The following is a selection from the book Raising Children Who Think For Themselves by Dr. Eisa Medhus. From the chapter titled "Specific Child Rearing Challenges - How to Handle Them to Encourage Self-Direction", the following introduction is offered.

"The best way to make children good is to make them happy." - Oscar Wilde

Here are some inner-directed suggestions that will help with some of the most trying child-rearing difficulties we may stumble upon. All of these approaches are designed to preserve your children's ability to rely on internal dialogue instead of external influences to assess and correct their behavior. Using this section as a ready reference will help you raise a self-directed child, even if it means carrying the book, tattered and tear-stained, to the market, in the car, or at home. There are some challenges that, I hope you will never have to face, but others will be as inevitable as a pimple on prom night.

To get to self-direction, there are a few universal caveats for every one of the situations that follow. First, our children need to understand and agree with both the need for the furl and the consequence for breaking it. Only when they come to agree with our rules, through their own internal dialogue, will they become self-directed. Second, look to your own parenting strategy as the possible source of some of the problem. Are you over-controlling or over-protective? Either trait can elicit an externally directed response, as your children react to an unhealthy situation. Third, remember for all these parenting challenges how important it is for you as parents, to model the right behavior. If you're expecting your children to act one way and you act another, the double standard will throw a monkey wrench into their whole internal dialogue machinery.

And lastly, don't forget to laugh.

Why they do it

Children break their curfew because they lose track of time, are naïve enough to think they can get by with it, are having too much fun to call it quits, want to be treated as if they're older than they really are, or want to rebel against being over-controlled.

Logical consequences

No matter what type of curfew your children break (using the telephone or returning home), they should automatically have their curfew time shortened by an hour or two for one week to one month, depending on how badly it has been broken. You can bypass this consequence if there was a reasonable excuse or if it's their first offense.

For repeat offenders, take away telephone privileges or ground them from leaving the house at night, depending on what type of curfew was broken.

Solutions toward self-direction

Don't impose overly strict curfews. A lot depends on how responsible your children are, where they plan to go, how bad the crime is in your area, and so on.

Use impartial descriptions and give information: "You're using the telephone past your curfew."

Use questioning: "Until what time are you allowed to use the telephone?" "Why do you think we have that rule?" "What time is it now?"

Give choices: "Lisa, you can abide by our phone curfew, or I can remove the phone from your room." "Bob, when you show more respect for our phone curfew, you can get your phone privileges back."

Use humor: Stick a picture of a phone in the throes of exhaustion (tongue hanging out and all) on their phone when curfew time approaches.