Parenting Todays Teens with Integrity

Teens Tend to Watch More Than Listen to Parents

Parenting teens by what you DO rather than what you SAY you're going to do

Parenting Teens by Modeling Integrity Leads to the Discovery of Authentic Self

October 14, 2020


After 28 years of counseling families and their teenagers through their most difficult times, Penny Baker, LPC-S, has seen her share of maladaptive behaviors exhibited by the clients of Elk River Treatment Program and the parents who enrolled them into the program. In this podcast, Penny shares a critical piece of the teen parenting puzzle: teaching integrity by what you do rather than what you say. Integrity is second component of the AIR concept which is an acronym for Accountability, Integrity and Responsibility. The AIR concept has been a mantra of Elk River Treatment Program for adolescents since opening in 2006. Today it remains a focal point of the treatment process.

Parenting Today's Teens Through Accountability, Integrity, and Responsibility

Selina
Hello and welcome to On AIR with Elk River Treatment Program for teens, the residential program of Pinnacle Behavioral Health. I'm Selina Mason, Director of Marketing and Outreach. Today we welcome back Penny Baker who is a licensed counselor and Director of Clinical Services for the programs of Pinnacle Behavioral Health.

On our last podcast, we talked about the importance of family values and character development and how AIR factors into that. Remind us, what is AIR or A. I. R.?

Penny
AIR is the concept we use in Elk River Treatment Program to help teach a value system and character development for the teenagers and the families that we serve. And AIR stands for Accountability, Integrity, and Responsibility. So last time we talked a little bit about accountability and how that is such an important factor in teaching a value system to kids and value systems for families to develop that culture for their kids. And today, I thought we would talk a little bit about the next component, which is Integrity.

Selina
You would think that most families and family values would include integrity. I mean, how do you, as a parent, teach your child integrity? By example?

Penny
Well, absolutely. You're going to start by example because that actually is part of the definition of integrity. So maybe we should start there. How to define integrity. And a very simple definition of integrity is “what do you do when no one else is looking?”

Selina
Yeah. I've seen some quotes of how to be good when no one else is looking. What kind of character development that is.

Penny
Right. So that is kind of the concept that we're teaching kids and teaching families. And so when it comes to exactly what you said earlier about the importance of families, actually role modeling, integrity for their kids is where it starts.

And it starts very young and it continues on through adolescence and even into adulthood of the culture that's developed that's based on integrity. So, a parent would start with young kids of teaching integrity by some very basic concepts. You know, the first thing is that a kid has faith in knowing that whatever a parent says a parent is going to do. Because a parent says ‘that’ with integrity, they mean what they say. They are going to act themselves. Whether the kid is there are not there. They are going to be consistent. They're going to role model. You know, sometimes we hear adults unfortunately often will tell a kid, “You know, do what I say, not as I do.”

Selina
I've been guilty of that.

Penny
Well, unfortunately that doesn't work with kids because kids just naturally, they are going to base their view of how to behave and decisions to make and the values they developed - more so about what they see versus what is said to them, what examples are given to them, the experiences that they have with their family.

So again, teaching integrity in your family of, if you commit to something you follow through with it, that's showing integrity. If you say you're going to do something, you're going to do it. You know, earlier in an episode, we talked about accountability and the importance of, you know, holding your kids accountable and you, yourself accountable. That if you make a mistake, you own the mistake. If you make a mistake, there may be consequences for that mistake. And you allow people to have those consequences. And that slides right into integrity of you have to use integrity in those decisions where if you say something you have to follow through with it. You have to not just do as I say, but you actually have to model to your kid with integrity that these are the values that we're going to uphold. And these are our family values that we're going to stick to.

The other part of integrity that's real important, not just in childhood, but getting into adolescence where they are really paying attention to watching what you're doing. Because a teenager is going to use any excuse whatsoever of why they should be able to do things that you don't want them to do.

Selina:

And they're always watching, even if their head is down, looking at a screen, they're still watching you. Right?

Penny
Absolutely. And they're collecting data on how to make their arguments to try to convince or manipulate their parents into what they want. And that is a normal adolescent development process that kids go through. And it's important for families to again, using integrity of being authentic, are they being authentic and what they say to their kids. And authenticity means you're practicing what you're preaching. You've got to be able to demonstrate that with integrity. Are you being honest with yourself? Are you being honest with your kid?

Now that being said, that honest communication is super important in the relationship. However, a little warning there, is that doesn't mean that a parent should disclose everything,

Selina
Right. It should be age appropriate. Am I right?

Penny
Absolutely. There are certain things that you will share in a certain way with younger kids that you were not going to or would be different than what you would share with your teenager. And even with your teenager, there are some things that are appropriate to share with a 12, 13-year-old that would be a little bit different than what you share with an older teen. And so, you have to really balance out of being truthful and honest with your kids, but at the same time doing so that's appropriate for their age. In showing that integrity that you do what you say, teaches them the importance of that as well.

And that it's also, again, we're going to see the, kind of the combination, these concepts of AIR coming through. That's where, again, going back to that accountability piece of, are you showing as a parent, the accountability for yourself and accountability to your child of holding them accountable for showing integrity. So when a family gets involved with the Elk River Treatment Program, part of the process of meeting them where they are, has to do with looking at their family dynamics; looking for any history of loss or trauma in the family that may have affected their development of character or development of a value system. And then help them make that transition.

Specifically, as teenagers, we get into a very interesting part of value development and character development, because a natural part of adolescence is a stage called individuation. And this is when we have an adolescent who's on the verge of moving from childhood to adulthood and trying to learn how to be an independent thinker. How to take everything that they've learned from their experiences so far in their life, which have mainly been with their family, how to take the value system that they've learned with a family, and how do they begin to really mold that into a personal value system and move towards that in how they plan on living their life and the person that they want to be.

So that's a very critical juncture. So, there's several things that are so important in that. And the first is really working with that family of making sure that family has communicated a very concrete set of values to their child. To let them know this is what our family believes in. This is what we would like to develop as our family system, our value system. These are the characteristics that are important to us.

And of course, we focus on the characteristics of accountability, integrity, and responsibility. And again, this comes back to integrity of the families being very honest with that, because a big part of integrity, as I said earlier, is authenticity, are you being true to yourself? So with an adolescent, they have to find that balance between being true to their family values, being true, to kind of testing the waters and trying to figure out what their individual values are, but also using integrity and showing authenticity of also figuring out how their values relate to the entire community and the community values.

And how does that fit in. And as a developing adolescent and becoming that adult, how do they apply all of those things and be authentic with who they are. And sometimes that can be quite a challenge. And while we press the importance of integrity and being true to yourself and being consistent with who you are because we need them to, just for the health of our society and communities, to really develop into healthy adults. And having the concept of integrity and an understanding that, and at this point, meeting the kid where they are, some kids have that already. Some kids have to learn that when they get to the program. Earlier you had asked me the question, what do you do if kids come in and they have different levels of value systems?

Selina
Well, and they may come from a divorce family where there are two separate value systems. How do you bring all that together and get them on the same page?

Penny
Again, part of this adolescent stage of development, our focus has to be: how does that kid develop a healthy value system? And again, if you base a value system on living a life where you're going to hold yourself and others accountable, you're going to show integrity and be authentic to yourself and show a truthfulness of your behaviors, and your emotions, and then show responsibility, which we'll talk about a little bit later. Then those are a nice foundation for that individual kid as they're moving through adolescence into adulthood, to maybe take some things that are family values from mom's side of the family that they feel are healthy and important for them. And then also being able to take some things from dad's side of the family, that they might find healthy and important for them.

And it's not that one is right, or one is wrong, but helping that child explore what's best for them long term to maintain just healthy relationships with everyone involved and a healthy relationship with within themselves and their community. And that comes back to having the integrity of being your authentic self. Of really trying to figure out who you are and what you need, and what's healthy for you. And sometimes that really is a hard thing to do - is try to really have that integrity within ourselves to really be honest about what our needs are, what our values are, what character traits maybe aren't very healthy for us that we need to deal with, but also being, showing that integrity within ourselves of also knowing what we know is healthy for us and be willing to pursue those things.

Selina
Or fight for it.

Penny
Or fight for it at times. And sometimes that can be challenging. We really push with families when they come in, even if it's divorced families or two parent homes, or sometimes even it gets really complicated when you have two parents in the same home that have very different value systems or character traits that they're promoting - of having some hard conversations with our families that come in of - you know - what do we need to do to try to get everyone on the same page, or really going through, what can we at least agree upon that's important for your kid.

And I will tell you, after 28 years of doing this, it has been very rare that I've ever met any families divorced or not, in conflict or not, with different belief systems and all sorts of different, diverse situations where it still comes down to typically you have two parents that want their kids to be happy, healthy, and successful.

Selina
Well, that's encouraging to hear.

Penny
So that's our focus on integrity of why we think that's the second level of foundation. Once you teach a kid and a family how to hold themselves and others accountable, and then you focus on teaching the concept of integrity of I behave the same, no matter whoever's looking, which is really important with adolescents, because we hear story after story of they act a certain way …

Selina
They try to be a chameleon.

Penny
Absolutely, you know, with maybe in the family, they are respectful. They are kind, they say the right things. In school they say the right things. They do well in school, but then they associate with a peer group and when would there would that peer group, they're making some really poor choices and not following what they've identified as their family values and using integrity in, in showing their values.

And sometimes we see it in different environments where maybe in the home they're disrespectful, they're acting out, but they go to school and they're very respectful or they're with their friends or their friend’s families. And we'll hear stories where the parents will tell us about all of these inappropriate behaviors. And then, and they'll tell us our community thinks we're crazy because they're doing great in school. And our friend's parents are like, well, what's the problem?

Well, again, that's people don't see what goes on in the privacy of people's homes and very different.

Selina
Don’t you think that’s where residential (treatment) comes in?

Penny
Absolutely. Of really being able to put all of those pieces together. Because what's great about residential treatment - when it comes to teaching accountability and integrity of:

Is a kid consistently showing appropriate behaviors? Making good decisions? Talking about their issues? Are they doing that consistently, no matter who they're around or with? That definitely shows up behaviorally.

So, when the home, you know, it can get very confusing because school they're great. Home – they are creating trauma with a family at home because of the levels of disrespect or acting out, and maybe they're inappropriate with their peer group. So, you have a kind of a conflict of who is the authentic kid here?

So that's where integrity comes and helping that kid be their authentic self is finding out, you know, you should be the same person regardless of who you are with. So, are you showing the same value system regardless of who you were with? So, in residential and using group process and assigning kids to a peer group and having a whole multidisciplinary teamwork with a kid, you get to really collect a lot of data to compare.

Are they using integrity and showing authenticity no matter who they're with? How are they behaving when they're with a nurse? How are they behaving when they're with a therapist? How are they behaving with the psychiatrist or with the teacher at our private school? How are they behaving with the direct care staff that is with them every moment of the day? Are they showing different character traits and value systems based on who they are around? Are they being disrespectful to their peer group, but only if they think no one's looking? But when they think someone's looking - suddenly they change how they're behaving in responding to other people.

So that gives us a lot of data of really how that kid is doing truly at developing a solid character base of that accountability and that integrity piece of it of Am I the same, regardless of who's looking?

And so, then we move in after integrity, the big part of character development and value system development is we've got to talk about how responsibility fits in.

Selina
I would think responsibility would be the easiest one as a parent to define. Integrity and accountability was sort of hard for me to wrap my mind around. Responsibility just seems really simple. You're responsible for yourself. You're responsible for your chores. You're responsible for your schoolwork. But I'm assuming it goes deeper than that.

Penny
It does. And why don't we save responsibility and tackle that in another episode?

Selina
That would be awesome. Do you have the time?

Penny
I will make the time.

Selina
You're great. Penny. Thanks for listening to On AIR with Elk River Treatment Program, the residential program of Pinnacle Behavioral Health, where teens learn the value of AIR.