While I was on my walk this morning, a young man who
looked to be about 19 showed me a picture on his phone of his kid brother, and
asked if I'd seen him or his bike. Apparently his 13 year old brother decided not
to come home yesterday after his mother told him she'd be confiscating his phone.The
older brother was so worried that he'd been up all night trying to find him,
and was now looking for him in the little wooded area near our neighborhood.
Surely there's a lot more to this particular
situation, but in general, I wonder what's going on at home when kids decide to
run away?
I'm guessing they are feeling some combination of frustration, anger,
and powerlessness. The kids must feel like they are better off rolling the dice
than trying to work it out with their parents.
I doubt that running away is the
first thing a kid thinks of when the going gets rough. I suspect that option
only comes into play after many episodes of not feeling heard or respected,
until they eventually come to believe that there's no hope of ever working it
out.
And I'm betting that the parents are
well-intentioned, but not aware of the dynamic they have created in their home.
Strategies like control, coercion, bribery, and punishment almost always backfire
at some point, and often that point is right around 13 when a kid starts to feel
enough confidence that leaving or standing their ground by fighting back actually
feels possible to them. Sure, that
confidence is often misplaced, but that's just par for the course when it comes
to normal adolescent brain development.
I am bummed that parents have to work so hard to
acquire effective strategies and find support while raising their kids. I
passionately wish that parenting was a required course in high school right up
there with math and language arts. (And while
we are dreaming up useful curriculum, let's throw some financial literacy in
there for good measure.)
It's really not that hard to avoid power struggles with
your kid once you know effective strategies, which typically consist of connecting,
listening, collaborating, setting limits, and helping kids to develop consequential thinking
skills.
Parents can do this without yelling or
threatening, I promise. Parents and kids may still disagree, but the fundamental
respectful connection remains intact, and the kid knows the parent will hear
them out. In a relationship like this, running away just doesn't look appealing.
So this kid in my neighborhood is gone, and his family
is understandably freaking out. What should they do next? They need to create a
re-entry plan and communicate it to his friends so it gets back to him. He
needs to know exactly how things will unfold upon his return. Being 13, he probably
wasn't thinking about how this would end. It's likely starting to occur to him
that he can't make it out there on his own, but he is probably also afraid of
what will happen to him if he goes home.
The re-entry plan I'd recommend would look
something like this:
1) When you come home, you can eat a warm meal
and sleep for as long as you need to before we talk about anything.
2) When we do talk, you can choose someone to be
with us to help - a friend's parent, a relative, a coach, teacher, counselor or
youth pastor.
3) Our relationship will change. We'll talk
about why you felt you needed to leave, and we will address it together. This
doesn't mean we'll stop setting limits, but we will learn a better way to do
it.
4) We will start getting some kind
of ongoing support as a family to make sure that the changes that need to happen will stick.
5) Since we are human, we won't do this
perfectly every time. If you start to feel the urge to run away again, we need a
safety plan. Let's come up with a safe place for you to take a break (friend's
house, etc).
Anyway, hopefully that kid makes it home today
and the re-entry goes well enough that he sticks around. But in case someone
else needs this info, I hope this helps.
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