenting with drinking or getting &amp;quot;carried away&amp;quot; by sexual excitement. Below, what parents need to do. Keep your head out of the sand.  You have to assume your teen isn&amp;#039;t going to tell you everything and sometimes may outright lie. After all, what kid in his right mind is going to come home after the prom and say, &amp;quot;Oh yeah, Dad, I smoked a joint with my girlfriend, and then we fooled around in the back of the car&amp;quot;? Teens are thrill seekers who don&amp;#039;t realize the risks they&amp;#039;re taking, but they do know enough to try not to get caught. And that puts the onus on you to try to figure out what&amp;#039;s really going on.  One mother gives her 16-year-old daughter a big hug and kiss whenever she comes home from a party. &amp;quot;Of course I love her,&amp;quot; says the mom, &amp;quot;but I&amp;#039;m really checking to see whether she&amp;#039;s been smoking or drinking.&amp;quot;  Make clear rules in advance. Setting limits on day-to-day behavior helps keep the peace and can provide a foundation if bigger problems hit. Kate Stewart, who lives in rural Henryville, Indiana, was fighting with her 14-year-old son, Zach, because he constantly wanted his parents to drive him 20 miles into town so he could hang out with his friends. &amp;quot;At Zach&amp;#039;s age, the kids concoct activities at the drop of a hat,&amp;quot; she says. &amp;quot;But he never told us about them until the last minute, and then he would have a complete fit if we said no.&amp;quot; Kate and her husband devised a rule: If Zach wanted to go into town on a weekend, his parents required 24 hours&amp;#039; notice. &amp;quot;We explained that it was not reasonable for me or his dad to drop everything when we had our own responsibilities,&amp;quot; says Kate. Now, instead of fighting, Kate reminds Zach about the rule. Meanwhile, Zach is learning how to plan ahead.  You also need to be clear about the big stuff \u2014 where you stand on smoking, drinking, curfews, etc. \u2014 and what the consequences will be if your child violates the rules. (Don&amp;#039;t forget that teens loathe hypocrisy, so you&amp;#039;d better walk the walk.) I often say to my daughter, &amp;quot;I get only one of you. I can&amp;#039;t get a replacement if you get broken.&amp;quot; She doesn&amp;#039;t like the restrictions that come with that, but she knows I&amp;#039;m not setting them because I&amp;#039;m mad at her.  Don&amp;#039;t back down. Any parent of a teenager knows what a struggle it can be to resist an adolescent&amp;#039;s anger, defiance, or whining, especially at the end of a long day. &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s why it&amp;#039;s important to have your limits-and-consequences conversation ahead of time and not in the heat of the moment,&amp;quot; says Walsh. &amp;quot;Then, rather than getting angry when your kids misbehave, you can remind them of the rules.&amp;quot;  He relates an incident when his son, then 17, challenged him about his curfew. Instead of getting angry, Walsh reminded him that if he didn&amp;#039;t keep the curfew, he&amp;#039;d lose access to the family car. His son stormed off, furious \u2014 but later that night, he pulled into the driveway on time. Teens need this kind of structure, says child and adolescent development expert Mel Levine, M.D., author of Ready or Not, Here Life Comes. After all, he adds, the adult world is full of nonnegotiable expectations. Grown-ups, for example, must fulfill the demands of their jobs and pay their bills on time.  &amp;quot;Teens gain the tools they need to meet these demands by living up to their parents&amp;#039; expectations at home, where people who love them can help them when they fail,&amp;quot; says Dr. Levine.  Stay engaged. Ultimately, says Walsh, no amount of discipline will work if you haven&amp;#039;t built up a bank account of goodwill with your kid. During your child&amp;#039;s adolescence, you&amp;#039;ll start to feel like you&amp;#039;re drawing down that account. You can build it back by hanging out with your teen and listening to what she thinks. And, when appropriate, you can admit you made a mistake. You also want to engrave on your kid&amp;#039;s innermost being that if something goes radically wrong, she can count on you. If your teen gets pregnant, gets arrested, or has a car accident (or something worse), you want to be the first one to know. So while you&amp;#039;re enforcing limits, make sure you&amp;#039;re not so rigid that your teen doesn&amp;#039;t trust you to be on her side in case of real trouble. The good news, says Kindlon, is that a lot of teens actually respect their parents&amp;#039; (and society&amp;#039;s) rules. &amp;quot;Kids have more leeway to say no today. To avoid drinking, they can volunteer to be the designated driver, and that&amp;#039;s accepted. Or they can say &amp;#039;My parents would kill me,&amp;#039; and that&amp;#039;s OK too.&amp;quot; Finally, realize that adolescence is a nail-biter for parents all the way. I&amp;#039;ve never experienced so many ups and downs as I have since I became a parent of teens. But most kids turn out just fine. After all, we did. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/tips/a16985/teen-discipline-rules/>