Helping Teenagers With Independence

Freedom and Responsibility

• Elizabeth Crary, in "Pick Up Your Socks," reminds parents that part of training children is offering them choices. When they are very young, the choices are simple, for example, "Would you like to wear the Spiderman or the Superman pj's to bed?" But as your child grows older, the choices become more complex. For example, "If you wish to have your friends over this weekend, you will need to help clean the house." By creating a condition for an activity, parents can teach their children that having freedom to make decisions also means taking responsibility.

Important Decisions

• As a parent, you have been teaching your child, either consciously or unconsciously, values, morals and attitudes toward life. As he enters adolescence, he will begin applying those lessons when making decisions about friends, activities, school work and even his first job. An article from the U.S. Department of Education reminds parents that adolescents need to learn how to make decisions, but that parents need to be ready to step in if the teen is engaging in risky behaviors. Helping your teen develop independence becomes a dance between letting him make his own mistakes and keeping him safe at the same time.

Managing Money

• Learning to make decisions about financial resources is an extremely important part of growing up. Dr. Don Dinkmeyer, author of "Raising a Responsible Child," points out that there is a fine line between offering bribes and giving monetary rewards for effort. Giving younger children an allowance for completing chores and letting them decide how to spend it is part of this process. Offering guidance about spending and saving income from a first job and helping set up a bank account, for example, are appropriate ways of helping your teen develop independence. The key is creating incremental steps and giving him the tools and personal space to make responsible decisions on his own.

Leaving Home

• Managing finances successfully is an important part of that huge step toward complete autonomy -- leaving home. For some teens, their first home away from home is a dorm room. Others will move into an apartment or even their own house. Being able to set up a personal budget and sticking to it will make it more likely that your teen will be able to live independently. Also knowing how to take responsibility for maintaining his personal space will make moving out much easier for your teen.