Teenagers Today's Health Advisory Panel Answers: I slapped my daughter, and she shoved me to the floor. This situation has gotten totally out of control, and I need some advice quickly.

By Chris Crutcher Author Licensed Child and Family Therapist

Question:

I let both my children each take a friend on a week-long trip to the ocean. My 15-year-old daughter got caught shoplifting a small souvenir on the second night and was arrested. (She had plenty of money to purchase the item!) I immediately took her cell phone, revoked her driving learner's permit, told her that she had to quit her job (The kids working there are older and smokers, and I discovered cigarettes in her purse.), and I told her she could no longer participate in the school's color guard program. She now (vehemently) says she hates me, that at 16 years old (one month away) she can live on her own or with another family with court approval (I doubt that!) and that she will leave. How do I handle this one? I'm no longer sure of myself in the actions I've taken.

Additionally, the night after her arrest, she was going to wear clothes that I felt were too revealing when we were going to dinner. I told her how I felt and asked her to change. She said no, and we got into a verbal battle, and she cursed me badly. I slapped her face (shouldn't have, I know, but it was a quick, instinctual reaction) and she then shoved me down onto the floor. It was a very bad scene. This situation has gotten totally out of control, and I want/need some advice quickly.

Answer:

I wish I could get parents to understand that punishment in its pure sense is the least effective form of discipline. What you did was effectively take away all the things she might be interested in to make a point about shoplifting, when you could have focused on the shoplifting thing itself.

Let her deal with the legal system. Let her make restitution for the thing she stole, along with some service to the store. What does the school color guard program have to do with shoplifting? It's easy to say if you don't hit a behavior hard that kids will try to "get away with it" again, but that's not necessarily what happens. There is embarrassment with getting caught, and there is consequence enough in having to right the wrong she committed. I'm not saying not to take any of this seriously, but I'm an advocate of using the smallest gun needed to get the job done.

You've set yourself up for a power struggle that most people can't win. If she does in fact try to figure out how to get out of your house, she could make things uncomfortable for all of you, and if she stays and "hates" you (which is just a way of saying you don't understand and she's really mad) she can make it uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable as it may make you, a lot of kids shoplift. I would keep an eye out to see if it's a problem with psychological implications, but in most cases it's a phase. It goes along with that risky behavior we see in adolescents. What I don't know in all this is what other areas of conflict you may be having. But taken alone, I'd treat this with a little less urgency.

To tell the truth, the physical altercations that followed were probably an outcropping of the original event and the handling of the event. But now you're in the position of having to deal with that. I'd get the two of you into counseling to resolve the current problem, and make some agreements about physical violence if you can't come to agreement on them on your own.

If you have a relative you trust – a mom or aunt or uncle – someone she can stay with for a while until this calms down some, it might not be a bad idea. Someone needs to insert some reason here and get some agreement to be guided by it. Your intentions were good all the way, and from her point of view hers probably were too, but you don't want an adolescent out there behaving badly just to get even.