Teen parent contracts templates

They can state the privileges they think they can handle. Some possibilities:. It is your job to determine if the request is reasonable or too far of a reach. Then you can put into place very specific guidance and boundaries. Even sign and date it. Just below, you can download a blank plan for your family to complete you will need Adobe Reader to complete it. The plan works best when teens select privileges they can handle. When they can easily live up to expectations. When they hear all that they need to do to maintain that privilege, they are forced to think hard about whether or not they are ready for it.

Remind your teens that when they demonstrate responsible behavior for 3 months you will revisit the contract and they will have an opportunity to ask for privileges to expand.

This reinforces that there is a real benefit to following through on commitments. Sometimes, there are the really serious problems like when one of your absolute rules is broken. In those cases, you jump in following all of your protective instincts to ensure your child is safe. You might find this piece with hints about when to jump in helpful under these challenging circumstances. But many more cases will involve minor problems that stem from oversights or overreaching. For example, they might have come home twenty minutes late without having called with a reasonable excuse.

You choose to revoke that privilege for a period of time until they demonstrate responsibility long enough to earn it back. This feels different than a punishment. Punishments, like grounding, make sense only if you can make a case that real dangers exist. On the other hand, consequences directly tied to their behavior do make sense. Allowing them to return to a place where they demonstrated responsible behavior helps them to understand they are in control of their lives.

They learn that their actions have consequences. You know best where to create boundaries or what privileges your child is ready for. All young people must expand privileges over time as a successful strategy to ensure healthy development. Our boundaries must reflect safety and morality. Safety is different for everyone. It must take into account the neighborhood, peer group, and family circumstances. Similarly, individual differences must be considered.

Social Skills Contract. Behavior Report for School. Behavior Contract. Therapeutic Worksheets. Behavior Contract2. Monthly Goal Chart. Child Behavior Program.

Temperament Scale. Log of Consequences. Chore Chart. Hourly Feelings Chart. Hygiene Chart. Parent's Role-Modeling Chart. Positive Behavior Certificate. Exercise Chart. That's right! Where else can you find a deal like that? Your final contract should be the results of negotiation and compromise , taking everybody's ideas into consideration. If the whole idea of a Home Rules Contract threatens to break down when an agreement cannot be reached between two or more parties, particularly parents, the entire family should strongly consider visiting a social worker or family therapist, even if only for one visit, to get an objective third party to help break the log jam and create a Home Contract that everybody can live with.

However, some items should not be negotiable, such as a teen demanding a curfew that is later than what the law in your area would allow for his or her particular age group. What are Appropriate Consequences? Parents should provide progressive consequences for refusal to follow rules and directions. Unfortunately, some parents, in an effort to "get tough" on their wayward teen, will go overboard and ground the child for weeks and weeks for a single incident.

The rationale behind punishment should be primarily to offer an unpleasant learning experience so that the teen will learn to correct his own behavior and not repeat the offending action. For most teens, a punishment that consists of weeks of grounding on a first offense is too long and will cause further resentment rather than be a learning experience for the teen. Steps to Creating a Home Rules Contract. A Sample Contract with three items is included below.

The items below are only suggestions to get you started. Parents must take their own individual circumstances and priorities into account when setting up the individual items in a Home Rules Contract. Some items that might be considered priorities, other than those listed below, might include profanity or abusive language towards other family members, homework issues for students with poor grades, and violent behavior towards family members, including pushing, shoving, and slapping.

NOTE: For the safety of everybody involved, police should be called for ALL violent episodes that occur on the part of the teen with the perceived intent of injuring a family member or destroying property that belongs to other family members.

Violence that has no consequences will continue to escalate and could eventually result in a serious incident, so this type of behavior needs to be halted immediately by allowing the teen to experience serious consequences for the violent behavior police, charges and possible court date.

It sounds harsh to call the police on your own child, but it is better to have the teen learn from you that violence will never be tolerated, and that this behavior is absolutely forbidden, than for your teen to wind up in jail down the road because he never had any consequences for violence at home. An old saying states that if a parent does not properly discipline a child, eventually society will do the disciplining.

In summary, a Home Rules Contract that has been carefully thought out and agreed to by all parties can provide much structure to a teen who is having difficulty staying out of trouble.

A Blank Home Rules contract for you to get started is provided by clicking on the below link. This blank contract can be printed on your printer by clicking on the printer icon in your browser. To order this free pamphlet, click the link below and fill out the form. A pamphlet will be mailed to you as soon as your request is received. How to Write a Home Rules Contract.