A backbone parent is the one to be, writes sometimes jellyfish mother Kathryn Holmquist

You can't keep consistent rules. You can't walk across your bedroom floor because of all the clothes strewn there. You stay calm during crises then lose your patience over the slightest thing and when you make a promise, often as not you break it. Yes, it's tough being a parent - especially when you act like a teenager.

Parents are always asking: "How do we encourage our children to grow into responsible teenagers?" "Show them by example," is the obvious answer. But that's never easy - and it's harder for some parents than others.

Take jellyfish parents, for example. These are parents who - according to US parenting guru Barbara Coloroso (a former Franciscan nun and mother of three teenagers) - set no consistent rules. Like a jellyfish, the jellyfish family has no firm parts and reacts to every eddy and current that comes along.

When a jellyfish teenager comes home with a pierced tongue, the jellyfish mother is likely to go out and get something pierced too. There are no parents in a jellyfish family, just competing individuals. Jellyfish parents can be very loving, but without the consistent guidance that should accompany unconditional love, jellyfish children remain adrift.

At the opposite end of the spectrum is the brick-wall type. A brick wall is a non-living barrier that restricts and controls and never changes. Brick-wall parents raise children who know what to think but not how to think and who lack a true sense of self.

Both brick-wall and jellyfish parents rear children who, writes Coloroso, "have neither faith in themselves nor hope for the future and are therefore at risk of damage or destruction from the three horsemen of the adolescent apocalypse: sexual promiscuity, drug abuse and suicide. Neither family provides the structure a child can use as a backbone for developing mentally, physically, sexually, emotionally and morally."

A backbone parent is the kind to be. Backbone parents are the supple spine that gives form, structure and movement to the whole body, but not in an overly rigid way. They bend the rules when there are good reasons to do so, but they also keep the rules most of the time.

Backbone children are secure in themselves and have inner discipline, even in the face of adversity and peer pressure. At its simplest level, the backbone child who is settled in a routine of putting on pyjamas, brushing teeth, going to bed at a reasonable hour and reading will continue to do that even after the child leaves home.

Backbone parents never threaten, shout, nag, hit or punish. They simply let children live with the natural or logical consequences of their actions. If a child doesn't do a promised chore, then the child doesn't go out to play with friends that day. End of story. No shouting, just consequences. And, when the child shouts, cries or sulks, the backbone parent ignores the provocation and calmly repeats the rule: "When you've done your chore, you can go out and play."

Backbone parents don't demand respect, they demonstrate it by treating their children with respect and empathy. This doesn't mean that they let their children insult or walk all over them - quite the opposite.

To know how this works, you really have to read Coloroso's book, Kids Are Worth It! Giving Your Child the Gift of Inner Discipline (Somerville House, Toronto. 24.95 Canadian dollars). Here is an example: a three-year-old drops a glass and it breaks after repeated warnings to use a plastic beaker. The brick-wall parent calls the child clumsy and orders him out of the room (the child is the problem). The jellyfish parent blames herself - it's all Mummy's fault, move out of the way while I clean it up for you (the parent is the problem). The backbone parent knows that the child has a problem, and helps the child solve it, first by letting the child play some part in helping to clean up the glass (without touching it, obviously) and then by giving the child a plastic beaker and explaining that using plastic instead of glass will solve the problem.

Don't feel guilty if you're a bit of a jellyfish or a bit of a brick wall from time to time. There are times when you're so tired that you haven't got the energy to be consistent with your children - so you become a jellyfish for a while and let them stay up too late. You may be feeling so exhausted that you brickwall your kids: "Go to bed now, and that's it, I don't care if your TV programme isn't over yet!"

Coloroso isn't saying we have to be perfect, but she is suggesting that backbone parenting is worth trying. If you want to teach children responsibility, by demonstrating it everyday in lots of little ways, you have to be consistent and calm, constantly explaining the rules without getting angry.