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.
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.
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 often do you look in your kids eyes and tell them you love them? Looking back on my childhood, I don’t remember ever being told I was loved. I was in a conversation with a friend and I we were talking about telling our kids that we love them and I told her that I didn’t remember ever being told. We both admitted that it was so sad that first my parents obviously couldn’t express their love for me and second that I never heard it from them.
It’s so important to not just tell our kids we love them but for them to feel how much we love them. Oddly enough you would think that because I was never told, that I would do the same thing with my children. It was the opposite, I told them all the time, not just with my words, but with my heart. I still do, and my girls are 33 and 34-years-old. I also express my love to my grandson, and he tells me he loves me too.
I want the people in my life to feel my love for them, and not just my immediate family. I want my friends to know how much I love them as well. This leads me to then look at my life and if I am living from my heart or living in a place of fear. If I am not expressing my love for the people in my life, the question I ask myself is why? There can be many reasons, one of the biggest being…I’m afraid they won’t receive my love and they won’t love me back.
So, lets look at that fear; what if they don’t receive, does that change my love for them? No! What if they don’t love me back, does that change my love for them? No! Can I continue to give love unconditionally is really the question here. Can I love you if you don’t show love back? Of course I can, and I will as long as I don’t allow my fears to get in the way. This is how I want to live my life, through my heart. This means that I stand in an open heart even when the people in my life aren’t acting like they love me, and I say acting because I know they love me, they are just having a hard time walking through their fears to show me.
If I don’t allow my fears to get in the way of my loving openly, then it will make it easier for the people in my life to do the same. If we are vulnerable and loving, it’s hard for others in our life to not be the same way. So, go out and practice loving with your heart open and be okay with being a bit vulnerable. You will be amazed at the shifts in your relationships through this loving. When I am loving like this, I feel full and happy and believe it or not my energy level is so much higher also. Try it and see how you feel and let me know what it’s like to live in your heart.
Hi everyone, this was a blog from last year that I think is important for teens looking for summer jobs. Pass this along to your teen, parents.
Hey Teens, summer is just around the corner and for those of you that are going to enter the wonderful world of working for a living (or maybe just working for next years school clothes and having fun). Here are some job ideas. I did a blog last year regarding summer jobs for teens. I am big advocate of entrepreneurialship, working for yourself. There are so many ways to create jobs for yourself, and make more money, I’m not quite sure why you would work for someone else.
It is also going to be tougher this year to get a job, because of the current economic situation we are in. Those jobs that teens usually go for during the summer might well be taken by someone else that has lost his job. So that’s what makes creating your own job even more appealing.
When I look at the typical job for teens today like fast food restaurant, I think there must be a better way.
Besides working with Teen’s and being an author, I have owned a few businesses. I love being my own boss, because I get to do things my way, it’s a great learning experience and best of all my hard work pay off, goes to me. Of course you may have some small start up costs, and costs of doing business, but then the rest is yours.
So here are some great business ideas for teens:
• Web Consultant- most teens I know have a way with computers and most adults I know struggle with it. Help them set up and manage Social Networking Sites (My Space, etc.
• Nanny- if you like kids and your good with them, kids are out of school during the summer, but parents still have to work.
• Dog Walker or Pet sitting- I’m always looking for someone to help me with my animals. I pay $35.00 to $50.00 a night.
• Dog Washer- if someone had a service on a Saturday or anytime where I could just drop in and have my dos washed I would love it. All you need is water towels, dog shampoo and a location. I think if you charged $12.00 for a small dog, $16.00 for a medium, and $20.00 for a large dog, people would do it all day long.
• Car Detailing- with a few supplies and a knowledge of what is clean and what is not, you could wash, wax, clean vents, and vacuuming right at their homes
• Errand running- there are a lot of elderly people and people that are very business that need help, just running errands or helping around the house with odd jobs.
• Cleaning Service- if you have a sense of what is clean and what is not, this is a great business.
Most of the time the people buy the cleaning products and you just go clean.
• Tutoring- tutor a younger teen or child while going through summer school or with subjects they are having difficulty with. Parents love this one.
• Small business assistant- I used to always get teens to help me with different jobs for my business. They would come for 2 hours a day and I would have things like shredding, bookwork, cleaning, organizing inventory, so many things.
So, get a plan together, and start preparing now because summer is almost here. Get the supplies you need, how many hours it will take, how much you are going to charge, who are you going to call, make a flyer, post it, tell all of your parents friends, and ask if they know anyone that needs your help. I think working is a lot more fun, when you are your own boss, so go have some fun and make some money and let me know how it goes.
When I first starting mentoring Teens, I found it to be so rewarding because of the authentic energy teens bring to the table. What I soon found out was that without mentoring the parents, the teens and I were in No Mans Land!
I am amazed at the speed in which things shift when I am working with both the teens and the parents. Especially when I am working with parents that are open to new ways of parenting. In today’s world we have to look at parenting in a different way. Parenting in the 50′s is way different than parenting today.
When I am working with parents that are defending their position, instead of looking for new ways to connect to their teen, we spend our time on their position of defense, if you know what I mean. It takes an brave and honest parent to admit they don’t know everything, and to be open to helping their teens acquire the tools they need to be independent and happy adults.
If we are looking for new ways to communicate and relate to our kids it doesn’t mean we don’t know how to parent. It means we are always looking for ways to be a better parent. I constantly hear “my daughter has great self-esteem” or “my teen and I get along great” from parents. My first thought is that’s wonderful, and my second thought is, so lets keep that ball rolling. I also hear from parents that everything was going just great and Wham, things changed, like over night.
This may seem like it happened over night, but it didn’t, it was progressive. In the beginning I said the reason I love mentoring teens is because of their authentic energy, they are real. I’m not sure if parents just don’t realize what’s going on in the household or they are pretending it doesn’t exist. Either way, it dilutes the ability to shift behaviors. If we wait as parents until something goes wrong, it’s harder to find balance in the situation. So, start early helping your teen learn how to love themselves so that they can make better decisions and so you can guide them through this with greater ease.
Take advantage of anything that will help you, help your teen. You will be happy that you did. Kick that pride away and get down to business.
Through out our lifetime we keep evolving with everything in our life actually. Our health, financial issues, we run our companies differently, and we better be parenting differently. If I look at how my parents raised me and how I raised my kids and how my kids are raising their kids, it’s quite a difference.
I pretty much raised myself, with little to no guidance. When I had my two daughters I was more involved but was also giving them enough room to explore, maybe too much. My daughter today is raising my grandson totally different. She has more boundaries than I had although she is communicating more with her son and giving him choices, to allow him to learn to make decisions on his own. As parents they participate far more than parents in the past. It was always a rarity if parents were really involved in there kids life, when I was being raised.
What I realize is that in today’s times it‘s going to take a new approach to keep your kids connected to you. It’s like we have to be involved but not too involved, no hovering! We have to guide them without them knowing we are guiding them, leading them into making their own decisions, and making sure they are good ones. We have a big job, I know if you are reading this, you are up for the task.
So what does parenting look like in today’s world with things so different? First we should talk about what is different.
The drugs the kids use today are different, there has always been drugs, just not the type of drugs that do the damage that say Crack does. How about Sex? Sex has never been more casual as it is today, oral sex isn’t even considered sex. Technology is way different today than it was in the past. There is so much stimulation between HD TV with 500 different channels, Cell phones with texting and pictures. Computers, the internet, it goes on and on. The media has a bigger influence than ever, it is telling our kids what to eat, what to wear, how much to weigh, what cars to drive, that sex is cool, it’s basically telling our kids who to be.
This is a good time to look at how you parent, don’t wait until they are 17 years old, although if you are looking now, keep looking. So, what does it look like to parent in today’s world?
It looks like WAKING UP AND PAYING ATTENTION! I hope I didn’t offend any one, but this is the first thing you need to do, and then after rubbing the sleep out of your eyes and looking at what is really going on, then and only then can you start parenting effectively. This isn’t going to be easy, but it’s going to be easier with your eyes open because now you know what you’re dealing with. How do you open your eyes? Start by just looking at the behavior of your teen, and then start asking them questions to find out what they believe. Being asleep is believing that because you said so “it is”. Awaken to the fact that your teen is their own person with their own believes and views.
In my girls circles I hear constantly “my parents think I’m this and I’m not”. Your teens aren’t being honest with you because you aren’t giving them a choice to be honest. So start asking them questions about things in the world and when they answer and it’s not your answer, don’t condemn them. Instead maybe say “that’s an interesting point of view”. This is how you are going to get to know your kids, by asking them questions and letting them answer with their own minds, not yours. I’m reading a book write now called 14 Minutes by Jodi Picoult and it’s unbelievable how the parents don’t have a clue who their teens are, and what I realized is that this is the reality.
If you want to get to know your kids…Really, start listening to them. Stop trying to control them and stop trying to get them to be like you and believe your beliefs. Turn the tables around, how would it feel if you had a friend that never allowed you to have your own opinion about anything and was always pushing her beliefs onto you. I would feel totally discounted as a person and like I wasn’t important. Do you want your teens to feel this way? No, of course you don’t.
Every opportunity you get ask them about everything- smoking, drugs, sex, styles, suicide, integrity, schooling, friendships, I could go on and on. When you ask them, really listen to what they are saying, this will give you the insight into who they are. Don’t judge what they are saying, just listen, you may be very surprised at what they start telling you about themselves without your judgments getting in their way.
When we listen to what they are saying we get the opportunity to really get to know them in a deeper more connected way. For some of you this is going to take practice and your teens aren’t going to start sharing who they are right away because they are shut down and afraid you are going to judge them for who they are, because it is different than you. Stay with it, keep asking questions, and keep listening and leaving out your opinions and judgments and I guarantee they will start sharing more. Just try it for a month and see if things change within your relationship with your teen.
It is going to take a new way of parenting to get the results that we want with our teen, which I hope is to have a more connected, honest relationship with them.
Try it and let me know how it goes, it’s all about loving them unconditionally and letting them be and grow into the person they want to be, not how you see them or want them to be.
How do you think your next partner will feel if you have slept with other guys?
