Families with Adolescents: Escaping Problem Lifestyles^†

Using the concepts of “restraints” and reciprocal patterns, a specific approach for understanding and working with families of adolescents is offered. The organizing idea is the “restraint” that revolves around a difficulty both parents and youngsters have in making a distinction between what parents want for their youngsters and what the young person might want. This difficulty may come from the parents' ideas and beliefs about parenting and from their own growing-up experience, from the adolescent's “not completely storied” lives, and/or from societal discourse about adolescence. Restraint of ideas can be constructed as reciprocal patterns and located in dominant narratives that families may have about themselves. A restorying process allows families to separate from the problem pattern and focus on the youngsters' willingness to have ideas for themselves.