If you don t want your teen doing something, make sure you are not doing it yourself. Teens have very strong and sensitive hypocrisy meters and are eager to use them. Law of Punishment. Punishment often springs from anger. Punishment breeds resentment and a desire for revenge.
Teens have many creative ways to retaliate.
Law of Consequences. Consequences teach teens about the real world. In general, consequences need to be reasonable, respectful, swift and strong enough to get teens attention. Law of Structure, Part I. Parents need to set boundaries and structure from Day One. Local child therapist Art Cleveland says, We tend to overstructure the time of children and understructure the time of teen-agers.