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Keeping Your Teenager Accountable: The Home Behavior Contract

If your child seems to have been swapped out for a moderately mischievous twin, nothing diabolical is happening. They have moved from tween to teen and started testing the water on their way toward independence. The trip makes stops at rebellion, laziness, forgetfulness, disorganization and plain weirdness — which is exactly why boundaries matter more now, not less.

What helps is a compass: clearly stated responsibilities and rules with rewards and consequences attached. Nothing states it more clearly than a written contract. It may feel a little Type-A, but it saves time and shortens arguments when everyone in the house already knows the expectation. Start with the relationship: rules imposed without a solid foundation between you invite rebellion. With that foundation in place, a contract is genuinely useful — it holds your teen accountable while you keep a reasonable amount of control. It is a working agreement, not a way to settle feelings.

Rules, Consequences and Privileges

Every item in the contract needs three parts

  • Define the rule — the expected behavior
  • Define the consequence when it is not met
  • Define the privilege that stays in place when it is

One item, written all the way through: Rule: home right after school unless arrangements were made in advance — advance means the day before at the latest, no same-day plans. On approved plans, home by 8:00 p.m. on school nights and 11:00 p.m. on other nights. · Consequence: for the next week, home twice as early as they were late. Thirty minutes late means curfew is an hour earlier. · Privilege: keeps the current curfew, or works up to a later one.

Your teen may believe that a phone, a laptop, screen time and time with friends are rights. They are not — they are privileges that can be lost and restored based on behavior. Appropriate behavior keeps them in place; inappropriate behavior costs them.

Keep privileges and consequences natural and logical. Tie the consequence to the behavior wherever you can: if the phone is supposed to be down by 9:30 p.m. and it is not, the phone goes for a day.

Staging a consequence — phone use, for example

  • First time: loses an hour and a half of phone time the next evening.
  • Second time: loses the phone for the following day.
  • Third time: loses the phone entirely until respect is shown, an apology is made, and they write down how they will follow the rule. Then they start with reduced time and earn their way back to full use.

Rewards are easier to come up with than consequences. Remember too that sometimes the natural consequence of your teen's actions is enough on its own — if they shoplift and are cited for theft, you probably do not need to add anything. The legal system is an effective consequence. If it happens again, that is a different conversation.

What Teenagers Care About

Know this list before you set consequences — it is what gives a consequence any weight. If your teen cares about something that is not here, add it, and use your own version of the list when you choose consequences. In no particular order:

Ten things that matter to most teens

  • Money
  • Their phone
  • Freedom
  • Clothing
  • Cars
  • Trust
  • Appearance
  • Their stuff — headphones, gaming console, whatever they saved for
  • Time spent with them
  • Screen time and their social media accounts

Build Your Contract

Check the items you want in your household's contract and ignore the rest — this is a menu, not a standard. Adjust the specifics, especially times, to fit your family and the age of your teen.

Personal Responsibility

  • [ ] Keep room neat and clean, and make the bed every morning
  • [ ] Tidy the bathroom after using it
  • [ ] Help with household chores without arguing
  • [ ] Wash and put away own clothes
  • [ ] Pick up after yourself
  • [ ] Respect other people's property — ask before using it
  • [ ] Respect privacy — everyone in the family knocks and waits before entering a room
  • [ ] No drugs or alcohol

Going Out

  • [ ] Get permission from a parent before going out
  • [ ] School nights: no going out after supper
  • [ ] Special events on a school night need permission in advance
  • [ ] Non-school nights and weekends: home before 11:00 p.m.
  • [ ] No calling to ask to stay out later — extensions are arranged in advance or not at all
  • [ ] Before leaving, tell a parent where you will be, who you will be with, and a number where you can be reached
  • [ ] A change of plans means a call or text home, and the curfew still stands
  • [ ] Quiet and in your room by 10:30 p.m. on school nights and midnight on other nights

House Rules

  • [ ] Overnight guests need approval in advance — and an hour beforehand is not in advance
  • [ ] Staying overnight at a friend's house needs approval in advance
  • [ ] Bedrooms are not for hosting dates or partners
  • [ ] If you take the last of anything, write it on the shopping list

Family

  • [ ] Two nights a week, everyone is home
  • [ ] One family outing a month, attendance expected
  • [ ] Meals are eaten in the kitchen or dining room — no phones, texting or TV during meals

School

  • [ ] Attendance is not optional
  • [ ] No excuse for being late
  • [ ] Homework is not optional — complete and turned in on time
  • [ ] Maintain a C average or better

Allowance

  • [ ] Allowance is paid at the end of the week

Agreed rate

e.g. Amount per week

______________________________________________

Extra money can be earned for

e.g. Specific jobs and what each one pays

______________________________________________

Other Areas to Cover

  • [ ] Driving — when, whose car, who pays for gas, who rides along
  • [ ] Phone and computer use — hours, where devices charge overnight, what is off limits
  • [ ] Social media accounts — which ones, what gets posted, who can see it
  • [ ] A job — hours, and how it fits around school
  • [ ] Any medication — taken as prescribed
  • [ ] Dating — what is allowed and at what age

Anything else your household needs in the contract

e.g. Write the rule, the consequence and the privilege for each

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

______________________________________________

Attaching Rewards and Consequences

Once the expected behaviors are listed, attach the privileges and consequences. Privileges stay when rules are followed and go when they are not. In some areas you may want a reward on top — improved grades earn a night at the movies; slipping grades mean fewer nights out until they come back up.

Ideas for rewards

  • Extra screen time
  • Pick a movie for the weekend
  • Choose dinner
  • Have a friend over
  • Stay out an extra thirty minutes
  • Extra time with the game console

Ideas for consequences

  • Loss of computer use
  • Loss of the phone
  • Extra chores
  • Earlier curfew
  • Loss of TV or gaming
  • An apology letter with a specific plan for doing it differently

When it is finished, parents and teen sign and date it and everyone keeps a copy. By signing, your teen has agreed to be accountable for their behavior. Expect to fine-tune it over time — life happens, and you will need to add behaviors or get more specific about an expectation that turned out to be fuzzy.

Date signed, and the date we will review it

e.g. MM/DD/YYYY · review on MM/DD/YYYY

______________________________________________

The argument moves off you and onto the page: Most nightly standoffs are not about curfew — they are about whether the rule was ever real. Written down and signed, it is real, and your job shifts from inventing a punishment while angry to simply keeping an agreement you both made while calm.

Go deeper

Ready for more? These lessons pick up where this worksheet leaves off.

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