Parents may not agree on every aspect of raising teenagers, but one thing’s for certain: Parenting teens is a hard job that’s always changing. But, if you’ve ever wished there was a simple list of must-do things for parents who are trying to navigate the teen years, you’re in luck.
Zara Kadir, a child, adolescent, and adult family psychotherapist who shares parenting tips on her TikTok account the Therapy Shed, recently shared a video that’s been viewed more than 650,000 times. In it, Kadir offers tips for raising healthy, well-adjusted teens. “If I could give every parent of a teenager just six rules,” she says in the clip, “these would probably be them.”
“After years of working with teenagers,” Kadir continues, “these are the rules I think keep children safest.”
First up on the list? “Tell them they will never be in trouble for telling you the truth,” says Kadir. “If your child has searched for something online that frightened them, gone somewhere they shouldn’t have, drunk too much, or made a mistake, your first job is to get them safe, not to teach them a lesson. Consequences can wait, safety can’t.”
Second, Kadir says to create an “emergency code” that kids can text you if they want your help getting out of a bad situation, no questions asked. “If they ever send it, you phone them immediately and invent a reason that they have to come home — granddad’s ill, the dog has escaped — I need you home now.”
According to the psychotherapist, this allows a teen to exit a situation without embarrassment. And, after they’re home, you don’t question them about the situation, as your only job in the scenario is to help them get home safely.
“Number three,” says Kadir, “talk about the awkward things before the internet does. Pornography, nudes, alcohol, drugs, consent, coercion, unhealthy relationships. Teenagers don’t avoid these topics because they don’t matter, they avoid them because they feel awkward. If you don’t have the conversation first, somebody else will.”
Kadir’s fourth rule is to stay calm when a teen tells you something that’s difficult for you to hear. “Your face matters,” she warns. “If they tell you something scary and your first response is to panic, shout, or get angry, they’ll learn that their honesty isn’t safe. If you can stay calm enough to listen first, they’re far more likely to come back the next time something goes wrong.”
Fifth is a concept Kadir calls “inviting them to the grown-up table.” This means if there’s something that isn’t working with their behavior or routines, you should invite them into the conversation rather than shutting them out. “Ask them what do you think would be fair? How could you reassure me about the worries I have? And if this agreement wasn’t kept, what do you think a fair consequence would be?” she says. “In my experience, teenagers are often much harder on themselves than their parents would ever have been. More importantly, when they’ve helped create the rules, they’re far more likely to respect them.”
Kadir says her sixth rule may be a bit controversial with parents of teens. “Stop taking their phones away as punishment,” she says. “For teenagers, their phone isn’t just entertainment, it’s their social life, their support network, and sometimes their safest way of contacting you. In all my years of working with families, I’ve never met one that successfully stopped a determined teenager from accessing their phone.”
Instead, Kadir says teens borrow a friend’s phone, hide a phone, or find another way to access their device and the apps installed on it. “What often changes isn’t their behavior,” she explains, “it’s their honesty. If you want a teenager who tells you the truth, don’t make honesty feel more dangerous than secrecy. Your goal isn’t to raise a teenager who never makes mistakes. Your goal is to raise one who calls you when they do.”
