Parenting with Love and Logic: Teaching Children Responsibility

by Foster W. Cline

They “know better” but still try drugs. They ignore good advice from parents and other adults and dabble with sex. Though they have been warned to be cautious, they are still lured into meetings by Internet predators. Why do young people sometimes seem so stupidly self-destructive? The tragic truth is that many of these foolish choices are the first real decisions they have ever made. In childhood, decisions were always made for them by well-meaning parents. We must understand that making good choices is like any other activity: It has to be learned. The teenagers who make the wrong choice on alcohol are probably the same children who never learned how to keep their hands out of the cookie jar.