{"id":1795,"date":"2012-08-07T03:00:07","date_gmt":"2012-08-07T07:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lettinggo\/?p=1795"},"modified":"2012-08-08T09:10:51","modified_gmt":"2012-08-08T13:10:51","slug":"tough-love-for-a-troublesome-teen","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2012\/08\/tough-love-for-a-troublesome-teen.html","title":{"rendered":"Tough Love for a Troublesome Teen"},"content":{"rendered":"

Question:<\/strong> My 15-year old stepson purposely causes trouble when he comes to visit. He has colored hair and chains around his neck connected by small locks. He smokes, and speaks in a stream of four-letter words. He says he hates God and reads about witchcraft. He is rude and shows no respect for others. He will not help or clean up after himself, and yet his mother defends him. Any suggestions for me?<\/p>\n

Answer:<\/strong> Children are no more than sponges in their early days of personality formation, and by the time they begin asserting themselves, these impressions they have come to incorporate in themselves (and express) are on their way to becoming hardened habits. The only hope such a child has — who may be aggressive and cruel, showing no consideration for others and beginning to exhibit dangerous anti-social behaviors — is for an adult to lay down some laws of rightness and respect. Without these guiding principles — established out of love but maintained with toughness — the child is little more than an animal with a human body who will, one day, harm himself and others in a fit of some sort. Each of us must weigh what we will and won’t do in the face of truth. I can\u2019t tell you what to do with such a child, but I will tell you that if I had attempted to make kind and necessary corrections to this child and he or she would not obey, I would never let such a child in my house.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Question: My 15-year old stepson purposely causes trouble when he comes to visit. He has colored hair and chains around his neck connected by small locks. He smokes, and speaks in a stream of four-letter words. He says he hates God and reads about witchcraft. He is rude and shows no respect for others. He…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":232,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,73],"tags":[425,1288,1285,1286,1287,192,1289],"class_list":["post-1795","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-raising-children","category-love-relationships","tag-aggression","tag-anti-social-behavior","tag-maintaining-a-healthy-relationship-with-your-teen","tag-rebellion","tag-stepchildren","tag-teenagers","tag-tough-love"],"yoast_head":"\nTough Love for a Troublesome Teen - Letting Go with Guy Finley<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lettinggo\/2012\/08\/tough-love-for-a-troublesome-teen.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tough Love for a Troublesome Teen - Letting Go with Guy Finley\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Question: My 15-year old stepson purposely causes trouble when he comes to visit. 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His ideas cut straight to the heart of our most important personal and social issues - relationships, success, addiction, stress, peace, happiness, freedom - and lead the way to a higher life. Finley is the Founder and Director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery. He is the acclaimed author of \"The Secret of Letting Go\" and more than 45 other books and audio programs that have sold over two million copies in 26 languages worldwide. His work is widely endorsed by doctors, business professionals, celebrities, and religious leaders of all denominations. Through Life of Learning Foundation, Guy has presented over 5,000 unique self-realization seminars to thousands of grateful students throughout North America and Europe over the past 20 years and has been a guest on over 700 television and radio shows, including national appearances on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, and NPR. 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