What a private subject, the diary of a teenage girl, or the journal of a women. Some of my most intimate thoughts were and are put into my journals. When I write in my journal it gets me closer to who I am. It’s the same for our girls, when they write in their diary, the witness their words and figure things out.
I encourage you as a Mom to start writing in a journal and also encourage your daughter to get a diary/journal and express herself through writing down her feelings. It’s so powerful and life changing. I also encourage you to allow it to be private, don’t violate her privacy by reading it, and let her know that her journal is for her private thoughts.
Look online and make journals together, there easy and very special when you make them yourself. My journaling workshop where we make our own journals have been very successful, the girls love them. My daughter taught me how to make them.
Have fun and express yourself through journaling, and talk to your daughter about how she feels when she writes in it.
Is raising teenage girls tougher than it seems? My answer is No, it doesn’t have to be. When my daughters came into their teenage years, everyone was telling that these were going to be the toughest years. Well, they weren’t. I enjoyed raising teenage girls, we had so much fun together. The key to enjoying raising your girls is get involved with them. I used to play board games with them and their friends, go on vacations with them and of course their friends. I did a lot with them…and their friends.
Great Tip:Include Their Friends
I think including their friends helped my relationship with them. First of all at a certain age they want to be with their friends more than you, this is normal. I see so many parents fighting this and excluding their friends. I didn’t want my daughters spending time with only to be waiting for our time together to end so they could hang out with their friends. Grocery shopping was even an event with their friends. I actually remember a time when my daughters couldn’t go and one of their friends wanted to, so we went together
If you want to know your teens well, know their friends well also. Because I wasn’t trying to exclude their friends, it made hanging out with them not only easy but totally enjoyable. Today, we have so many stories about fun adventures that they remember with all of us, including their friends, and their friends have fond memories too. So parents, if you want to spend more time with your teenagers, include their friends.
There are a ton of reasons why we have low self esteem, and when I say we I mean all of us. I have never met a teen or an adult with high self esteem. The only people I have met with high self esteem are little people below the ages of 5-years-old. Something happens to us when we start going to school, this is where the judgments start and we get put down for being ourselves. This is also the time when parents start possibly pushing their kids to be a certain way also.
Have you noticed how little kids behave? They sing and dance in front of everyone and could care less what they think. They don’t care if they have good voices, if they have been professional trained in dance, they just sing and dance. As adults we are looking outside ourselves for validation if we are good or bad. My oldest daughter is great about this, if someone says can you sing, can you dance, she says absolutely. She dances and sings and doesn’t care if it looks or sounds good. I love that, it’s so childlike. Check out this video, it’s the best.
The goal here is to stay childlike, in our adulthood. Why do we care what others think? Why because we have grown up thinking that the barometer is outside of ourselves instead of inside. Why would we trust someone else to tell us we are good at something instead of listening to ourselves. Also who is the judge of what is good and what is bad. Am I pretty? Am I ugly? Is my voice good or is it bad? Are my clothes okay? Who or what tells us we are okay or not? And more importantly, why are we listening.
I give you a challenge this week to do things that might make you look ridiculous, because if you are being ridiculous, you are probably being childlike. Really push yourself, wear something that you would want to wear but you think people might judge you for it. Sing in front of your family or dance. See how they react. Our self esteem is lacking because we aren’t looking at our essence, we are looking at ourselves through the eyes of others. Try doing something different this week. Step out there and be the real you and let go of the judgments that might come in, like they don’t matter…because they don’t matter. Good luck and let me know how it feels.
Bullying is a real problem, and it’s your responsibility as a parent to talk to your teens about it. If they are being bullied, take it seriously. If they seem to be a bully talk to them about how treating people with respect and kindness affects the world. If you are a bully, I’m talking to you parents, start looking at your behavior and how it’s affecting your kids, friends, family, and the world. Bullying can be something as simple as not letting others have an opinion and cutting them off. Bullying comes in all sizes and packages…Are you one?
Broward County is no stranger to bullying. Last school year Deerfield Beach Middle School held the spotlight in the most negative of circumstances. Starting with Michael Brewer who was nearly burned to death, and several months later the brutal and savage beating of Josie Ratley.
As a community, a group of Broward County middle school students joined together with the help of State Farm, The Broward Sheriff’s Office and The Humanity Project to publish two books targeted at combating bullying.
The Miami Herald reported one of the bullying books is about a privileged and selfish character Lucina who has everything she wants but degrades everyone who doesn’t share her fortune. The other book is about Michael, who is dyslexic and of black and Asian heritage. He’s influenced by his abusive father to bully others.
Students also worked on illustrations and cover art. The books will be used as part of The Humanity Project’s innovative Anti-bullying Through the Arts program in Broward during the school year.
Congratulations to all these students and a special thanks to State Farm, Broward County Sheriff’s Office and The Humanity Project for stepping up and reaching out to our kids – our future!
Something I was confronted with as a parent of a teen was them treating me like I was invincible. Their behavior sometimes came across like I wasn’t human. I think as parents we do this to ourselves by acting like we are super-human, and we do no wrong. I could handle anything, the house needed moving, put it on my back, no problem. I think our teens need to know they can come to us and we can help, but this doesn’t mean we know everything. It could mean that if we don’t have the answers, we will get them. I think it’s great that we develop safety with our kids and to do this they have to trust our abilities but not at the cost of putting a big divider between us.
Vulnerability creates deeper relationships! When people including our kids see that we aren’t perfect and we are honest about our downfalls, they have compassion for us. Compassion breeds closer relationships with people that care about us. This is especially important for our teens because they learn about honesty, compassion and relationship through their relationship with their parents first and then they use what they learn on their peers.
I remember being vulnerable with a friend of mine and crying, while asking for help and he said he had no idea that I would ever need help because I always acted so together and self-assured. Now, confidence is great, don’t get me wrong but if the people around us think we don’t ever need them and we don’t have feelings, they will never share when they need us because they don’t want to appear weak.
The day I started admitting to my girls that I too was learning through my mistakes and that parenting wasn’t an exact science, they started treating me like I was human. Go figure! If you act sub-human, people are going to treat you sub-human. It’s a fine line with your teens, you don’t want to be a puddle of tears all the time, because then they will start treating you like your broken and they don’t want to break you further.
One way of being vulnerable with your teens is admitting when you are wrong. When you are wrong, you know it and so do they, so admit it. When you do this you will find a different relationship between you and your teen. They will start admitting when they are wrong and then you will have the power to help them change things in themselves that aren’t serving them. If no one admits their wrong, then there is no room for improvement. That goes for you too parents. I know it doesn’t feel natural to admit you’re wrong and you’re trying to improve yourself, but guess what…it helps your kids learn the basics about learning and evolving into a better person.
Try it on and let me know how it feels and mostly what your results are. We are all growing, evolving human beings, no matter what are age.
This is so important Parents for you to be aware of. It’s not just drugs that your teens are getting a hold of on the outside market, you may be the supplier of the most dangerous drugs your teens are using. Please read this and pass it along to every parent you know. Don’t assume your kids aren’t doing them. Be sure to watch the video too.
Inhalants. They have been in the news and on the teen scene for years now; as a matter of fact, it was reported that there has been a 158% increase in the use of huffing refrigerant in teenagers.
Most parents will continue to say, ‘not my teen‘, however how do you really know it isn’t your teen?
Just ask Mona Casey in Coral Springs, she lost her son 15 year-old Charles Gray just before his 16th birthday, when he inhaled refrigerant. Especially in Florida, air conditioning refrigerant is prevalent, it is also deadly. Watch video to see how dangerous it can be.
Throughout her grief, Mona Casey founded a group, United Parents to Restrict Open Access to Refrigerant, (UPROAR). Huffing chemicals such as refrigerant can result in death on the first use. This is a risk we cannot afford to take with our children. One of the goals of UPROAR is to propose solutions to lawmakers and governing bodies to address this problem.
What is inhalant use?
Inhalant use refers to the intentional breathing of gas or vapors with the purpose of reaching a high. Inhalants are legal, everyday products which have a useful purpose, but can be misused. You’re probably familiar with many of these substances — paint, glue and others. But you probably don’t know that there are more than 1,000 products that are very dangerous when inhaled — things like typewriter correction fluid, air-conditioning refrigerant, felt tip markers, spray paint, air freshener, butane and even cooking spray. See Products Abused as Inhalants for more details.
It is time parents stop being ignorant to the fact teens and tweens don’t understand the dangers of huffing. Kids as young as 11 years-old are huffing and dying. Watch video.
Talk to your kids today! School will be opening, peer pressure will be starting, school hallways are full of kids trying to fit in and be cool. Will they take it a step further fit in with a sniff?
I have a column I write for and I receive E-mail from parents and teens asking me questions to respond to and this was one I really thought needed attention. Teen Sex is it Wrong or Right? A teenager is asking me this very important questions. Now if you’re a parent you might scream WRONG, WRONG, WRONG! If you’re the teen you might say it depends.
So first lets look at wrong and right. What does this mean, wrong being bad and right being good. Isn’t this what we think? Does it have to be wrong or right, good or bad? Can it just be a lesson learned? Now parents don’t go all crazy on me with “some lesson- a pregnant daughter”, I get it. This is what we need to look at. Not telling our kids not to have sex because it’s wrong or bad but allowing them the space to explore their options and then make a decision that makes sense for them. Usually if we allow them the space, they make good decisions.
We want our teens to ask themselves questions about the decisions they are making, and if their not, we should ask them questions. If we ask them questions it teaches them how to make decisions for themselves, and teaches them to ask themselves questions. This girl that asked this question, “Is Sex Wrong or Right”? The questions you would ask her might be or the questions she should ask herself should be:
1) How do you feel about him?
2) Is he someone you see yourself with in the future?
3) Do you love him?
4) Does he love you?
5) Why would you have sex with him? This is a big one.
6) How do you think you would feel if you had sex with him and he talked about it to others?
7) How would you feel if you had sex with him and you broke up a couple of weeks later? How do you think your next partner will feel if you have slept with other guys?
9) Is he someone that you trust?
10) Are you okay with multiple sexual partners
11) Are you okay with having a boyfriend who has had multiple partners?
All of these questions makes them think about what they are doing or contemplating doing. If you are a teen asking these questions of yourself, BE HONEST! Be real with yourself. If you are having sex with this guy because you want him to like you, that’s okay. Then you can deal with the real issue. If a teen has to answer these questions there is a good chance they will not have sex with their boyfriend.
What I want to stress more than anything is that these are the questions teens want to ask. They want to ask their parents, but because a lot of parents react so strongly to the questions, they stop asking. Promote them asking questions from you and of themselves. When we ask and answer questions of ourselves it helps us make better decisions. So Parents, instead of getting stocked, relaxed and ask questions and let them figure things out.
Parents, let me know what you think of this, and teens too.
Our teenagers will never know how much heart-ache we as parents go through until they are parents themselves one day. With every incident that makes them shed a tear our heart breaks. Here is an e-mail from a parent experiencing just what I am talking about.
I recently went online to do some research to see if I could get some insight on what to do, due soley to the fact that my daughter, 13, has been going through some tough times with self-esteem issues, especially with her looks. Of course I am her Mom, but I, as well as everyone else around her, can see she is very intelligent, athletic, and just a beautiful girl inside and out. She also has some very nice friends, with whom she sees on a regular basis. The problem is she just does not see for herself all of her wonderful qualities. It is a tough age, and I remember very well going through this myself at a young age and I am concerned. I think it is harder now, as a Mom, to watch.
One night recently, I went into my daughter’s bedroom to tell her goodnight and I found her crying. I asked her if we could talk. The reason had to do with a party that a girl she does not know very well is having but my daughter did not get invited, even though some of her other friends did. She immediately attributed this to how she looks. I asked her to try to look at things from a different viewpoint and find the best way to remain positive for herself. (maybe the girl’s mom limited her number of guests etc..)
This is a very difficult thing and it is all-consuming sometimes. I try not to smother her with my advice but just be there for her always (and it is even hard for me to find the right way to handle this sometimes.
Does this feel and sound familiar parents? It sure hit home with me. It’s tricky to do and say the right things and leave your teen feeling good about themselves. I talk to parents all the time expressing their concern and empathy for their teens. Here’s the thing, even with a connected relationship with your daughter your not always going to do and say the right thing and have it received with open arms. All I can say is keep trying, open your heart real wide and then jump into their reality and feel their pain. Then and only then can you truly support your daughter. Just keep being there for her with your open heart, without any judgments, just with your love for her and I promise she has a better chance of figuring things out.
When we witness our own words and feelings in front of someone who loves us unconditionally, with someone standing in a place of love, we figure things out. So parents, Word Up…if you’re not already doing this explore how it feels when you try it on. Settle into your heart, step into her reality and listen from that place, see what it does for her and also see how it feels to you. I really got from this mother’s e-mail that she was so standing in her daughter’s reality and in her heart space. Try this in all of your relationships, it feels so good.
I was talking to a woman the other night that just turned 5o-years-old and she was telling how hard it was for her to get older. That she use to get all this attention from men and now “Nothing”. She started beating herself up about how her looks were changing and she didn’t like it. She mentioned the cellulite on the back of her legs, the wrinkles on her face, and her lacking of breast size. I asked her how many times a day she makes a comment inside her head or out loud about the issues she sees as defects on her body? Before she answered she said something else to beat herself up about her body and then said about a million.
The odd thing about this is that she is the norm, most girls and women make an obscene amount of negative comments about their bodies everyday, it’s sad but true. I told her that I too have self-esteem issues and I work on overcoming this everyday, every minute and every second of each day of my life. The difference between her and myself is that I am conscious about how damaging the beatings are day in and day out. Instead of staying in that place of constant negative comments, I immediately go to the healing part and create a positive space for the healing of those wounds.
I asked her to pretend she had a 5-year-old daughter, and now picture yourself following her around all day long making negative comments about her body. “Are you gaining weight, you look so fat, your nose is crooked, we need to fix that, try not to smile so wide your teeth are a little crooked, your hair looks like crap today, maybe you shouldn’t go out”. Day in and day out you are beating her up about her imperfections, every time she is feeling joyful you make a comment. This is what we do to our self all day long, some of us even dream about ourselves negatively.
I explained to her what I do to overcome the negative beating , and it looks like this. First I have pictures of myself around when I was 3, 5 7, and 13-years-old.
Every time I have a negative thought I look at the picture of that precious little girl, so full of love and life and tell her how amazing she is and how grateful I am for having this body that is getting me around. Letting me exercise, taking a walk with my dogs and even just tying my shoes. I stand in gratitude for what it is doing for me and how lucky I am.
I also have stopped buying into the media, thinking that those bodies are real and that it is so important to have a perfect body. I remind myself constantly why I am here, the bigger picture of my life, to be a part of the world in a much larger way. That I am here learning through my life and what my body looks like plays no part in that. I am my essence, my insides, not my body.
So parents, share this with your teens and children, and if you are berating yourself about your body hang ups, stop it and practice this method to allow yourself to have compassion for your little girl. Even though you are older the beatings still feel as hurtful. Here are a few tips on how to help yourself and your teen have a good sense of self. Exchange your negative thoughts for empowering one about your body. “I am strong in my body”. Acknowledge yourself for your strengths and achievements. Try looking at life differently, why are we here? Don’t buy into the media, it isn’t real. Keep pictures of your little girl around to learn how to have compassion for her (yourself). Focus on the things you love about yourself. Catch yourself judging others and know that you are really standing in judgment of yourself when you do that. Hang around people that treat you well and encourage you to be your best. Take care of yourself physically and emotionally. Don’t beat yourself up over the mistakes you make, learn from them and move on. Love yourself for being you, the one and only you.
I hope this helps, parents and helps you help your teens. If we start now learning how to strengthen that self-esteem muscle, it will be strong when we turn 50-years-old and we can spend our time making a difference in the world instead of concentrating on what is wrong with us. Let me know what you think and how you rate your self-esteem.
Thanks for participating and keep loving yourself,
First I have to show you pictures of my new kitty, and tell you that I have been looking for another kitty for 8 years. Yes, 8 years! My last cat Phil was taken, we think by an owl, here in Sedona, and I haven’t been able to find a kitten that fills his shoes…until now. His name is Milo Mouse.
Doesn’t he look like a Mouse? Seriously I have been looking at the Human Society for a kitty for 8 years, and just when the moments is right, Milo shows up. I have 2 dogs Jack and Maggie, that are getting up there in age.
This is Jack, very photogenic, Maggie on the other hand will not let us take pictures of her, she is a beautiful Gorden Setter mix. Anyway, Jack was at the Doctors the other day and gave us a scare, he’s alright but needless to say while I was in this scare, I went to the Human Society and guess who was there, yes Milo Mouse. I knew immediately he was coming home with me.
This little kitty has brought so much more life into our home, which is hard to do because we are a home of love and light to begin with, so I was shocked at how things shifted. First of all, he is a blast, and so much fun to have around, ask Jack. Jack is a 12-year-old Lab, and he has a new lease on life. Jack is acting like a puppy again, and Maggie too, she won’t tell us how much she loves Milo, we can just tell.
I share my story with you because I feel that animals are an important part of kids life, they learn so much from having them around. They learn caring, patience, kindness, loyalty, tolerance and most important love. I have always had animals in my life and have learned so much about myself through them. We learn from everyone and everything around us, don’t negate anything.
Scientists have discovered, animals have healing powers. When you stroke a cat or pet a dog, you experience a surge of healing hormones and chemicals that produce feelings of peace and serenity.
Let me know how your animals effect your life, and if you’re thinking about getting more.
How do you think your next partner will feel if you have slept with other guys?
Exchange your negative thoughts for empowering one about your body. “I am strong in my body”.
