Thursday, March 22, 2007

Teaching Good Choices

I attended a parent seminar a while back and have been contemplating one of her main points.

Choices: She stated that kids who are allowed to choose while growing up, make more right decisions at 13 yrs old (like not shoplifting when everyone else is) and 14 yrs old (choosing not to smoke.)

In fact, she stated that seniors in high school should not have a curfew. Think about it. What are they going to do in their first year of college? No curfew. Better to let them experience this while they are in your home and when your kid makes the wrong choice, you just need to reinforce consequences.

I still have a few years before this stage; but she has a great point that I will be seriously considering between now and then.

What are your thoughts on this?

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Thursday, March 15, 2007

Preparing For Teens Driving

I was listening to a parenting seminar the other night and she gave this great tip that I’ve already started to use.

She called it preparing your teens for driving. I call it “prepaving” – setting up the expectations for your teen so that when it comes time to drive, the rule(s) you are creating are unquestionable.

This speaker stated that she began teaching her children a specific rule about driving at the tender age of 10 or 11 yrs. As she drove the kids around town, when she’d see children playing or drive by a school yard with children she’d say out loud “Oh, there’s children around. I need to slow down because you never know when one might run into the street.”

Thus in the 5-6 years before driving, her children heard “hundreds” of times that if there are kids around, you need to slow down.

I love the idea of prepaving the way for the rules of driving. I’ll be thinking of other areas I can prepave for my children to be responsible adults.

Do you do something like this? Do you have any ideas of where else we can prepave rules for our kids?

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Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Girls Need Help Coping With Media’s Sex Machine

Our local paper, the San Jose Mercury News, ran an article with the title above, by Sue Hutchison. I found this very interesting since it reveals that even smart women unconsciously are affected by the “sexual media.”

Take this a step back and what are the Paris Hilton’s and Britney Spear’s doing to the minds of our pre-teens and teens, subcounsciously.

Take a read at the article here http://www.mercurynews.com/search/ci_5320775

I’d love to hear your comments on it.

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