I have learned over the years both as a parent and as a school principal that it is good to withhold judgment when forming an opinion about teenagers. They are works in progress and often what you see is only a brief snapshot in time that does not reflect who they really are.
A case in point. Daniel was a rebellious teenager. He challenged authority every day and made the lives of teachers very unpleasant. He was one of the few students I was happy to see graduate. Twenty years later, I received a phone call from Daniel in which he apologized for his behavior in high school and asked me to forgive him. He was now married with children and had a totally different perspective on life. As an adult, he was “born again” as a normal human being and a productive member of society.
In The Breakfast Club, five students in a public high school in Illinois in 1984 discover who they are as they reveal themselves to each other in the course of a nine-hour Saturday detention. The cohort of students include John Bender, “the criminal,” Claire Standish, “the princess,” Brian Johnson, “the brain,” Andy Clark, “the athlete,” and Allison Reynolds, “the basket case.” The students rarely socialize with one another at school, but now they interact with one another because there are no other people to talk to.
In the course of their tense and profanity-laden conversations, it becomes clear that they all have dysfunctional relationships with their parents. When they finally open up to one another, they realize they have more in common than they thought. They no longer see others in terms of stereotypes, which is the way adults often perceive them. Rather they see themselves as complex human beings with a variety of conflicting traits, all of which help define them as unique human beings.
Jewish tradition provides guidance for parents who want to stay connected and be relevant to their children during their teenage years, who want their children to develop into good citizens who achieve and who are respectful of others. Joanne Doades, a Jewish educator, reminds parents to be good role models of consistency, honesty, and clarity. Moreover, parents need to build mutual trust with their children. To do this, it is wise not to have unrealistic expectations of children, and to speak to them with respect, acknowledging and accepting their individuality. Furthermore, although one should chastise kids when they do something wrong, one should be sure the rebuke is a reflection of a parent’s love, not his anger.
Doades emphasizes that “positive interactions should outweigh negative ones.” She references the Torah and Talmud: “If parents are always chastising their teens about the more annoying aspects of teen behavior (messy room, inattention to schoolwork, issues about money, laziness, loud music, to name a few), there will be little opportunity to normalize the relationship. The Torah warns against being vengeful or bearing a grudge (Leviticus 19:18) because such behavior can cause us to continuously view another through an overly negative lens. The advice of the Talmud (Sanhedrin 107b) is to discipline with the left (weaker) hand and to reach out with the right (stronger), so that reconciliation is possible. Relationships between today’s parents and teens can deteriorate quite quickly unless parents deal with difficult issues and move forward in a constructive way.”
The key to successful parenting is to aim not for control but for consultation. You should not want to control your kids; you should want them to desire to consult you, to glean your parental wisdom, as they navigate life’s challenges.
The Breakfast Club was made in 1985. I viewed a DVD version billed as “the 30th anniversary edition” of the film. Frankly, I had forgotten about the movie until one of my Facebook fans asked me why I did not review what he considered an important film in the annals of “coming of age” movies. That motivated me to revisit this classic, which I now realized had timeless messages about parenting.
Kosher Movies 