A few ways (sigh of relief here) you can detect your teenager is growing up into a respectable person. All the points apply to both genders:

• The parent hears frequent use of “please” and “thank you” from the teen even if the words are not specifically aimed at the parent.
• Unsolicited gratitude is expressed and there’s no sign (or at least that you can detect) of manipulation at play.
• Showering and all acts of personal hygiene happen without the parents having to insist they occur.
• Dirty clothes are acknowledged as such rather than worn again and again in perfect denial of their foul state.
• Homework and school assignments are tackled and completed without complaint and without a parent’s involvement and without cutting and pasting answers off enabling websites.
• The use of electronic devices and games require no external parental monitoring – it’s become an inside job.
• However it’s happening (online, on paper, or in the head) a calendar is kept and he or she is remembering commitments and showing up for them.
• Sentences like, “I’ve got to get a really early night tonight because tomorrow is going to be a long and demanding academic day” and he or she goes to bed early.

(Hope is eternal! – my sons are now 16 and 20)

Surround yourself with healthy people by being as healthy as possible yourself.

Here are signs you with healthy people:

• They don’t get sucked in or sidetracked by other people’s issues.
• They know the limits of their skills and talents and they don’t volunteer or get involved with things just to appear nice or helpful.
• They build friendships slowly, really slowly.
• When you are with them you always have more choices than you thought possible and you always feel a greater sense of freedom.
• They are ambitious and have goals and sacrifice as necessary to achieve their goals.
• They are close to their families but not trapped by the closeness.
• They honor their parents, but, as adults, they know they are not expected to obey their parents.
• They are kind to people who appear to be able to offer them nothing or little in return.
• They are always kind to people who wait on them and serve them in any manner.
• They avoid making heroes or victims out of anyone.
• They focus on their own behavior and not the behavior of others.
• They have zero desire to control the behaviors of others.
• They are generous with their time, talents, and resources.

If you want a strong week ahead here are some simple (not easy) things you can do right away:

Take a few minutes right now and, using the old fashioned way with a pencil and paper, write three or four ways you will know this has been a good week. Be sure to write about yourself and your behavior, not about others and their behavior. You are the only one over whom you have some semblance of control.

Get a pocket-sized notecard and on one side write, in red, four things during the coming week, you won’t do, things that usually develop into regret. On the reverse side, and in blue, write four things you will do.

For me the “red side” are things like, “Don’t agree to activities or favors, or events just to be nice” and “Take 24-hours to think about things before you make an important decision” and “Don’t provoke sons when you already know (and they already know) they are in the wrong.”

The blue side is “Speak up for yourself and the family even if what you say may be unpopular” and “Forgive even if the other person neither requests it or deserves it” and “Look to reconcile and to love more than trying to be right.”

Powerful living, enduring relationships, significant work, and finding meaningful community, all begins within the individual.

It’s birthed in the very complex connections within each person’s mind, soul, and spirit.

It is within this deep place that each of us must answer the most essential question: “What do you want?” Until this question is faced and answered it is impossible to enjoy and life and find the relationships, community, and career we desire.

When each of us answers this holy question for ourselves and, although the answer will shift and change over time, the answer becomes a grid upon which we build our lives.

When this question is answered (and it can be answered in fewer than 20 words) it becomes a vision and then when we face choices that do not fit within the vision, those choices fall away. Choices that do fit within the vision of what we want and those that move us towards our greater goals become all that more appealing.

This is intentional living, and it is the antithesis of selfishness.

People who are doing what they really want to do and become the people they really want to become are transformed into the most selfless people of all.

A person who loves you will expect you to find, use, enjoy your skills and talents. Your skills and talents are much easier neglect (people do it all the time). Your lover will not settle for less than your best and will offer you the same. Upping your mutual game will require courage, effort, and commitment. Avoid love if you are lazy.  

He or she will respect your separateness and will know you each come with your own unique dreams, ambitions, longings, hurts, disappointments. In love you will be comforted, inspired, challenged, but he or she will not crossover and be you. He or she will always know you are your own person with the ability and courage to be the separate person you are. It’s love, not conquering or invasion. Avoid love if you think it will mean you can avoid personal responsibility or borrow an identity.

The person who loves you will offer you, and find with you, a powerful sense of belonging. Everything will assume greater meaning. You’ll commune. You’ll be as connected as two people can be while always remaining separate and independent. If being known scares you, being loved will terrify you. Run from it. It’s not worth the growth and transformation that will be yours.

“I had to respond to your article about Dangerous Men. This is my husband to a T, although he has not been overly violent.  I have never felt afraid. This manifested itself about four years ago, out of the blue, and I was taken completely by surprise. We are pensioners now but looking back, he has been all of those things you have described, controlling, and manipulative, family hater. I was too busy working, bringing up the kids, to let it bother me. I was never allowed any close friends and what friends I did manage to hold on to have all now left South Africa and there is just the two of us. I am glad to learn that I am not alone in such a situation, but sad really that I have never been able to reach my full potential having definitely been ‘kept down’ all these years. There is no question of leaving him now at our ages, so I will just have to try to grin and bear it.  When he does start performing I try to walk away and ignore him.”

How ever many years you have left, live large and stay out of control. It’s never too late to find your voice. Thanks for the letter.

In order to love their school-going children, healthy parents:

·      Create a safe home environment where no topic is off limits.

·      Trust the school and their children and therefore seldom run interference for their children.

·      Have satisfying lives outside of being parents.

·      Don’t personalize their children’s missteps and encourage honest success and legitimate failure.

·      Don’t get embroiled in their children’s peer relationships.

·      Don’t do their children’s homework for them.

·      Live truthfully so their children see truth in action.

·      De-escalate almost everything and check on facts before escalating any school issue.

·      Go first to the source when issues arise.

·      Give the school the benefit of the doubt and listen objectively to all sides. Oddly, they tend to believe adults even over their children*.

·      Permit natural consequences to follow their children’s actions*.

·      Treat teachers and administrators with respect and speak highly of professions in education.

·      Are present for their children in a world of endless distractions.

·      Write affirming emails and letters to teachers and administrators to express thanks for the investment in their children.

·      Are respectful to coaches and officials at sports events if their child’s is winning or losing.

·      Say “please” and “thank you” and “excuse me” and behave like the adults they hope their children become.

·      They mind their own business and resist gossip.

*There are always extremes where these will not apply

Dangerous men are often charming in public. In private they are sarcastic and cynical, and commit private acts of control, malice, and deceit. They isolate intimates. When extended family contact is inevitable they limit, control, and monitor it. Visits with extended family are routinely bookended with intense blowups. They accuse their wives of lies, affairs, and demand unreciprocated honesty. They can pin their wives and children to the wall using dagger eyes. When feeling out of control, disobeyed, or disrespected, their malice will, without intervention, escalate to growing acts of violence.

Their acts of violence will usually start “small” and be followed by silence or shock or remorse, but they will grow until requiring the victim to avoid being seen in public. The victim will often, without pressure, cover her injuries or go into hiding.

Such men silence their children using a rich combination of charm, fear, power, threats, and a sense of exclusivity.

Women stay with such men for many reasons, primarily because their lives are baptized in fear.

Before I am flooded with emails informing me that women can also be violent know that I am aware. But, it is predominantly men. The last four very recent incidents of domestic violence I have heard about have all been men.