How to know when your teen is ready for more freedom

It’s important to give your teen the opportunity to show that they can behave responsibly. If you always do everything for your teen, they won’t learn the skills they need to be independent. Give your teen enough freedom to help them learn to behave responsibly.

For example, if you nag your teen to get their homework done each night, they’ll learn to do it only to get you to stop nagging. As an adult, when you aren’t there to nag them to take care of their responsibilities, they may struggle to get things down on their own.

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Establish rules and then follow through with consequences when those rules get broken. Don’t spend a lot of energy trying to prevent your child from breaking your rules. Instead, give them some freedom to make mistakes on their own.

Set your teen up for success. Give them the tools they need to begin behaving responsibly and then provide opportunities for them to practice using the tools you’ve given them.

Approach Independence in Stages

Increase your teen’s freedom in small increments based on their ability to show you that they can handle more responsibility. If you do everything for them until they move out of the house, you’ll be setting them up for failure.

On the other hand, if you give them too much freedom too soon, they likely won’t be able to handle it.

If your teen is following the rules and showing that thy can handle independence, start increasing their privileges and responsibilities slowly. Some ideas to offer more freedom include allowing your teen to:

• Establish their own bedtime
• Stay out later at night
• Choose when to do their chores
• Choose when to do their homework
• Have more freedom with their electronics
• Experience more freedom with friends
• Go places unsupervised
• Get a part-time job
• Learn how to drive
• Remove Privileges When Necessary

If your teen struggles to follow the rules and make healthy choices on their own, give them less freedom and less responsibilities. Remove privileges when necessary.

Let your teen’s behaviour show you how much responsibility they’re ready for.  There may be times where your teen’s behaviour seems to regress and at other times, it will likely show great progress.

As your teen enters new developmental phases, it’s likely that their behaviours will fluctuate. Adjust your rules and consequences according to what your teen’s behaviour shows you about their ability to handle freedom and extra responsibilities.

Establish a behaviour contract that will help your teen understand your expectations. Make it clear to your teen how you will know when they’re ready for additional freedom and what the consequences will be if they don’t meet your expectations.