29. The Teenager Contact Rebus

As we have demonstrated, contact rebuses exist not only in romantic liaisons but in all relationships. To gain further understanding of the prerequisites for motivational work and the functions of contact rebuses, we must also describe the relationship between parents and children.

When two people are in love, the relationship is equal in that both partners have the same needs to fulfill. However, the parent-child relationship is based on two unequal parties; the onus is on one to look after the other and the parent has different needs to that of the child. Another difference is that contact rebuses in children and teenagers take on another guise to those of adults. As before, we will continue our discussion of only the manifestly motivated (Motivational Work, Part 1: Values and Theory, page 159 – 205).

Case Study

Alice is 13 years old and a very conscientious and responsible girl. She is one of the top pupils in her class and sets a high standard for herself when it comes to homework and various assignments, whilst she also regularly participates in a number of extracurricular activities. When agreeing about family arrangements, Alice’s parents really feel they can trust their daughter, and Alice now discusses with them a potential visit to the cinema with a friend that evening. She has done this before; she knows which bus to take home and to avoid certain areas etc. Alice agrees to be home by 9.30 pm at the latest, and just before leaving, she double checks with her parents that 9.30 pm was the agreed time.

At 10 pm she still hasn’t returned, and her parents are starting to become a little anxious as Alice has always given them a call to tell them she is going to be late. They try to come up with reasonable explanations, such as Alice and her friend have met someone they know, got talking and then forgotten the time. At 10.30 pm, the parents are getting more anxious and wondering where Alice has got to – the clock is ticking on and there’s still no sign of their daughter. A little over 10.30 pm and they really start to worry and decide that her father will take the car into town to look for her while her mother stays by the phone to be the communication hub.

Just as her father is about to leave, Alice turns up. Her parents are extremely relieved and happy to see her and shower her with hugs and affection. They immediately start to ask her where she has been and tell her how worried they were. They also tell her that her father was about to go and look for her while her mother waited by the phone. Alice, failing to understand that her late arrival could provoke such reactions, is completely nonplussed at her parents’ agitation and worry.

After their visit to the cinema, Alice and her friend thought it would be nice to go and have a cup of tea at a well-known café. They had been there for a while, talking, and then took the bus home. Alice appears to be very pleased with her parents’ concern for her and asks them several times to relate just how worried they were. As for Alice and her friend, they hadn’t even given a thought to calling home.

The next day, Alice’s parents have a talk with her about the implications of coming to an agreement and how one party is affected if the other deviates from it without notification. Like most parents, they expect her to tell them if she is going to be late and even offer to collect her if necessary. Because they still trust their daughter, Alice’s parents tell her that she can continue to go out by herself. Alice never comes home late in this way again. Either she arrives home on time or calls her parents if she is going to be late, and sometimes asks to be collected.

Need for Affirmation

The teenager Alice is demonstrating an extra need for affirmation, and by not being conscientious, she receives greater affirmation than if she always does things right. She finds out how much she means to her parents and how much they love her. She also receives confirmation of how much her parents trust her. Like the person in love, her testing is subconscious. Her actions provoke such strong affirmation that she need not test in this way again.

Further, the social conditioning and boundary setting elements of this test teach Alice that it is important to give notification if she is going to be late and that others will worry if she doesn’t. Since Alice is a secure individual and has parents who love her very much, she does not need to perform a more ‘aggressive’ test than coming home a few hours late. In other words, she is manifestly motivated and so are her parents.

Through the contact rebus, the teenager forces his parents to demonstrate where they stand emotionally. In Alice’s case, the test provokes a stronger reaction from her parents than if they had verbally expressed how much they loved her. Alice receives strong affirmation through the actions of the parents: they both give her a hug when she comes home, her father was going to go and look for her, and her mother was communications standby.

For the parents, anxiety over their daughter also put a stop to all other activities – they had actually been looking forward to some time to themselves. This, in addition to their continuing to trust Alice, is a powerful demonstration of acknowledgment.

Apart from their actions, the more the parents’ emotions escalate, the more they show they care. Whilst actions can be performed in a perfunctory fashion, if they are accompanied by strong and apparent emotional responses, the teenager receives greater affirmation