The Romeo and Juliet Effect
If you really want to get something done, you've got three options: Do it yourself, pay top dollar—or forbid your teenager to do it. You probably recognize the truth of that adage from your own teenage years. Imposing authority can be counterproductive because teenagers tend to resist such attempts at control. Nothing illustrates the boomerang quality of parental pressure on adolescent behavior quite as clearly as a phenomenon known as the “Romeo and Juliet effect.” The term refers to Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet, the ill-fated teen characters who defied, with tragic consequences, all parental attempts to keep them apart. But does this happen in real life? In research done with 140 Colorado teenage couples, parental interference made the pairs feel greater love and desire for marriage. As the interference intensified, so did the love experience. When the interference weakened, romantic feelings cooled.