With the privilege of freedom comes self-learned experiences. And with self-learned experiences comes the responsibility of all the consequences that follow. Parents know this statement well, but many teens don’t realize the weight of their actions until they walk into bad situations by themselves. Everyone has different experiences growing up. That’s why I believe the talk of 'freedom' is a matter of perspective in which the parent decides based on their past experiences and the understanding of their own child.
I believe that most parents decide the personal freedom, or lack thereof, given to their children either based on their own past experience. From my observations, they also base their decisions of raising a child either on vicarious intentions or their learned wisdom.
There are so many different experiences and in turn consequences that people go through when transitioning into adulthood. If you think about it, parents who were given a lot of freedom as teenagers likely dealt with many situations they regret. They would, in turn, limit the amount of freedom given to their child as an attempt to prevent them from going through the same regretful experiences. Whereas parents who didn’t have that same freedom may resent the fact that they didn’t get to experience much during their teen years. It’s pretty reasonable to assume they'd give their children more freedom as a result.
Then there are parents who as teens rebelled against strict household rules and ones who were given the freedom but didn’t pursue it much. There are so many given situations that each brew different learned experiences. That’s what makes the concept of ‘freedom given to teens’ so diverse to everyone.
I’ve only based my opinion on the interpretation I get from observing many of the other parent-to-teen relationships that are present in my life. I believe it ultimately comes down to giving teenagers the right amount of freedom with the right amount of discipline.
Many believe that giving freedom to a teen means allowing them to experience life and discover new things. But that also opens the opportunity for them to make life decisions that we’d rather them not make. Such as doing drugs, having unprotected sex, driving under the influences; things that are too grave to be considered “common mistakes” or “learned experiences” and should be prevented rather than dealt with. I think that giving supervised freedom while also creating disciplinary measures is a good way of balancing the sensitive line of freedom and recklessness. This involves creating a comfortable environment for a teen to be honest, and a disciplined one for them to be equally respectful.
In all honesty, knowing that there are so many potential bad situations a teen could walk into, I would be very scared about giving them freedom at a young age. Though at the same time, I understand that freedom during teenage years provides the opportunity for them to develop their own memorable and hopefully safe experiences, especially before college. So I would like to think that if I raised a teenager, I could give them a reasonable amount of freedom. With the deal that they’re getting good grades, their mental health is good, and that they didn’t do anything to break my trust. Before allowing a teen to have a reasonable amount of freedom, it's crucial to have a parent-to-child understanding that communication is a must and that trust is earned.
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