(Excerpt* from the P.E.T. Book with a personal note from Lance Johnson, P.E.T. Program Director and Father of Two Boys)
Readers may remember Reinhold Niebuhr’s poem that has been quoted often:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
“The serenity to accept what I cannot change” is relevant to what I have just been dealing with. For there are many behaviors of children that parents simply may not be able to change. The only alternative is to accept this fact.
Many parents strongly resist our idea of being just consultants to their children. They say:
- “But I have a responsibility to see to it that my teenager does not start vaping.”
- “I must use my authority to prevent my child from being sexually active before they’re 18.”
- “I’m not willing to act only as a consultant on the dangers of electric bikes. I must make sure my son doesn’t ride one.”
- “I will not be satisfied letting my child not do her homework every night.”
It is understandable that many parents feel so strongly about certain behaviors that they do not want to give up trying to influence their children, but a more objective view usually convinces them that they have no other feasible alternative except to give up—to accept what they cannot change.
Take vaping for example. Assume that the parents have given their teen all the facts (their own bad experience with smoking, the U.S. Surgeon General’s Report, magazine articles). Now, suppose your kid still chooses to vape (or smoke cigarettes). What can the parents do? If they try prohibiting her from vaping in the house, she will undoubtedly do it when she is away from the house (and possibly at home, too, when the parents are not there). Obviously, they cannot accompany the child whenever she leaves the house, nor stay at home whenever she is at home.
Even if they catch her vaping, what can they possibly do? If they ground her, she will simply wait until the grounding period is over and start vaping again. Theoretically, they might try threatening expulsion from the family, but few parents are willing to try such an extreme measure, realizing that they could end up having to follow through on their threat. So, in fact, parents have no feasible alternative than to accept their inability to make their teenager stop vaping. One parent stated her dilemma accurately when she said, “The only way I could stop my daughter from vaping would be to lock her in her room.”
Homework, a problem that brings conflict in many families, is another example. What can parents do if the child won’t do her homework? If they make her go to her room she will probably listen to her music, text her friends or mess around doing anything but homework. The point is, you just cannot make someone study or learn. “You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink” applies equally to making a child do her homework.
Well, what about being sexually active as a minor? The same principle applies here. It is impossible for parents to supervise their children all the time. A father in one of my P.E.T. classes admitted, “I might as well stop trying to prevent my son from fooling around, because I sure can’t ‘ride shotgun’ in the backseat of the car or tag along, every time he has a date.”
Other behaviors can be added to our list of things that parents may have no power to change. Provocative clothing, drinking, getting into trouble at school, associating with certain kids, e-bikes, and so on. All a parent can do is to try to influence by being a model, being an effective consultant, and developing a “therapeutic” relationship with the kids. After that, what else? As I see it, a parent can only accept the fact that she ultimately has no power to prevent such behaviors, if the child is bent on doing them.
On a Personal Note
Maybe this is one of the prices of being a parent. You can do your best, then hope for the best, but in the long run you run the risk that your best efforts might not be good enough.
Ultimately you, too, may then ask, “Lord, grant me . . . the serenity to accept what I cannot change.”
As a dad of two young sons, I know the time will come when situations like these might happen to me – even though I will have tried to influence, consult and model for them over the years. If it does, I too, hope to have the serenity to accept what I cannot change, and just allow them to be who they are – a separate, unique person with their own thoughts, ideas, and beliefs.
Fortunately, I do know that living and raising them with the P.E.T. model has certainly fostered the type of relationships with them needed to deal with those situations – relationships built on mutual respect, love, and peace.
*We revised some of the terminology and examples