The Common Mistake Parents Make Trying To Control Their Child’s Behavior

It’s easy for parents to attribute their child’s poor behavior to a friend who they believe is a “bad influence.” Kids often get into trouble in pairs or groups, so there’s generally someone there to take the blame. And criticizing someone else’s child allows parents to hold onto the belief that their own child is fundamentally “good” — that they wouldn’t have engaged in the misbehavior were it not for the influence of their peer.

There are a couple of problems with this line of thinking. By characterizing children as intrinsically good or bad, parents run the risk of leading their children to believe that they are bad people when they do something wrong. Instead, viewing all children as essentially good people who sometimes make poor decisions allows kids room for personal growth.

In addition, parents generally follow up the naming of a friend as a bad influence with a prohibition on spending time with that friend — and new research shows that this approach tends to backfire.

We know that as kids move into middle school, they tend to place increasing value on the opinions of their peers as they try to find their place in the social landscape.

“As children get older, their peers become more and more prominent in their physical lives and their psychological lives,” Christine Legare, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, told HuffPost. The impact of peer influence is very real, and can lead to kids making dangerous choices.

Research has consistently shown, for example, that teen drivers are more likely to get into a car accident when there are other passengers in the car, particularly when those passengers are their peers. In 2022, 56% of teens who died in car crashes were in cars being driven by another teen. This is one of the reasons most states now have graduated license requirements that restrict who else can be in the car when a teen is driving. These changes are credited with a substantial decrease in the number of teen car crashes. Without friends in the car, teen drivers are less likely to speed or take their eyes off the road.

The reasons that teens are more likely to do something “wrong” when they are with their peers, as opposed to alone or with their parents, are both social and biochemical.

“There are neurological changes that take place in the brain that actually increase the salience of input from peers,” Brett Laursen, a professor of psychology at Florida Atlantic University, told HuffPost.

While removing the presence of peers makes sense from a vehicle safety standpoint, banning kids from seeing a friend who a parent believes is a bad influence doesn’t have positive effects on the child’s social standing or their behavior, a recent study authored by Laursen found.

Researchers followed 562 9- to 14-year-olds in Lithuania over the course of a school year, administering several different surveys that asked about other children’s popularity and classroom behavior. They also asked students to report on their own behavior and whether their mothers disapproved of any of their friendships. (The study did not ask about the disapproval of fathers or other caregivers.)

They found that the behavior of students who reported that their mothers disapproved of a friend did not improve — in fact, it got worse. Children who had conduct problems were more likely to report maternal disapproval of their friendships. This maternal disapproval was associated with a decrease in the children’s status among their peers, which in turn was associated with an increase in misbehavior. The mothers’ disapproval exacerbated the very problem they hoped to correct.

One possible explanation for this chain of events is that when the child lost a friend because of their mother’s disapproval, they lost social capital. Laursen points out that the person with more friends generally has more influence in a relationship. When a child loses a friend, they lose influence over their peers, which also means that making new friends will be more difficult for them.

“You need friends to navigate middle school, and so children will do just about anything to keep friends,” Laursen said. “That’s why children without very many friends are particularly vulnerable to peer influence, because they don’t want to run the risk of friendlessness.”

Laursen emphasized that the study’s authors in no way intend to pass judgement on the way parents react to their children’s misbehavior. Forbidding time with a friend is an understandable reaction. But it can have unintended consequences.

“You really don’t want to be in a position of ‘It’s my way or your friend’s way,’ because as children are moving through this time period where age mates become so much more important than parents, you don’t want to put yourself in a position where they have to pick — because you’re not going to win,” Laursen said.

“The people who influence us are people that we have warm, close relationships with,” he continued, so this is the kind of relationship you want to cultivate with your child.

Making a friendship forbidden, Legare said, “puts a parent into a position of adversary, which rarely turns out as it should.”

Instead, she suggests that parents aim for being more of an ally and an advocate for their children. When there is misbehavior with a peer, she recommended that parents try “to understand your child, your child’s choices, and who they’re gravitating to and what they’re getting out of that relationship.” When parents understand what is going on with their child, she said, the less gatekeeping they will need to do. You might ask your child what they like about spending time with a particular friend, or what they think makes someone a good friend and whether their friend does those things.

A warm, close relationship, however, doesn’t mean not having boundaries and letting kids do whatever they want. It’s not the same as permissive parenting.

“You express limits and boundaries in ways that say, ‘I’m doing this because I care for you,’” Laursen said.

If, for example, a parent discovered that their 14-year-old was vaping with a friend, instead of prohibiting time with that friend, they might explain why vaping is a behavior that concerns them and talk about long-term health consequences. A teen, Laursen said, wants “to be treated like an adult who can make an informed decision.”

This doesn’t mean a parent should permit vaping, of course, and it shouldn’t stop them from enacting consequences, perhaps revoking privileges like use of the car or unsupervised time with friends.

A parent should communicate, “This is not about me being angry with you. This is about me protecting you and enforcing boundaries that are truly in your best interest,” Legare said.

The more a parent can understand a teen’s perspective, the more likely they are to be able to help. You want to know, “What their mental world is like, what are their priorities? What are their fears, what are their concerns?” Legare said. If they are using vaping to cope with anxiety, you’ll need a different plan than if they tried out of curiosity, or because of peer pressure. It can be helpful for parents to remember their own experiences when they were their child’s age, Legare added.

Your focus should be on the behavior, not the child’s relationship with their friend — which was a friendship that your child chose to be part of — and on what you can do to maintain a warm, close relationship with your child, increasing the odds that they will come to you for advice when a problem arises.

“The more compassion and common ground you have, the better,” Legare said.