The Conscious Parent

I once worked with a single father, Peter, who was having a
particularly hard time with his fifteen-year-old son, Andrew. Their
relationship was reaching a state of dysfunction. Andrew was
manifesting the classic symptoms of a rebellious teenager—isolating
himself from his father, only interested in hanging out with his friends,
chatting via his computer until late at night, not doing his homework,
failing his classes, and using marijuana.
Peter was enraged. They had shared a close relationship when Andrew
was younger, but for the past few years their only engagements had been
tense arguments. At one point, Andrew had asked to live with his
grandparents in another state, which Peter didn’t support because the
grandparents were elderly. Day after day, father and son locked horns
over household duties and homework, with Andrew saying he had
already completed his homework even though he hadn’t touched it.
During one particularly upsetting evening, Peter found himself so
worked up that he threatened never to talk to his son again, then stormed
out of the house. As he walked around his property in an agitated state,
he called me to report, “I’m at my wits’ end. This boy absolutely refuses
to respect me or my ways. Here I am, setting everything aside to be with
him, and all he does is be obnoxious and defiant. He puts forth no effort
at all. I’m sick and tired of the way he treats me. If he doesn’t want to be
my son, so be it. I won’t put out any effort either. I can be just as
uncaring as he is. From today, I will no longer be loving or patient. I’m
washing my hands of him.”
Unable to see that he was in a highly reactive state of mind, Peter
became even more volatile. Ending our phone conversation, he marched