Effective v. Good or Right: A Strategy to Instill Accountability in Teens

Dec 27, 2022- When I worked as a school-based mental health counselor in a small middle/high school alternative program, one of the students, let’s call him Jordan, was referred to me for ongoing disruption in one of his classes. When I met with Jordan individually, he had just been suspended after swearing at the teacher in the middle of class.

In my office, Jordan expressed deep anger and resentment towards the teacher and was angry at the principal for the suspension. After being in and out of foster care for more than half his life, he had defiant parts, resilient parts, and parts of himself that kept him tough and from being too emotionally vulnerable. It was important for both of us that I treat him with the utmost respect during our meeting as we processed the latest altercation between him and the teacher and the subsequent suspension.

One of the tools I use in working with adolescents is approaching any situation with compassionate curiosity. This curiosity isn’t in service to finding out the truth of the situation to teach the child a lesson or prove a point but as a way to connect and build rapport. Compassionate curiosity is a way of conversing with young people to come to an understanding of their experience. When I relate in this way, and the teenager is calmed enough to explain what’s behind their actions, then there is always a logical reason—if I stand a moment in their shoes. 

In my conversation with Jordan, he replayed the scenario in which the teacher had called him out for incomplete assignments, wondering if he was “ever going to catch up or have to repeat the class again next year. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?” Jordan mocked the teacher’s words. His voice grew louder and rose to a higher pitch, “She disrespected me! And I’m fucking sick and tired of her disrespecting me! Fuck that! I’m not going to let anyone get away with disrespecting me!” So he swore at her and disrespected her in front of the class, feeling justified in doing so.

Here's what I did not do:

• remind him that he could make better choices

• tell him to calm down and not to swear

• explain the rules of the school

• remind him of the consequences of breaking the rules

• defend or explain the teacher’s actions

• defend or explain the principal’s actions

• assure him that the teacher, principal, and I only wanted what’s best for him

• suggest that he find a more appropriate way to express his anger

• tell him that two wrongs don’t make a right or any other moralistic proverbs or aphorisms

• express my concern that if he didn’t get his assignments completed, he might not graduate

Instead, I agreed with him.

She shouldn’t have disrespected him, he didn’t deserve to be disrespected, and I understood why he felt he had to stand up to her. I clarified with him that his goal was to not let her get away with the things she said and how she made him feel. He agreed. I also clarified that his goal was to stop anyone from disrespecting him.

“Yes, that’s right,” he said.

“So it sounds like your behavior was effective, given the goals you were trying to achieve, correct?” I asked.

“Yep!” he said.

“So what’s the problem then?”

“That dumb ass principal suspended me!” 

Many parents and service providers express their concerns that adolescents need to learn their lesson! Otherwise, they ominously predict that these kids will never learn to be responsible for their behavior. I agree that teaching adolescents to be accountable for their actions is important. We do them no favors by letting them get away with inappropriate behaviors or breaking rules. However, I continue to argue in favor of validation always being our frontline strategy. The fallout from skipping the validation can be minimal or drastic. Certainly, it is much more effective to start with the validation process.  

This question—Was the action you took effective given the goal you set out to achieve?—addresses the need for validation and accountability.

I validated Jordan’s experience of being disrespected, his need to stand up for himself, and his goal of not standing for any more disrespect in his life without consequences for the person who disrespected him. I agreed that his behavior in the face of this was effective.

Then I was able to move the conversation to the suspension. Jordan admitted that he was aware of the rules and consequences for swearing and verbally abusing staff at the school. I asked him if that made a difference in his decision to swear at his teacher, and he said it didn’t.

“So doesn’t it make sense,” I asked him, “that you accept the consequence? You achieved your goal. And you knew the consequence. If you had the goal of not being suspended, then your behavior would not have been the most effective thing to do. So you have to decide: stand up to the teacher or avoid suspension.” This made sense to Jordan.

Only then was I able to effectively introduce the idea that there were other ways to stand up for himself, not to accept the disrespect, and also to avoid infractions, that there were ways to navigate this differently in the future that were even more effective. From there, we were able to brainstorm ways he could appropriately confront the teacher, including mediation between him and the teacher to resolve the personality conflict.

Here is the outline for this strategy I successfully use in my conversation with teenagers:

• Compassionate curiosity—Help me understand why you did what you did.

• What was your goal in doing what you did?

• Did you achieve that goal?

• Yes, then your behavior was effective. (This is true even if the behavior was not appropriate or valid. Address the actual behavior at a later date.)

• And there are consequences for our actions. If your goal was to avoid those consequences, then your behavior was ineffective.

• You get to choose your goal, how to proceed to achieve that goal, and if you are willing to be accountable for those actions.

This strategy takes the charge out of our conversations with teenagers. We treat them respectfully, help them see that their actions make sense from a certain perspective, and set them up to willingly be accountable. Accountability is much easier to accept without complaint when they know that they chose it. Likewise, we don’t set ourselves up to be the authoritarian agents who wrestle choice away from adolescents. Instead, we scaffold them as they learn how to self-advocate with the ability to choose what they feel is best at any given moment and how to accept the consequences of those actions.

 Photo by shaiith