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.
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!
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?
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.
I found this News Release about cigarette marketing campaign targeting teen girls from UC San Diego Medical Center, and thought it needed to be sent through to my audience. After reading this I realized that it is really important to talk to your kids about smoking, not just one conversation, but many. If you aren’t opening up the communication to discuss issues like this, your teens will be left to their own means to make decisions. The media is very powerful, don’t under estimate it. Our teen listen to the TV, magazines, radio, and internet and it is influencing them to a large degree.
Self-Esteem is critical to teens doing what is good for them, not what others think they should be doing, including the media.
I am actually in the process of another blog about fashion and what a hold it has on our teens. It’s important to talk to our teens about issues and empower them to be able to make good decisions for themselves. Let me know what you think…I’m pretty sure you don’t want your teenagers smoking.
Date: March 15, 2010 News Release from UC San Diego Medical Center
Recent Cigarette Marketing Campaign Targeted Teen Girls, Study Reveals
The 1998 Master Settlement Agreement (MSA) prohibits tobacco industry advertising practices that encourage underage teenagers to smoke, yet new research out of the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego has found that a 2007 marketing campaign for Camel brand cigarettes was effective in encouraging young girls to start smoking.
The study, led by John P. Pierce, PhD, professor of Family and Preventive Medicine and director of the Cancer Center’s Cancer Prevention and Control Program, will be published March 15 in an early online edition of the scientific journal Pediatrics.
The research, part of a national study on parenting practices, involved 1,036 males and females who were 10 to 13 years old when enrolled onto the study. Between 2003 and 2008, scientists conducted five telephone interviews, which included questions about smoking. The fifth interview was conducted after the start of RJ Reynolds’ “Camel No. 9″ advertising campaign in 2007.
Consistent with earlier research, the new study showed that youth who had never smoked but who reported having a “favorite” cigarette ad at the beginning were 50 percent more likely to initiate smoking. The number of boys with a favorite ad was stable across all five surveys. For girls, however, it was stable across the first four surveys, but by the fifth survey, which took place after the start of the Camel No. 9 campaign, the proportion of girls who reported a favorite ad jumped by 10 percentage points, to 44 percent. The Camel brand accounted almost entirely for this increase.
“In 1998, the Tobacco Industry signed an agreement with State Attorneys General which included a commitment not to target adolescents with advertising. Congressional leaders and others have complained to RJ Reynolds that the Camel #9 campaign violated that agreement,” said Pierce. “This national study demonstrated that the Camel No. 9 campaign had a huge impact on young adolescent girls across the country, effectively encouraging them to smoke.”
The Camel No. 9 marketing campaign included ads resembling fashion spreads that were placed in five of the top 10 U.S. teen readership magazines, such as Glamour and Vogue. The campaign also featured promotional giveaways such as berry lip balm, cell phone jewelry, purses and wristbands.
Co-authors on the paper are Karen Messer, PhD, Lisa E. James, Martha M. White, MS and Sheila Kealey, MPH, all of the Moores UCSD Cancer Center; and Donna M. Vallone, PhD, MPH, and Cheryl G. Healton, DrPH, both of the American Legacy Foundation, Washington, D.C. This study was funded by the National Cancer Institute, the American Legacy Foundation, and the Tobacco Related Disease Research Program of the University of California.
I received an E-mail from a 17-year-old teen the other day and it was such a classic case of how important it is for girls to have self-esteem, that I really wanted to share it with you. Girls are bombarded with images of how bodies are supposed to look everywhere they turn, including from the guys they talk to.
This seems like such a small incident, but it’s very big and real for girls. Hopefully this will help you with situations coming up with your daughters and more importantly your sons. We can work on helping our girls have self-esteem, but the other side to this is teaching our sons to have respect for girls and what this looks like.
Here is the letter first from Mark, then my response, and his apology and her response. I was very impressed with him taking a look at his behavior and then doing the right thing. See what you think.
My name is Mark and I’m 17 years old. I discovered your website and thought you might have some good insight on an experience I had involving a girl’s image of her body. She was a girl I had just met at a dance a few weeks ago. We talked for a good half hour and seemed to be hitting it off. Then, things suddenly went downhill. I commented that she had a “really nice, hourglass figure”. I thought she would take it as a compliment but instead she became deeply offended. I went into damage control mode and tried to clarify my comments but I think I only made things worse when I used the term “healthy”. With a look of complete disgust, WHAP!, she slapped my face and departed.
She had a classic hourglass figure – large bust, narrow waist, shapely hips/legs. I guess she had interpreted “hourglass” as meaning big/overweight/full figured. Why can’t girls embrace their curves?
–Mark
Hi Mark,
I can see where your confusion comes in with girls and thier bodies. Unfortunately girls are comparing themselves to girls in the media, the girls on TV, magazines, and models etc. I’m not saying this is a good thing, it’s just the way it is.What girls want to know is that you like them the way they are. Next time when you are complimenting girl, stay away from descriptions of the body. You can say “You look great” “I like the way you look”. Just the mere description of the body brings attention to how the body is supposed to look. Even if you are commenting on a part of the body you like, it makes girls feel uncomfortable. If you had been dating her awhile and she made a comment on being overweight, and you were to say “I like your hourglass figure”, it’s saying she isn’t thin and in her mind it’s just another word for overweight. If you were to say “I like your body just the way it is and I don’t think you’re overweight”. It is more reassuring.
This is the very reason I work with girls on loving themselves from the inside out, because what really matters is who we are on the inside, not what our bodies look like. We need good guys in our lives letting us know that we are perfect just the way we are. Thank you for your comment, I think a lot of guys feel the same confusion as you did. Thanks again, Debra
(Mark’s letter to the girl)
Dear Cheryl,
This is Mark. We met a few weeks ago. I genuinely meant to compliment you, but in so doing used a poor choice of words that deeply offended you. I am so sorry for any hurt I may have caused you. You are a really intelligent girl and I have great respect for you. You are also very beautiful. While I meant to compliment you, it was inappropriate for me to comment on your physical appearance after meeting you for the first time.
I hope you choose to accept my apology, but if not, I sincerely wish you the best in life and I am still grateful for having met you.
Mark
(Her response back to him)
Mark. Gosh, I have such mixed emotions on this. You seemed like such a sweet guy at first and that’s why I was so disappointed when you started commenting on my body and taking the conversation into the gutter. I had some weight issues when I was younger, so maybe I’m overly sensitive of any comments that hint at being over-weight. Also, because I’m very curvy, I’ve too often had to deal with boys who look at me primarily in a sexual/physical way. Therefore your comments, as well intentioned as they may have been, were really insulting. It also didn’t help that you kept staring at my chest. That is something I’m very self-conscious about.
P.S. Regarding the slap across the face….well, I’m an old fashioned girl and I felt it was the most appropriate response for a guy who was being disrespectful to me. I will say that you conducted yourself as a gentleman by turning the other cheek and then coming back to make a sincere apology. Most boys would be more consumed with their own pride and resentful of the girl who slapped them. Cheryl
Mark wrote me one last response expressing his thanks and that he felt like he had grown up a lot through the whole experience. He shared the story with his father and his father shared a story with him about when he got slapped by a girl and his learning from it. The entire situation was such a great learning for Mark.
It is our job as parents to talk to our daughters about self-esteem and how not to buy into the media, and as importantly to talk to our sons about what respecting girls actually looks like. Mark had no idea he was being disrespectful by talking about her body. He didn’t even realize he was staring at her chest.
I shared this exchange with you because I am always talking on the side of the girls and this gave me the opportunity to explore what it is like to be on the side of the guys. It actually makes me want to reach out more to them because I know ultimately it will help the young girls I am reaching now.
Let me know if you have had any situations that have helped your young teens learn about themselves in a whole new way.
This is such an important subject to be exploring as a teen or as a parent for your tween’s entering into puberty. I started blogging on this and doing my research to make sure I was giving you information that was thorough. I came across this article on Natural Living for Women that was so comprehensive that I decided to forward it. I have been using natural tampons for 12 years after my daughters informed me of the harmful affects the non-organic ones.
If you are a Mom that is still using tampons or you have teens that are using them, please read this blog and decide for yourself. Here it is…
Don’t you think organic tampons make sense for something that comes into contact with delicate tissues of our body on a regular basis?It has been estimated that we can use as much as 9,000 tampons in our lifetimes. I thought this was an exageration but do the math. As an example, 4 tampons for 6 days, 12 months a year for 30 years is 8,640. That’s a lot of tampons.
So What’s The Problem With Tampons?
Most tampons are made from a cotton or rayon-cotton blend. Rayon is a synthetic fiber that is made from wood pulp. It is highly absorbent and it does it’s job well in our tampons. Cotton while a so called natural fiber may have been bio-engineered and grown with a mess of pesticides, fertilizers and fungicides. . (See organic cotton.) Both of these fibers undergo a bleaching process before being made into tampons and even though this process has been improved to try and eliminate dioxins, trace levels are still being found.
Dioxins
Dioxins are an environmental pollutant and known carcinogenic by product of bleaching and manufacturing processes. It is now being found in our soil, air and water. According to the FDA, this may explain how rayon and cotton may always contain some dioxin. Some groups think even the improved bleaching techniques may contribute to some of the dioxins.The FDA says that levels of dioxin are so low, it is not cause for concern. But some doctor’s and other groups are not so sure and are concerned about the cumulative effects of even tiny amounts of dioxins coming in to contact month after month with a very delicate part of our body. No one knows for sure.
According to the National Research Center for Women and Families, dioxin was found in several brands of tampons and at least one 100% cotton brand. Companies are required to test and report dioxin levels to the FDA.
Sometimes I feel like we’re in a bit of a chemical soup. Fortunately, if we make better choices we can eliminate some of the harmful chemicals that have become so much a part of our everyday lives. We can purchase organic tampons or pads that are 100% certified organic cotton, do not contain any synthetic materials such as rayon or chemical additives like fragrances and either no bleaching or non-chlorine bleaching such as hydrogen peroxide.Hydrogen peroxide has not been found to create dioxins. The elimination of chlorine bleaching to treat fibers and all the chemicals needed to grow conventional cotton helps improve things for both us and the environment.
My Choice For Organic Tampons.
I have used tampon products for years and did not make the switch to organic tampons until a few years ago. I had to experiment with a few brands until I found one I could be happy with. I believe the absence of rayon and it’s high absorbency has been a problem.
The most effective brand I have found is made by Natracare. Natracare can be purchased at most health food stores and quite a few online sources but check out their website, you’ll find quite a bit of interesting information about this and other forms of safe feminine protection.
My purchase of organic tampons is part of my plan for removing as many unnecessary chemicals as I can from my life for myself, family and the environment. Let’s see 8,640 organic tampons per woman, not bad.
I too have been using Natracare brand for many years and like it a lot. Do your research and pick what product you like the best, this is only my preference. I do know that from what I have researched, organic tampons are far better for us than non-organic. I just felt like it was important to bring this information to you. Let me know what you think.
