Remember when you were a freshman in high school and your parents told you that you couldn’t go to that party you so badly wanted to attend? Or what about when they didn’t want you staying overnight at that friend’s house where there was minimal parental supervision? You argued with them. “But Mom, you’ve got to trust me!” Your Mom’s retort, “I do trust you. I don’t trust them and I don’t want you in that situation.”
She and your father were right. Now, I’m not saying that they always handled it the right way but they were right to be concerned about whom you were with and where you were going. As it turns out this age old wisdom is now substantiated by research. I’m always amazed at how the data so often supports what we’ve known to be true for generations. Of course sometimes the data disputes our common wisdom but that seems to be the exception not the rule.
So if you want to minimize the risks your teens are subjected to help them to understand the importance of context. When they are young teens you may even be able to control the context, i.e., where they go and whom they are with. As they age they need to be encouraged to exercise their own good judgment. You can tell them that if they find themselves in a bad situation they can always use you as an excuse to remove themselves from harms way or even call you to come and help them out of the circumstance. But mostly they need to understand the risks inherent in some situations.
We all hope our kids will have good, strong character. And good character matters. But it doesn’t matter as much as we think. Even good character can be compromised by relational and situational influences. There is no shame for parents or their adolescents in managing the context in which our character operates. After all that’s what our parents taught us. They were right!