Introduction

A Little Secret for Dealing With Teens
by Jennie Hernandez Hanks

A few years ago, Jennie Hernandez-Hanks found herself as a single Hispanic mother of seven-three teenagers, two preschoolers-receiving no financial support, on welfare and with no higher education or job skills. Her children had been out of school for two years when she decided to move to another state and go back to school herself in order to learn a trade that would allow her to support her family and get her life back together.

Stretched to the limit emotionally, physically and financially, Hanks saw her older children heading down roads that would make all their lives worse. Desperate to keep them from slipping away from her, as happens with so many disadvantaged, at-risk youths, she developed a process to turn their lives around. Today, her children are thriving. Her older children have been named National Merit Scholars and are being recruited by Ivy League schools. Her oldest son received a full scholarship to Princeton University. Her home is more peaceful and her children are learning to be responsible members of the family. Most important, they believe in themselves and they are happy.

In this concise, illustrated book, parents will learn Hanks's secret-a new way of parenting teens-that can change the momentum in the household from one of secrecy, rebellion and confrontation to open communication, understanding and mutual respect. The book shows how to employ an exchange-based approach to improve the parent/teen relationship. Using example dialogues and parent/teen success stories, the book teaches how to initiate exchanges, establish guidelines for communicating, monitor communication and make changes as necessary.

A Little Secret for Dealing with Teens is a must-read for any parent, teacher, counselor or others involved with children.

I've Been There!

My older children became teenagers (with still more teenagers coming) during a very difficult time. My marriage was dissolving. The children were not doing well in school; for a couple of years, they weren't even attending. My husband had limited work, and we had no money. Daily, things grew worse.

Eventually my husband and I separated, and the load was totally on me to make things work. Soon I had to deal with things such as no heat in the house because I didn't have the money to buy fuel. I gathered wood scraps from a construction site and burned them in the fireplace to warm the house. Our landlady was trying to evict us even though our rent was paid. Now that there was no “man” around the house to fix things up for free, it seemed she wanted someone else to live there. My children were not dealing well with the chaos which was everywhere in their lives. Looking back, I have no idea how we made it through it all, but we did.

When I finally gained a divorce, with sole custody of seven children, we all relocated to a different state where we could get a brand-new start. I was a single mother with seven children, three of them teenagers, two of them preschoolers. Our family savings was the change we found under the sofa cushions. With no income or child support, I had to rely on government welfare to provide the basic necessities for my family. Since I had no marketable job skills, I enrolled in college as a full-time student. This was very difficult, since I had to put my younger children in daycare-something I had never done before. All this change and disruption was very confusing for my children. They weren't happy, especially my teenagers who had become angry and resentful. I could see in their eyes how they felt: “This is all your fault, Mom, that we're in this mess!”

At this point, something snapped inside me. I realized that I did not want my kids' lives to suffer because of some of my past choices. In fact, I wanted to help them have lives that were better than mine. I wanted to empower them. I needed to find a way to accomplish this.

Stretched to the Limit and Beyond

I had been a stay-at-home mom and out of the workplace for years. My physical, financial and emotional resources were stretched to the limit. I had no choice but to go back to school full time, even though I knew that the demands on my time and energy would be enormous. In addition to commuting to classes and doing schoolwork, I did all the household and parenting tasks. Whenever anything in the house broke, I was the one who fixed it. Whenever the kids had to go somewhere, I was the one who took them. The entire responsibility for raising seven children was mine alone.

My teenagers especially needed more and more of my attention. All their problems, demands, concerns and self-absorptions were directed at me. They had a lot of anger because our family was apart and we were moving again. I had policemen at my door because my son was messing around with some of his friends. I couldn't keep a handle on everything by doing things the way I had in the past. My older kids were headed down a road that needed to be changed. We had problems and I needed solutions-yesterday.

I began by turning to the “experts.” What I soon learned was that the “experts” usually gave complicated, long-winded instructions on how to raise teenagers. But surprisingly, many had no firsthand experience with teens. One self-proclaimed expert I saw on a talk show had all the proper credentials, yet he hadn't been married or had kids. He had some good ideas, but I couldn't even begin to relate to him. This seemed crazy to me, but the demands of my situation made me press on for solutions. When I read books promising answers, it often seemed that they never really got to the point. I remember one book in particular (one of the better ones, actually) that went through a twelve-step process on cooperative problem-solving with your teenagers, with page after page of technical explanations. Not very helpful. I didn't have the time or patience to read through it all and to try to apply it. I believed there had to be a better way, one that a busy, pressured parent like myself could use.

Mother Invention

I've heard that necessity is the mother of invention. I had a very real, urgent need for an effective and easy way to deal with my teenagers and help their lives (and mine) work better. I filled that need by developing an approach of my own. It's a simple, straightforward one that works with my own children, and works very well.

Today my children are thriving. My two older ones are members of the National Honor Society and Who's Who Among High School Students, and they both received scholarships to the National Young Leaders Conference in Washington, D.C. My oldest son recently finished a term working as a page in the Idaho State Legislature and is now attending Princeton University on a full four-year scholarship. My oldest daughter graduated with high honors and was a speaker at her graduation. She also was selected to attend Girls' State, a week-long program at the State Capitol in which select girls, chosen to represent all parts of the state, learn about the legislative process. Last year she was first runner-up in the county Junior Miss Pageant and received scholarships in four categories. My younger children are now working toward similar achievements. But most importantly, our home is more peaceful and my children are learning to be responsible members of the family. What's really incredible is that they are nice people (even as teenagers!), and they are happy.

People have asked me what I did to make our family life successful. The following pages explain the process I used, which I have developed into a seminar that I give today to other parents of teens. In a way, my approach is from a “manager's” point-of-view, where getting things to work well is the driving force. This approach is based on five concepts that define our relationships with our teenagers:

• All relationships are exchanges.
• Exchanges are run by rules.
• Some rules governing exchanges are hidden.
• Put all the rules on the table.
• Focus on getting exchanges to work.

As you use this five-part approach, you will see your teenagers assume responsibility for their lives. They will use their creative energy in positive ways to establish relationships that work for them, particularly their relationship with you. You may not believe it yet, but you will see less contention in your home. Your children will exercise better judgment. They will mature gracefully and be ready for the world when it is time to leave home. Your life as a parent will be more pleasant.

Please Remember, I'm Just a Mom

Just so you know, I'm not a psychologist, therapist or child counselor. I'm a mom. Yet many of the concepts in this book are colored by my training and interest in human resource development from a business standpoint. As I took classes on these subjects, I began applying the same principles to my family life. I found business management to be a better resource than all the child development materials I studied. In business, the bottom line is getting things done efficiently and effectively. Business is biased towards results and performance-and not necessarily concerned with the “why” of things. I didn't have the time or resources to give in to the many demands of my children, nor did I want to just leave them to their own devices. I was alone and gone most of the time. Getting my family up and running was my primary motive. To be blunt, getting through each day without a disaster was often all I wanted to accomplish. But, something miraculous happened along the way. By following this management-like path, our family slowly changed. Today, we are happier, healthier, more purposeful people. There is a delightful quality in our home, and my teenagers are all doing great.

Throughout this book, I use stories to illustrate my concepts for dealing with teenagers. Many of these stories are experiences from my personal life and the lives of others I know.* Hopefully you can relate to them and use them as reference points in your own parenting adventures. As you read and apply these concepts, please use them in a way that will uniquely benefit you and your family. The choices I used for my children may not be the same ones you want for yours.

For example, one parent came up to me after I taught a seminar and said she liked the class but didn't agree with what I wanted from my children. I was sorry that I hadn't made it clear to her that I didn't want to impose my agenda as a parent on anyone. Likewise, the intention of this book is to give you valuable parenting tools, not showcase my ideas of what good parenting is. How you use these tools is entirely up to you and will depend on what you want for yourself and your teenagers.

© 2000 Health Communications, Inc.

About the Author

Jennie Hernandez Hanks is the mother of seven children, four of them teen-agers, who developed her approach to highly effective parenting when her own relationship with her children reached a crisis point. Her technique has been so successful that she now helps other parents turn their home lives around through her parenting workshops and seminars.