Parenting Daily

Well, if we haven’t heard enough about these cases yet, there’s another one: female teacher charged with having sex with a minor student, possibly two. Every time I hear these stories, my (figurative) jaw drops. As my parents can attest, I was never attracted to high school boys even when I was in high school. I’ve always been more interested in men older than me, though the age difference has gone from 5 and 6 years older down to months now that I’m in my 30s. At any rate, the idea of being 60 years old, like Adrienne Laflamme, and having sex with a 17 year old and possibly a 14 year old is just beyond comprehension to me. But, perhaps, that is why I am not a pedophile. What makes this particular story even more nauseating, if that’s possible, is that this woman was a teacher at a juvenile detention facility. So you’re teaching kids who, for the most part, are already very distrustful of authority and then this woman abuses that further by raping these kids. There are also allegations of drug use during the trysts. I don’t know what to say. Having worked for so long with staff in facilities of this type, I explained over and over to parents that the staff can be trusted, their kids will be safe, etc. But it’s one story like this that will erase all of that from everyone’s minds. It’s a crap deal for these kids, especially. Who are they ever going to trust? Sad sad and sadder.

Happy Independence Day to my American readers! Let’s take a moment to reflect on the positives of this day for teens.

For one, it is a great time to review some history lessons. American presidents, wars, the Boston tea party, etc. You know, if you’re feeling educational.

It’s also a great time to reminisce. My mom’s favorite Fourth of July story was the kid she knew who closed his hand around a firecracker and blew his hands to bits. Good cautionary tale, though. I’ve never gotten close to fireworks beyond sparklers and those snap things that you can throw at the ground.

It’s also a wonderful time to seize the opportunity to talk about neighborly courtesy. I think I’ve mentioned before that I, personally, am not a fan of noisy stereos in homes, cars, outside, etc. If I can hear it in my enclosed habitat/room/cage, it’s too loud. Put your headphones on. But seriously, some neighbors will call the cops, complain, yell at you, etc. So find out what the regulations are in your area, teach them to your teen, and teach them that a little respect for their neighbors goes a long way towards keeping the peace at home.

Barbeque. If there are traditions in your family regarding the barbeque, why not teach your teens? Soon enough they’ll be on their own and won’t it be nice for them to carry on a little piece of home via bbq traditions? Dads, trust your sons to flip those burgers or season the right way (well, guide them at least!). Moms, teach the girls how to stroke the men’s egos for their bountiful bbq prowess. (Yes, that was blatantly and unforgivingly sexist of me to say)

Enjoy your time as a family. Be safe, be joyous, and don’t tick off the neighbors.

While watching the “Today Show” this morning, I learned of a beach danger I’ve never heard of before: sand holes. You know how it’s fun to dig a hole in the sand when you’re little? Well, apparently all that sand on the beach acts like a very large sugar bowl. If you dip your finger in a sugar bowl and then remove it, all the sugar falls back in the hole. Though it may not happen immediately with sand, it does happen.

More kids have died from collapsing sand holes than from shark attacks. But until today, I’ve never heard of this ever.

Now why am I posting this on a blog that’s aimed to parents of teens? Because they also talked about a college student who dug a hole to lay his/her chase lounge in (don’t ask me why) and it collapsed around him and he died.

Just another thing that won’t hurt to talk about.

I’m starting a new feature for the blog-a teen news roundup. All the best news featuring regular teens, celebrity teens, and issues involving teens. I’ll still do my daily posts on specific topics but there’s so much out there, I don’t want you to miss it all! I’ve been trying to highlight different news items each day but they’re just piling up too quickly. I’m not sure yet how often I’ll do a News Round-up. Maybe every few days, maybe once a week. At any rate, I’m excited about this new feature and I hope you enjoy it, as well!

First up, if you’ve turned on the news today, you’ve probably heard about the tragic freak accident involving a teen at an amusement park. He apparently lost his ball cap and hopped a fence to enter a restricted and dangerous area, in the hopes of retrieving his hat. He was decapitated in the process. Full story is available here.

Last week, NBC launched its controversial reality television show “The Baby Borrowers.” Did you watch it? I remember hearing about the concept of this show a year or so ago and being appalled by it. Knowing how scared I was just to leave my daughter in daycare, I couldn’t imagine there were really parents who would allow their precious babies to be taken care of by teens they know nothing about. The reality of the show seems far less frightening than I had originally anticipated. The parents were able to observe all interactions and intervene if they felt necessary. At any rate, here’s more on the show, as well as a slideshow of other entertainment “talking points” your teen may be commenting on this week.

Unfortunately, this is another sad story involving a couple of teens who were doing something good for their community: cleaning up the highways. Read more by clicking here.  

Finally, on a lighter note, remember how we’ve talked about texting? Well, this teen takes it to a whole new (not sexually explicit!) level. It’s impressive, if only due to sheer numbers. Check out the story here and then enjoy the rest of your weekend!

With the sudden passing of Tim Russert on Friday June 13, 2008, much media attention has been paid to this legendary journalist. Considering that I am one that is not particularly political, but I still knew he was, speaks to how well-known he was.

It’s also been touching to see that everyone who has commented on his death has had only the kindest things to say. He seems to have been just a well-regarded person with a high-profile job. Somewhat unusual in this day and age to have that many fans in such a “big” job.

At any rate, when I saw his 20-something son, Luke, on television this morning, I was blown away. Luke, having only had a few days to adjust to life without his father, was speaking eloquently, lovingly, and maturely about his dad. It reminded me of what I learned about grief as an undergrad—those stages of grief you’re supposed to go through? Not everyone goes through them in the same order or in the same time frame.

In grad school, my understanding of this expanded to: you have to meet grieving clients where they are. You can’t push someone through grief. They have to get there on their own. Luke Russert is a tribute to his father. I am sure Tim is looking down on him, smiling and proud.

I will speak more about teens and grief in the future but this was on my mind today so I thought I would share. Thanks for reading!

There’s a good chance your teen is already involved in some “green” activities—eco-friendly clubs and curriculum have been in schools for a long time. Most schools have recycling bins or barrels in their schools, making it easy for teens to throw their pop cans or water bottles in them.

But if you’ve been slow to go green at home, or are wanting to get your teen more involved in being environmentally responsible at home, there are some ways to do this. They may not even notice (at first) that they’re doing good!

If you know the celebs your teen likes, do some quick research on the web to see what green things those celebs are up to. Then, using one of my favorite techniques, drop some of that info into casual, off-the-cuff conversation with your teen. It could be one time when their desire to be like those celebs is a good thing!

Another great idea is to make it relevant to the teen’s life. Teens do good with tangibles—things they can see, feel, hear, touch, taste, etc. If you can tie in going green to one of those five senses your chances of getting them to stay involved are improved. For instance, recycling aluminum cans can put money in your teen’s pocket. That’s a reward that just about any teen will be happy with.

My final idea for the day comes in the form of entertainment: green screen! In recent years, there have been a lot of green documentaries (not just Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth”, though that’s a good one!). Maybe get your teen to stay home one night and pop a green documentary in. If your teen is at all skittish about documentaries and true-life stuff, maybe don’t even mention what it really is. Just say you’ve heard good things about it. It’s easier to draw a teen in to something if they don’t have a preconceived notion holding them back.

I’d love to hear any other things you have tried to make your home more eco-friendly!

If your child has a cell phone, chances are good that they’re texting. Texting is a very popular type of instant message communication with cell phone users. All ages of users are texting but the medium is especially popular with teens and 20-somethings. As the prices of texting drop and unlimited packages become available for smaller fees, I fully expect texting to increase further in popularity.

But does your teen have a camera phone? If so, they may be indulging in the latest scary cell-phone trend: sexting. Yesterday, I stumbled upon this article about the trend, which I hadn’t yet thought of or imagined. I guess I could have predicted kids would be doing a version of cyber sex through texting, but sexting involves taking nude pictures and sending them, via cell phones, to your significant other. And then, guess what? Since teen romances tend to last so long (sarcasm) the pics end up getting posted on the internet. How’s that for horrifying?

Some of the pics that end up on the internet are leading to criminal charges for the posters. Which is good—I hope that gets a lot of attention and discourages other teens from doing similar things. And it isn’t just teens, middle school students (who are sometimes as young as 11) are involved, too. Unfortunately, as has been the case with videos of kids getting beat up, there have been a lot of copy-cats. So it may be the case that we’ll see a flare-up of these incidents with nude pics of kids showing up online for awhile and then, hopefully, kids will get the message that this isn’t going to be tolerated and it will die down. I keep hoping that we’re done with the copy-cat cases of the videos of beatings but that hasn’t quite happened yet, either.

This is another one of those topics that you need to talk to your teen about. Even if they, themselves, don’t have cell phones with text or picture capabilities, they probably have friends who do. It’s entirely possible their bad judgment can extend to letting friends take nude pics, so it’s still worth talking about. Let your kids know that they can face criminal charges if they post someone else’s pics online (nude or not, better safe than sorry!) and if they send inappropriate pics of themselves to others. I mean, can you just imagine if your boss decided to send a nude pic to you? That’s (hopefully) not wanted! That would be considered sexual harassment. I don’t care if the teens think their significant others want these pictures—they could very easily be discovered by a parent and the teen, in the interest of trying to get out of trouble, could say the pics were unwanted.

I could go on and on about how many bad directions sexting can go but I’ve probably given you enough fodder for today! We certainly all did stupid things as kids… it’s just not the same world now. Now stupid kid things can find a home online forever. It’s nothing to shrug off.

Do the letters S.A.T. and A.C.T. still make your stomach cramp? Bring back bad memories of No. 2 pencils and sleepless nights waiting for your scores to arrive in the mail? Well, there’s some good news and some bad news. If you’ve been paying attention over the past few years, you may have heard that some colleges and universities are now making the SATs and ACTs optional. So, the bad news first: 20 years from now, you and your kids won’t necessarily be able to commiserate about the admission test anxieties you both had. I’ll pause for you to shed a tear.

But maybe that’s good news. A popular reason for dropping the test? Because we just aren’t sure they really predict much. Admission boards once weighed these tests heavily, believing they were strong indicators of college success. Obviously, an institution of higher education is also a business. They need to attract more students in order to survive. The better the reputation, the better their chances of always being wanted, and never having to worry too much about how the bills are going to get paid.

In recent years, though, more studies have been released showing that the tests aren’t necessarily fair. Whites tend to do better on the standardized admission tests than minorities. In an increasingly diverse society, a majority-White student population doesn’t serve any good purpose that I, personally, can think of. I don’t think it makes sense from a business standpoint, either. This is why I think many schools are either making the tests optional or dropping them altogether.

As of now, approximately 750 schools are test-optional. I expect this number to increase in the coming years. I do not expect the SAT and ACT to quietly go away but I do think major overhauls of the tests are necessary if they are to stay relevant in the long-term.

So if you have a teen who’s getting ready to go through the admission test prep classes or sign up for the tests, see if they know some schools are test optional. Especially if your teen is of a minority or diverse culture (this is me trying to be politically correct even though it sounds awkward) or has a great deal of test anxiety, it could be one less stressor on them during a period of life that is already stress-ridden enough! Now how about tuition-optional schools?!

I’ve gone to my fair share of midnight showings of new movies at the theater. Usually, though, it’s a movie that is of great interest to whoever I’m dating. Once I saw the midnight release of the re-release of a “Star Wars” movie, another time was a midnight showing of one of the “Harry Potter” movies (yes, I’m telling the truth—a grown man wanted to see this at midnight), and I think the other was one of the Matrix movies. Anyway, tonight I am anxious to see a midnight showing for a movie that, for once, I’m the one dying to go—the “Sex and the City” movie! As I was planning my night, it occurred to me that if I had thought this was a movie whose premiere tickets would have sold out, I may have been willing to stand outside overnight or something to get them. I’ve never been that crazy about anything. But that kind of behavior seems to happen more and more often these days.

People wait outside, overnight, waiting for the doors to open to Best Buy on Black Friday (the Friday after Thanksgiving, for those of you not in the know). They wait for the release of the latest video game system, cell phone, and certain movies. So the question occurred to me, “Should teens be allowed to wait outside, overnight, unsupervised?”

The answer is: It Depends. Here are some questions to ask yourself if ever presented with this dilemma:

* Is my teen mature enough?

It may seem like a relatively tame thing to do and chances are lots of people will be there if your teen is interested in it, but the fact is—the majority of those people waiting in line with your teen are going to be strangers. Even if your teen is going with a group of his or her friends, are you comfortable not knowing who all those other people are, sleeping on the sidewalk and trying to entertain themselves for hours on end?

* What is the level of my teen’s independence?

And I don’t mean just their self-declared independence. Can they really handle being outside overnight without needing your assistance? Can they plan for being hungry, thirsty, needing to use the bathroom, etc?

* Do I trust my teen’s judgment?

Are they street smart? Are they going to trust complete strangers? Teens, when left unsupervised and with a group of their friends, can sometimes give in to group mentality. Group mentality tends to think there’s safety in numbers, even when the teens’ behavior is inappropriate. Chances are, your teen wouldn’t start randomly running around and acting crazy if they were waiting in line without their friends… but if all of them start doing it, they may think it’s okay. But there’s just no telling who in that line is going to either take offense or try to take advantage of the situation to move some people in front (your teens) out of line. Something that’s a small problem or annoyance could quickly turn into a major issue.

* Where is my teen going to be waiting?

If you’re even considering it, scope out the location ahead of time. Are there street lamps? Is there a lot of traffic? Do you feel comfortable with the part of town? Is the store/business/theater going to be monitoring people who line up early or overnight?

If you decide that waiting in line for X is something your teen is ready for, I would still recommend taking some safety precautions. If at all possible, make sure your teen has a cell phone with them that they agree to keep turned on at all times AND that they must agree to answer. If there is a group of teens going together, see if you can communicate ahead of time with the other teens’ parents and maybe make a schedule, taking turns, of parents stopping by to check on the teens. You can easily make up excuses—“Just wanted to bring you all some sodas, candy bars, pizza, etc.” Or, better yet, if one of the parents is willing to stay in line with them, lend your support to that parent however you can. Even having a parent in a car in the parking lot could be an appropriate alternative that gives the teens some space but also leaves them a safety net.

Thanks for reading! Time to get ready for my big movie night!

Previously, we talked about teens going back to work at summer activities they enjoyed in their (younger) youth. This is still a great idea, but what if your teen isn’t quite old enough for a summer job? What if your teen just isn’t ready to give up the summer activities they’re used to? What if they want to focus on something that will help them do better in the coming school year or simply pursue an interest there isn’t usually time for? Summer camps are not just for elementary and junior high school students. Though it may seem last minute, there is still time to get your teen signed up for camp. But you should probably go ahead and stick that sleeping bag in the washer that’s been in the garage since last summer!

Academic Camps: Academic camps are places where teens can go to get additional school credits, perhaps in an effort to get caught up on credits if they’re behind, or to help them to graduate earlier.

At educationunlimited.com, you can sort through camps by grade (grades 4-12 are accepted), subjects (acting to college prep), or location (multiple locations on the West Coast, an East Coast College tour, and one at Club Med in Florida!). Applications are online or you can request a brochure. Sessions typically last from 1-6 weeks, depending on which program your teen picks.

Located in New Hampshire,Brewster Academy Summer Session allows children ages 12-18 to earn school credit, as well as provides them with a Macintosh laptop for the duration of their stay, with connectivity available from over 3000 ports on campus. (May I just add that homesickness would have been so much less a problem if we’d had email when I was at summer camp 25 years ago!) The camp is a good blend of academics and outdoor and recreational activities.

If your teen is going to college in the fall, they can get a head start on their college credits by attending camp at Sage Outdoor Learning. There, 100 and 200 level classes are taught through an adventure/wilderness/recreation format in 4-week blocks. Students can choose from several subjects including field biology and American government. The teacher: student ration is 1:15, maximum. There are even times for parents to visit their new college students! Though the college credits are through the Utah Universities system, they are transferable to other colleges and universities across the
U.S. But check with your teen’s school first, to see if the credits will be accepted!

Stay tuned—further summer camp posts will focus on sports camps, hobbies, camper insurance, and whatever else I can think of! I loved camp growing up and think it’s a fantastic activity for just about any child or teen!