Parenting Basics: “My House, My Rules.”

Grandma was right! There is an easy way and a hard way to raise kids. By and large, today’s parents are choosing the hard way. This series of blogs will tackle familiar phrases that used to be commonplace but fell out of favor during the last few decades of the 20th century—and why parents should not be afraid to follow the sentiment expressed in the phrases.

More and more, parents are forgetting that their homes are, well, theirs. They are allowing children to dictate what state the child’s room can be kept and how much time said child spends in that room alone. Especially in the teen years, parents seem to be at a loss on how to respond to blatant disregard to curfew and other house rules.

Image courtesy of Bill Longshaw/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Used to be, Mom and Dad calmly and collectively informed wayward children that they were living in their house and therefore must follow their rules, no ifs, ands or buts about it. Parents should be the ones to establish authority in the home, not the children. This means the home revolves around the parents, not the children.

Nowadays, parents are flummoxed by children who say they can keep their room how they want because its theirs, by kids who want to drive completely how the family operates and by teens who say parents can have no say in their personal lives. But parents of another generation knew that having a parent/marriage centered house was best for children, and that meant following the “My house, my rules” expression.

“My house, my rules” doesn’t lord over children a parent’s authority, rather it puts the child’s desires and wants into their proper perspective. Let’s tackle one of the most prominent problems that crop up in households that don’t adopt this adage: who “owns” the child’s bedroom.

A child doesn’t pay the rent or mortgage. A child doesn’t buy groceries or the majority of things he needs (clothes, shoes, school supplies, etc.). Therefore, a child isn’t entitled to “own” his bedroom. We as parents graciously allow our children to occupy rooms in our home. But that doesn’t mean our children can do as they wish with their possessions in a room that we, technically, own.

Especially during the teen years, parents seem unable to counter arguments that posit a teen has sole possession of said room, and therefore can keep it as slovenly as he wants. Or that a teen can slink into his room and stay there hidden from the family and a parent has no right to enter the inner sanctum.

Au contraire! We have every right to expect our children to keep their rooms cleaned to our satisfaction and to allow us entrance into their rooms on any given day or hour. That’s not to say we don’t allow them privacy, but there’s a vast difference between privacy and antisocial behavior.

We also have every right to expect our children to adhere to our curfew conditions. As our teens age, we should be giving them more and more leeway in setting their own curfews—as long as they come in when they say they will. That means, if an older teen, who has proven herself faithful in meeting your curfews, should be able to say, “Mom, I’d like my curfew for Friday to be 1 a.m.” You could certainly grant her that privilege, with the understanding that if she comes in at 1:01 a.m., she’s broken her own imposed curfew and that consequences will be levied as a result. (For more on curfews, read John Rosemond’s excellent Teen Proofing.)

That’s two examples for how “My House, My Rules” works in a family. How does it work in yours?

Until next time,

Sarah