Parenting Daily

Families today can be categorized into two types: traditional and non-traditional (not really, but for simplicity’s sake, I’m gonna stick with two types!). I define the traditional family as being a married man and woman with one or more children, domesticated pets, and a white picket fence. Hmmm maybe I’ve been watching too many old sitcoms.

The non-traditional family is everything else (my family included!). Single parents, step-parents, gay married partners, people who just commit to each other with out the legal protection of marriage, grandparents raising their grandchildren, etc.

No matter what a family looks like, the studies that have been done on the breakdown of who takes which tasks in a household stays pretty much the same: women do about twice as much of the housework as men. Even if it’s a stay-at-home-dad situation!

This kind of blew me away.

This PsychCentral article and this New York Times Magazine article talk about the phenomenon of “shared parenting.” The concept of shared parenting is to be complete equals in regards to the marriage, work, raising the family, etc. The sole responsibility for any one thing does not fall on either mom or dad’s shoulders. They are both equally responsible for everything.

In concept, I think it’s great. In reality, I think our society would have a lot of un-learning and re-learning to do, in order for this to become the reality for most families. And, frankly, I don’t think many families would even want things to be completely even.

I’ll just speak for myself but I’m more comfortable with a marriage/family relationship in which whoever is best equipped to handle certain things takes responsibility for them. And if there’s too much for one person, then the other people in the household need to step up and help out. If no one is particularly skilled or apt to handle something, then a decision needs to be made about who’s going to learn to deal with it, or everyone needs to take turns.

At any rate, I present the concept for you to consider in your own family, as well as for what you’re consciously and unconsciously instilling in your teens. If you want a teen boy to be more of an “equal” partner in his future household, you probably shouldn’t let him get out of doing all the chores.

Similarly, if you have a teen daughter who you want to be able to fix her own car without relying on a man or whoever, you should probably be helping her to acquire those skills or help her to problem-solve how she would handle car repairs.

The links again: NY Times Magazine article and the PsychCentral article.

While watching the “Today Show” this morning, I was introduced to a teen girls singing group that I’d not heard of before. The Clique Girlz are three girls (ages 12-14) who have been singing as a group since 2003. Five years!

This was remarkable to me because it seems many pre-teens and teens these days bounce from one activity to the next. It’s always nice to see kids who have really dedicated themselves to one thing. I know there are kids who can dedicate themselves to three or four sports a year, good grades, church activities, etc. And maybe the Clique Girlz do that, too.

I just think that sometimes we overschedule kids. Or we allow them to overschedule themselves—in the interests of staying busy to stay out of trouble, building up activities to put on college applications, or just because our children have a wide variety of interests.

At any rate, the song the Clique Girlz performed was age appropriate, they were dressed age appropriately, and definitely came off as regular teens with just a touch of celebrity. Hopefully I won’t regret saying this one day but I think the Clique Girlz are a wholesome group you can introduce your pre-teen or teen to. In the future, I hope to spotlight more child/teen celebs that you can feel good about.

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!

Well, this questioned could be answered many different ways. But this blog is for parents of teens, so we’re going to focus on why being online is so fascinating for teens. (And some of it may apply to adults, too!)

Some parents think their teens seem absolutely obsessed and/or addicted to being online. Whether this is for the purposes of playing online games, chatting, IMing, emailing, or hanging out on certain sites… the ultimate reason is actually a social one.

Do you remember feeling socially awkward as a teen? If you don’t, you’re one of a lucky few. Teenage-dom is a tricky time. You’re coming into your own, but you’re not really sure what that means. You may be feeling emotions that you’ve never felt until now and can’t even put into words. The “best” part is, you’re 100% positive that NO ONE HAS EVER FELT THIS WAY BEFORE.

As we age and mature, we find out that our experiences are usually not unique. Everyone has moments of feeling self-conscious, unsure of themselves, doubting of their decisions, and just plain not normal. But as teenagers, we just don’t know yet that everyone has those moments.

Add to that the invisible audience and wow! It’s a miracle any of us survive adolescence!

What’s the invisible audience? It’s that group of people who adolescents are *positive* that are watching their every move, evaluating their every action, thought, and fashion decision. Go ahead and try to convince them it doesn’t exist. I dare ya.

So one of the primary attractions of the internet is there’s no one looking right over their shoulders, standing in their vicinity, they can dress however they want, look however they want, etc. It makes them visibly invisible.

For some teens, this is a really empowering thing. They feel free to express their true selves online. For other teens, this gives them permission to show some aspect of their personality that they wouldn’t in every day society (i.e. the

Columbine
High School shooters from 1998).

As a parent, you need to stay involved. Know what your teen is doing online, know their user names, and know what sites they visit. Until you can assure yourself that they’re not compromising their safety, morals, values, future, etc., I don’t care what you do. Your first job is to protect them, so this is one privacy issue that I don’t care if you break. Repeatedly and for as long as you need to.

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.

Stay with me, Parents! I told y’all we’d be broaching the subject of sex more, right? Not because it’s your favorite topic to discuss with your teen, but because I think it’s important to address the fact that teens do have sex. Trying to pretend it doesn’t happen isn’t going to help you or your teen. So, today I have good news about teen sex and drug use, per the lovely folks at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to a study released yesterday by the CDC, teens growing up today are having less sex and using less drugs than teens who grew up in the 1990s! Of course, those of you who had teen children in the 90s are probably not comforted by this news. Sorry!

A “nationally representative sample” of over 14,000 teens was used in this survey. In case that phrase is meaningless to you, it basically means that they tried to match the general demographic trends across the population of the
U.S. to those who they actually surveyed. Surveying every single teen across the nation is, obviously, impractical. Ergo, this is a “sample” of the “population” as a whole. Okay, moving on from our statistics lesson to the actual numbers…

Non-virgin teenagers in 2007 was 48%, down from 54% in 1991. 62% of those having sex are using condoms, a big increase from the 46% that reported using condoms in 1991. Unfortunately, there was no significant change in the percentage of Hispanic teens having sex in 2007, as opposed to 1991.

Marijuana and alcohol use are also down. While 42% of teens had had at least one drink of alcohol a month before the 1991 survey, only 35% had in 2007. And while 27% of students in 1999 used pot, only 20% had in 2007. Likewise, methamphetamine use by teens has fallen 6%, down from 10% in 2001.

Check out the full report  for more information on minority facts and figures, as well as issues regarding weapons and safety belt usage.

There are some things that teens are doing that parents may wonder, “Is that okay? Should I be concerned?” I always encourage parents to listen to their guts—if they are very suspicious about something, there may be good reason. But other times, it may just be lack of information or familiarity with something that leads parents to worry. Below are some trends that I, personally and professionally, think are okay for teens. Remember, though, that your household is your household. If you feel strongly that something is not okay, you have the right to enforce that in your home. I’m just offering a different perspective and opinion to consider.

1. Vitamins    

Vitamins are good for everyone! A good, daily multi-vitamin is recommended for nearly anyone 2 years old and older. If you’re concerned, call your family doctor and double-check. What you should be concerned with is supplements. Most kids, if they are eating a well-balanced diet and taking a basic multivitamin, do not need any sorts of supplements unless they are suggested by their doctors. Do the research yourself, though, if your teen has a bottle of something you’re not familiar with. Don’t be afraid to banish something that is unnecessary or makes outlandish promises of weight loss, clear skin, muscle building, etc.

2. Water        

As long as your (or their) wallet can handle the price of the expensive bottled waters out there, it’s fine. There are “green” considerations, though—all the plastic from all those water bottles are taking over our landfills. Some of the flavored waters actually have a lot of sugar and/or carbohydrates in them that are unnecessary. But regular bottled water, though probably no better than tap water, probably won’t hurt your teen. It’s a bit of a status symbol for teens but drinking water is a good habit for picky teens.

3. Tea             

There are lots of articles out there about the benefits of tea (black, green, white, and oolong). There is some caffeine in tea, which can be a concern for parents. But it’s less than ½ the amount found in a cup of coffee and certainly less than in cans of Mountain Dew or other energy drinks.

4. Reading     

One of the greatest gifts my mother gave me was a love of reading. One way she did this was to never censor the books I chose. I’m sure there were times when she thought, “What is that?!” but she kept her mouth shut. For her, it was more important to encourage and develop that love of reading than to discourage it by telling me I couldn’t read this or that. It’s a principle that I agree with and plan to follow with my own daughter.

5. Music         

This is probably one of my more controversial views. I do not think there’s any point to censoring the type of music your teen listens to. Note that I said “teen”. I do not think it’s appropriate for toddlers and elementary students to listen to gangster rap that’s full of words you don’t want them repeating. They don’t have filters developed yet to know what is appropriate and what isn’t. By adolescence, if your teen is still impressionable enough to be persuaded that song lyrics equate with real life, you have bigger problems than the music itself. However, I am not saying that you should turn a deaf ear to your teen blaring their preferred music any time they wish. If their preferred music isn’t your type of preferred music, you need to establish those limits with them. I, personally, can’t stand loud music. Headphones were invented for a reason!

6. Writing      

Teenagers feel strong and confusing emotions during adolescence. For a lot of them, they feel they have no one they can really trust with their innermost thoughts. Therefore, writing becomes an escape. I see a lot of teen boys who express these thing through writing song lyrics or through drawing and doodling. Teen girls tend to prefer journaling (diaries) and poetry. **DISCLAIMER** A pattern of violent drawings, “hit lists” (where kids list everyone they would kill), and writing about lots of violent things can be strong indications that your teen needs professional evaluations and help by a psychologist and/or therapist. Please do not ignore that kind of writing/drawing/doodling. It’s better to be safe than sorry.

When a colleague first asked me if I’d heard of garage hopping, I immediately conjured up pictures of little garage parties full of underage drinkers. I figured it would be akin to the bar hopping that legal adults indulge in—spending a night going from bar to bar, usually imbibing in far too much alcohol, intended to keep the party fresh and meeting new people all night long. Garage hopping seemed like an underage drinker’s alternative.

I was wrong. Garage hopping actually does involve partying, teens, and alcohol… but not in the same manner as bar hopping. Garage hopping is happening all over
America and you need to know about it so you can take measures to stop it from happening at your house.

Typically, it involves garage refrigerators—you know, the extra fridge that holds the surplus items. Extra pop, food, and usually alcohol. Since teens usually have access to their own garage, this is an easy way to score beers (or other alcohol) a few at a time. When a group of teenagers each collects a few from each garage, they can then meet up and share their spoils and have themselves a nice little underage drinking party.

It’s not limited to their own households, either. In some places of the world, people keep their garages open, sometimes all night. Bad idea. Teens scope these open garages out and have no problem walking into them and taking any alcohol they can find in the fridge. In fact, that’s often the preferred method. Why risk getting caught by Mom and Dad if you can commit an actual crime (theft, criminal mischief)… so that you can commit another crime (minor consuming).

If you live in
Florida, there is also a law that presumes that any one who forcibly enters your property is there to hurt you or kill you and the property owner with a gun is allowed to shoot you. There may be similar laws in other states.

A few “free” beers aren’t worth the possibility of getting caught and charged with a crime or ending up dead. Warn your teens of the possible consequences. Lock your garage, and lock your fridge if you need to.

Over the last five years, energy drinks have grown very popular—especially among teens and young adults. The energy allegedly comes from a variety of ingredients—caffeine or similar derivatives, the calories from sugar (obviously, this doesn’t apply to the sugar-free varieties), ginkgo biloba, ginseng, guarana, Vitamin B, and many other exotic sounding things. Whether they actually produce the energy they claim or not is debatable—some studies say they do, others say they do not. Either way, teens are consuming them in mass quantities.

The idea of drinking different kinds of soft drinks with lots of caffeine is not new—I remember when I was growing up, a soft drink called “Jolt” (click here for more on Jolt Cola) was all the rage because it advertised that it had twice the caffeine of other soft drinks. The one time I dared to try it, when I was about 13 years old, I could barely stomach the awful-tasting concoction. Similarly, we’ve probably all known people who seem to ingest mass quantities of one type or another of Mountain Dew. Red Bull is another energy drink, the one that seems to have spurred the recent boom in energy drink creation. The popularity of Red Bull is probably due in part to the extensive marketing campaign aimed at young adults who want to drink alcohol and prolong the party by not getting tired too quickly.

One reason these energy drinks (click here for general info on energy drinks) are so popular with teens is because many teens do not get enough sleep. Most teens need 8-10 hours of sleep but they don’t get it because their circadian rhythms (what helps us get sleepy at night and feel more awake in daylight) are a little off. Teen’s nighttime sleepiness doesn’t usually take effect until 11pm-1am. But most schools start between 7:30-8:30am, which leaves most teens getting at least a couple hours less sleep than they need. Add energy drinks to their growing sleep debt and a damaging cycle of hyper alertness and crashing is put into motion (click here for a Fox News report on this cycle). Additional information on helping your teen get more sleep can be found here.

Another reason energy drinks appeal to teenagers is because of intentional marketing to draw teens in. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that the makers of energy drinks are running a business. Their business is to get people to buy their products. The energy drink companies are doing a great job of it. I harbor no ill-will towards them. That’s why it is our job, as parents of teens, to regulate how much of the drinks they imbibe. Just because a drink promises to help you stay up and play video games all night or your favorite celebrities are seen with the drinks, doesn’t mean teens have to drink them all the time. As with most things in life, moderation is key! Nutritional information on many energy drinks can be found here.