The week before last I met with 9 teenagers and young adults.  I offered them the opportunity of a lifetime.  A full-time job for 47 weeks.  The experience of building a new house from scratch with green technology and renewable energy applications.  The ability to earn $2400 each for college.  The promise of assistance to find employment and/or college admission at the end of the 47 weeks.  And a variety of support and incentives along the way.

After the meeting, it was obvious they were excited about being a part of a project that was bigger than any one person.  Each had expressed the fact it was difficult for them to find employment and no job possibility had the perks this one did.  They were ready to go, they said.  They were told the interview process would be intense, in part, because the opportunity was great.  I scheduled an individual meeting with each for last Tuesday, June 2nd.

By June 2nd, one was in jail, one decided to work a cash job for the day thinking he could reschedule the interview at the last minute and one was angry, defiant and acting entitled and even after being asked to take a break and come back and try it again, he was unable to present himself appropriately.  The other six were barely prepared and will be offered a second interview with no guarantees.

For 27 years, I have heard all the arguments about being positive, talking to kids about success, building their self-confidence, doing the “you can do it” pumping.  But that is the easy work.  It’s clean and nice and uplifting.

None of this will be effective unless we are willing to address the power of failure and the reality of sabotage and self-defeating behavior which permeates many of this generation of kids.  Failure is not just the end result; it is the thinking process along the way.  We grossly underestimate its active presence.  By doing so, we fail our children.

Who is going to dare to crawl into the interconnected caves of their minds, whether invited or not, to see what lurks there and to do battle with the patterns of thought that foment the destruction of opportunity?  Who is going to wade into the cesspool of their unacceptable behavior and tell them in no uncertain terms, “not on my watch”?  Who has the guts to take on empty vessels that care for little, want for nothing, in order to demonstrate that there is a higher authority based upon principle and value and seniority?  If not parentwarriors, then who?

With kids who are on psychotropic medication, it is amazing how well they do in environments where there is structure, stability and where they are challenged mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually.  It is a fact that kids who are consistently in these types of environments often need less medication and can sometimes be weaned off medication altogether.  I rarely hear kids in our program explain their negative behavior with, “I forgot to take my pill today.”  First of all, they know better and second, they are learning to take responsibility for their choices.  Medication sometimes assists decision-making; it does not make decisions.

Pills may have their place but they are so overprescribed.  Their place is not to replace commonsense which is often the takeaway kids have. We know what kids need: exercise, balanced eating, sunlight, creative outlets, the ability to dream, accountability, an energizing world that provokes them to safely experiment with who they are and what they can do.  Before we medicate them, we need to examine whether we are giving them the essentials they need to be healthy and successful.

I fear the long-term studies of so much childhood medication are going to show a number of things: 1) We will find that most of the current medications (which are adult medications downsized for kids) were not all that effective and other factors (like powerful, creative parents) are more influential than pills.  2) Kids, as they become adults, will develop health problems from so much overmedication; some problems will prove irreversible.  3) Some will still be explaining their bad behavior with, “I forgot to take my pill today” but they won’t be 13, they will be 30.

“We wish our kids would make better decisions”, say a couple of concerned parents.  They say it as if they are not the best ones to teach their kids how to do it.  I remind them that it is their job to prepare the children for the real world where decisions can create wonderful opportunities and have serious consequences.

The skills kids need to make good decisions need to be learned in the state of mind they will be in when they need to use them.  The “how” is just as important as the “what”.

Let’s take the anxiety scale.  At zero on the anxiety scale, I’m catatonic.  At ten on the anxiety scale, I’m jumping out of my skin.  When kids are in pressurized situations where they have to make decisions quickly, their anxiety level is probably around 6 or 7.  If the skills they need to make good decisions haven’t been learned when they were under pressure and at a 6 or 7 then they will not be able to use those skills.

If you don’t understand this, you need to figure it out!

It is yet another dimension of parenting.  Sometimes kids need to bump up against the immovable force - a force that is constant, intense, unyielding.  Kids need to know that parents are the anchor that will not be pulled loose by anything or anyone.  They will hold firm.  Kids need to do battle with parents who live out a set of principles that have been tried and tested over time and through hardship.  They will not waver in the face of the uncertain.  Kids need to know at important times when they are thrashing around, searching for answers, finding themselves that their parents will be guiding them no matter what.  It is a different kind of unconditional love.

Steven called. He is a young man who I worked with six months ago. Wow, did we have some fantastic, heated confrontations - a few shouting matches, figurative head banging as we covered the continuum from existential terror to the exhilaration of high school graduation (which Steven thought would never happen). I accused him of masterful manipulation as he vacillated between victimizer and playing victim, using sadness and anger as a weapon and bargaining chip while flip flopping from arrogance and entitlement to insecurity. He cloaked fear with bluster and bravado and blamed others for not understanding him. I often had to smile at his tantrums, refusing to accept his raging young man act and instead nurturing the frightened child. He accused me of being confusing and I accused him of yet another maneuver in the chess game of who was going to control the dance. Anyway, Steven called to say thanks and to let me know he had just gotten a promotion and a raise.

The new Partnership for a Drug Free America ad: Mom rips open the shower curtain and harangues her teenage son about weed. He is mortified. She continues on. The tagline to parents is: “Don’t be a patsy”.

The way many parents talk it is as if there is some recipe book out there that dictates what they can or cannot do to get their kids’ attention. Fortunately, there is no recipe book and parents are recognizing that some of the so-called recipe books of the past are what has gotten us into this mess.

We are left to do whatever we think is necessary to save the lives of our children, raise them and prepare them to thrive in a world that is becoming more unforgiving with each day. The bottomline is that we need to do whatever works. If that means haranguing our kids in the shower so they understand that we are paying attention and are prepared to change them, then so be it.

It is about ownership. It is about being innovative. Having good ideas. Taking risks. Making an investment. Kids who own their lives do better. They take greater responsibility for their destinies. They make better decisions. Know how to earn their way. Understand what it means to build their “business”. The hard work necessary to create something worthwhile will not be torn down easily. They will not simply be tempted to give it all up. We do not casually throw away that which takes blood, sweat and tears. Teach your kids how to own their lives.

One day your parents will wake up. They will decide to no longer be held hostage by your moodiness, your threats and the emotional blackmail that gets cited as a teenage rite of passage. They will stop wearing how much they can put up with as a badge of honor. They will realize that they are sick of being your chauffeur, maid, accounts payable clerk and toxic waste dump while suffering through your ingratitude and unearned sense of entitlement. They will be ready to declare their independence from the bruising effects of your using them while not wanting to have anything to do with them.

And you lucky kids will have to actually fend for yourselves in ways that could be life-enhancing. You will learn that mediocrity is not a birthright and laziness is not the way most people live. You will create a path for yourself that is not strewn with the need for endless, empty apologies. You will realize that actions have consequences and you cannot always undo the damage done. You might even learn to be responsible human beings with some measure of empathy and thankfulness. One day your parents are going to wake up and it’s going to be your lucky day.

These kids, a whole generation of them, are unable to think on their feet. They have instant this and instant that but put them in a problem-solving situation and they are dumb-founded. And who is supposed to teach them these skills - the teachers, the coaches, the mentors, the ministers. Is there some pill that can be prescribed to make them more capable? Mom and Dad, you are the ones who are supposed to teach them. And it needs to happen at home. By putting them in anxiety-producing, difficult situations at home, they can learn the skills they will need to make split second decisions, under pressure, out in the world. Teach them how to do it, let them practice and then teach some more.

It is counter-intuitive. Praising kids too much, especially the oppositional defiant ones, has the opposite effect you think it will. The kid is doing really well. You fall all over yourself with telling them how great they are doing so they’ll keep doing it and shortly after all the praise, they blow it up. (Keep count how often this happens). Too much pressure and they don’t want to have higher and higher expectations? Success is a pain if you have to keep doing it day in and day out with everyone making such a big deal about it. So they lower the bar by sabotaging success.

It might be better to try a different way. Acknowledge the accomplishment, tell them they did well - once and then move them forward, quietly raising the bar with no fanfare and no more strokes. Let their own momentum carry them. It might be that they won’t fear success if everyone stops making it a big deal. It becomes the norm and not some special occasion.