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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My daughter and her friends drive me crazy, they are always arguing about one thing or another.  I am always telling them to grow up and stop bickering.

This is a time when friends play an increasingly important role in their lives. Teens have developed friendships that are more intimate, exclusive, and more constant than in their earlier years. These friendships are an essential component of development. They provide a venue where your teen can explore their identities.

These interactions are very normal for teens.  This is how they learn to problem solve with individuals and in groups.  These interactions give teens a place to practice and learned how to foster the social skills necessary for future success.

Even though this behavior seems extreme and immature to you, realize that they are not adults; they are still learning how to communicate and develop healthy boundaries.  I know many adults that have yet to develop the social skills they needs to have successful interactions with their adult friends.

As a parent, you should look at two things: one- why is their behavior bothering you so badly?  Did your parents bicker? Look at what your wounding around this behavior might be. If you are triggered by her behavior, the only way you are going to be able to show up for her is to react through your own fears. If you are reacting to her, she is going to shut down and not hear any words of wisdom you might have around this subject. So, first do your inner child work around her behavior. Second, lets look at how you might be able to show up for your daughter in a different way.

The best thing you can do while they are arguing is, just allow them the freedom to do it, as long as they aren’t physically hurting each other, let them be.  If things seem to be going no-where you might let them know your available if they need you, if they say okay, you need to make sure you are not bringing your agenda into their arena.  Do not try to solve this problem for them, that’s not what they need or want. You want to ask a lot of questions and if they are not letting each other talk, ask them if they are okay with setting up a format to express their concerns.  This will be where each of them will have an opportunity to discuss their feelings around the issue, uninterrupted.

During this time you need to remain open. Do not take sides, or judge the situation, you are simply a mediator.  Let each of them express their concerns, and maybe you just keep asking questions.  All this does is help them get to the bottom of the problem with an easier format. That’s what you have provided them with, a safe place to explore their feelings and shown them a different way to communicate, by allowing others to express and be heard.

When our teens are working through their issues and we come in and judge them, maybe by saying or thinking that this is an extreme situation and they are being immature, they will shut down to us.  If they shut down to us, we are no longer able to offer assistance when they need it; we just add more emotional upset to the situation.

What we want to do for them is help them through there upset by holding a safe place for them to explore their feelings.  If we aren’t helping them, we need to know that they will be okay, and not judge they them for the way they want to work through it.

Our judgments only put more distance between our teens and us.  If we want to be available for them we have to be willing to not fix things for them and not judge the way the want to fix it.

Remember, this is normal teenage behavior and if this behavior keeps upsetting you, you have work to do.

Integrity is having an uprightness of character or action. It implies trustworthiness.

We know our code of honor; we know when we show a lack of integrity–in other words, when we are not trustworthy.

Do we like people who don’t have Integrity? When our friends lie to us, do we think it is okay?  This seems like a very basic quality we should learn when we are younger, but somehow it misses the boat.

It is very important to develop integrity within oneself. When we lie, cheat, steal or deceive, we hurt ourselves. We damage our self esteem. We never want to do something that makes us view our self as someone without integrity.  How can we like people who lack integrity? You, yourself, don’t like those kinds of people, so make sure that you aren’t one.  Everything always comes down to liking yourself, so you can love yourself, so you can have confidence and be happy.

People treat us differently when they can not trust us.  They don’t open up to us, therefore we prevent close relationships from happening in our lives.  People are afraid of sharing personal information with us, so this only allows a very shallow friendship.

It is so much nicer to be able to have close relationships that we can share our dreams, our upsets and our fears with, knowing that they will honor us, by keeping that information to themselves and not sharing or gossiping with others about it.

If we want friendship with people that have integrity, we have to have integrity, that is just the way the world works.  If you lie to your friends, they will never believe your words, again it will be impossible to trust you, therefore limiting your
relationship.

If we are doing things that hurt other people, and yes lying, cheating, and being dishonest indeed hurts others, and guess what, it hurts us too.  When we are people we don’t like, it damages our self esteem.  We become people we don’t like and if we are people we don’t like, our sense of self suffers.

When we have low self esteem, we tend to make everyday decisions in our life through that space instead of a confident place.  Can you see how that could affect our life?  Because the decisions we make, create the life we live.  So, if we are out there making bad decisions, how do you think our life will look?  Take a moment and think about it.

It’s safe to say that having Integrity is important, it is a part of who you are.  So, in looking at who you are or who you want to be, think about: do you have integrity?

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.

I can’t tell you how many days I would struggle to stay awake, while in school, when I was growing up.  Some of the teachers I had were killing me.  I believe teachers have become better at their jobs, or maybe in Sedona they seem more into it.

80% of the teachers I had seemed to dislike the job and thekids.  When I look back at what teachers made an impact on my life through teaching, I come up with a big fat zero.  I remember a middle school teacher named Mr. Felix for Spanish and I would get so nervous in his class that I would get the hick-ups everyday. If that wasn’t embarrassing enough, he would make me stand in front of the whole class and explain why I had the hick-ups.  What was wrong with him?  Instead of talking to me after class about what he could do to help me, he just made things worse.

I just wanted to check out when I was a teenager. Check out of school and check out of life.  My teenage years weren’t that fun.  Today as an adult I get to pick where I put myself.  If I’m in a situation where I feel like falling a sleep or someone is treating me poorly, I just remove myself.   Today, if I were a teen, I would talk to my teachers about how I like to learn, and try to change how they teach if they were a teacher who didn’t seem to care.  easier said then done, I know.

Hang in there, you will be old enough soon, to be where you want to be, and if you’re a teacher, take a look at how you are reaching these teens, is it effective and are you enjoying it or are you just getting through the day.