Tough Love

Tough Love is a widely used term. Many parents know about tough love, but don't actually know what it is. I attempt to describe tough love in this page. My goal is to make you a more informed parent so you can make a more informed decision about what to do with your troubled teen. This page will describe what tough love consists of, who the enforcers are of tough love and who tough love works with, why you would use tough love, when to practice tough love and when not to practice tough love and where tough love begins.

Tough love is a term with extensive background. Tough love is an organization that teaches a behavior modification program for parents. It teaches parents how to change their behaviors in order to effect positive change in their kids. The ToughLove organization began in 1979 when two trained family therapists and substance abuse counselors were seeing the same behaviors in their teenagers as with their patients. With such extensive background in counseling, they developed a program that included setting and enforcing appropriate limits and peer support in the form of a support group for parents.

I want to be clear that I am writing about the term "tough love" and not the organization ToughLove. I believe that this term has negative connotations with most parents because it indicates that those parents that enforce structure and discipline don't care about their children. In actuality, structure indicates just that; the parents who practice this actually care greatly about their children.

Structure and discipline is about changing the parent, not the teens. Defiant teens need structure, limits and discipline in addition to care and affection. Defiant teens need the boundaries because teen life is about testing boundaries, stretching the limit, and seeing what is possible. Teens are in the experimental stage where they want to experience all new things. Teens are at the age where they have realized there are so many possibilities to life. New possibilities without boundaries can be a dangerous combination. Defiant teens will push these limits. Without enforcing both the limits and the consequences associated with breaking the limits, the defiant teen will learn that rules don't apply to them.

Structure and discipline is the parents teaching the teens that rules apply to everyone and limits must be adhered to. Boundaries begin with parents and extends to teens. Firm structure is a mind set of consistency and follow through. When a rule is set, it is expected that the rule will be followed. If the rule is broken, appropriate consequences are the put in place. The rules, the rewards and the consequences are setup in advance of the rule going into affect. This allows the issuance of consequences to be made without anger.

While tough love is an important concept, there is also a very important aspect that is left out. Structure needs to start before the child is a teen. Boundaries need to be a part of the teens life before the teen begins acting out. This makes it extremely difficult to implement because most parents won't implement discipline and structure until the discipline and structure is necessary. By the time structure and discipline is necessary, is it extremely difficult to implement without outside assistance. It is here, that I come in. I work with specialty schools and programs that offer a structured environment that implements structure.