How do you set up curfews for teens?
Curfews are important because they set up reasonable boundaries to protect your family culture. But know that teens hate fixed, out-of-date, and inhuman rules with a passion. (Have you noticed?) They want to be involved in the process of establishing them. So sit down with your teens and work together on a list of specific rules for your household. Give them the opportunity to come up with ideas, add to the list, and comment on anything related to each of the rules. Here are a few simple rules for putting curfews in place.
(1) Involve your teens in setting their nighttime boundaries. Reach an agreement together as to a curfew time that is age-appropriate for each teen. COMPROMISE, if necessary. At 14, you may want her home at 11:00pm. She wants 11:30pm. Reach a middle point and agree on it — say 11:15pm. Or if she has good reasons for 11:30pm, go with it. You don’t always have to be the “winner.”
As your teen gets older, the arrival hour is negotiated toward an increasingly later time. For example, at 16, it may be 12:30am. The important point is that you reach an agreement together as to this time, and discuss the consequences of breaking the curfew time, too.
(2) Communicate clearly what the agreed upon times are, through written and verbal reinforcements. This means, post it on the refrigerator and reinforce with a verbal reminder like, “Look forward to seeing you around eleven tonight.”
(3) Execute the consequences of broken roles. When she is late, give her the freedom and opportunity to comment and explain. May be there were unplanned events, like a flat tire, or a surprise party. Try to find a solution to the problem together.
(4) If a teen still breaks the curfew rule, let the agreed-upon consequences fall into place. Since you and your teen have already discussed these consequences and set them up together (e.g. take away car keys, remove home privileges, like TV use, etc.) you are not forced into the position of playing the “heavy” or “bad guy.”
(5) If your teen has missed curfew because drinking or drugs were involved, then the consequences are more serious. Simply enact these more serious consequences that you and your teen set up together.
Dr. Susan Smith Kuczmarski has taught at 8 universities, now at Northwestern University and Loyola University in Chicago. She is an award-winning author of 6 books, 3 on families and 3 on leadership, including her newest, Becoming A Happy Family: Pathways to the Family Soul (2015), and her best-selling, The Sacred Flight of the Teenager: A Parent’s Guide to Stepping Back and Letting Go, which was released (2019) in Egypt in Arabic. Trained as a cultural anthropologist, she has researched extensively how children learn social skills and teens become leaders. A frequent radio and television guest, she has appeared on "The Today Show" and speaks regularly to parents and educators. Listed in Who's Who in the World for 12 years and an International Fellow of Columbia University, her 35 years of college teaching and research have made her an expert on issues devoted to the contemporary family.
