If you feel uncomfortable asserting authority, can you learn to exercise this responsibility? Yes. You can practice a number of simple authority behaviors that all communicate that you are in a position of authority. Simple acts of authority include:

• Requesting information or asking questions about the child's life: “I want to know.”

• Confronting issues in the child's life that you want to dis-cuss: “We need to talk about this.”

• Making demands for actions to be taken: “You need to do the following before you go.”

• Setting limits on freedom: “You're not allowed.”

• Expecting that agreements and promises be kept: “I will hold you to your word.”

• Repeatedly insisting that an activity be accomplished: “I will keep after you until you get it done.”

• Applying consequences (both positive and negative): “You have to work off the damage that you did.”

• Advising the child on the best course of action: “In my opinion, this is what you need to do.”

• Controlling what kinds of support you will give and what kinds you won't: “We won't buy you those kinds of clothes.”

• Making judgments about what is going right and wrong in the child's life: “In our judgment, you handled that situation very well.”

• Creating conditions on which freedom is based: “What we allow you to do partly depends on getting accurate and adequate information about what is going on in your life.”

By practicing behaviors such as these, with sincerity and without backing off, parents will establish their authority.

Do not use threats to assert your authority. A true threat inspires fear, while an empty threat is like a broken promise. It causes the child to lose trust in your word. Commitments work better than threats: “If you choose not to do what I asked, then I will do what I said.”