You Can’t Change Your Defiant Teenager...

...but you can change how you parent! The broken rules and rude remarks are snowballing. After years of opposition and defiance, your teen is beginning to resemble the enemy. And that’s not healthy. It’s also not hopeless. Here, learn how to craft a parenting style that breaks your teen’s defiant habits and encourages positive cooperation moving forward.

Uncle Dharma

January 18, 2021 at 5:15 pm

I was defiant when silly rules were nonsense, or contradicted other rules, and so on.
Often I was following the rules but the teachers or the managers didn’t really know what rules applied.

Both of my children were not loaded with silly rules and they did well.

One silly example was a high school that controlled the students with “you don’t want to be the odd one out” So most kids conformed. I never understood what I was supposed to be conforming to.
I really was the odd one out – I was the only foreign student in the school for my first year. I didn’t “worry what the neighbours thought” as I knew my family would leave and return home.

At a government job years later, most staff “didn’t want to upset the bosses” by telling them that that they were talking nonsense. I warned the bosses a few times, and they thanked me.

I seemed to upset many staff by following the rules, whereas the others followed what the group did. Most of them stayed there, unhappy with life, until they retired. I left and got a professional job.

Being a non-conformist with the social norms, who actually is conforming to the rules can get a bit tiring. Is this what some so-called ODD kids are doing.
dragonfly.canada

May 9, 2018 at 9:51 am

Well this arrived at the perfect time!