ParentingPanicButton » parenting teens
Summer Camp is Here Again!
For some kids and teenagers, summer is a time to rest, relax, vacation, sleep in and forget about responsibility. The novelty usually wears off as the second month of summer vacation sets in and the enjoyment is often replaced by excessive sleeping, immersion in video games and social media, and complaining of boredom. Such behavior is common with teenagers. Younger children can be drawn towards sibling rivalry, excessive videos, and whines of “there’s nothing to do.” In parenting teens and young kids, you’ll observe that without the routines of the school year, they are prone to getting into mischief. You don’t need to worry about these things in your household because you have the option of Summer Camp. It offers much fun, adventuring and personal growth are offered there. Summer Camp … Read entire article »
Filed under: parenting advice, parenting help, parenting teens, parenting tips, summer camp
“Parenting Martial Arts”
What the heck is that? Parenting is an art to practice, refine and reinvent when not working. Martial arts is a perfect container for parenting skills, techniques and strategies. When we study or practice martial arts, most people are not learning it to harm or hurt others. We are learning the particular discipline for the following reasons: 1-To improve our focus, to center ourselves and be in control of our actions 2-To become more effective in meeting all challenges, obstacles, threats and emergencies 3-To help us feel comfortable, protected and safe in the world as well as in our homes 4-To disarm adversaries, ideally without harming them or being harmed our selves 5-To avoid unpleasant encounters and to moderate our reactions by not acting out of impulse, anger, vindictiveness, vengeance, antipathy, jealousy and on and on 6-To prepare … Read entire article »
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Tip for Parenting your Teen When They are Having a Bad Day
Share this with your kids if they have had a bad day, or even a good day! You are among friends. No problem is insurmountable, or permanent. Wisdom and growth come from hardship, from what is experienced as pain. Pain and strong emotions are pointers for focusing our attention on those areas that we need to pay attention to, to see a new way, guide us to making an uncomfortable change or be vulnerable in a way that feels scary. Here is a message for you at this moment. This helps to ground me so I can find the way through this complicated life: That you have a life is a gift, a blessing, a miracle. You are meant to be. Your life is a gift. You are here for a reason. The moment you were conceived … Read entire article »
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Parenting Your Teens; 10 is the new 30
While so many of our young adults are coming back home from college, jobless, penniless and in debt (”. http://www.rickconcoff.com/2013/02/30-is-the-new-10-or-at-best-20-raising-an-adult-child/) and totally dependent on us, many of us continue to treat our children like “little adults”. Thus “30 is the New 10” and “10 is the New 30. What does this all mean? Back in “the day “(40’s- 60’s) “authoritarian parenting” was common. This essentially featured such strategies and admonitions as “you will do what I say when I say it”, “In my house we you will do it our way.”, “Do as I say, not as I do” and “Children should be seen and not heard.” Violations often were met with strict punishments, ridicule, humiliation, verbal and physical abuse. Thank goodness we are not “back in that day” anymore! That approach and … Read entire article »
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What if your adorable 10 year old wrote you this letter on his/her 11th birthday?
Dear Mom and Dad or Dad and Dad or Mom and Mom Dad or Mom, (choose 1 or more) I am 11 today, and still rather innocent. I know all of the words to the edgiest songs and I sing along, but I don’t know yet what they mean. I dance with sexy moves and know the latest slang, and lots of people think it is cute. I am just noticing my “pre-teen” body and suddenly care what I look like, a lot! I am noticing that you are not as perfect as I thought you were when I was younger, and you are noticing that I am not as willing to please you. Suddenly, I would rather be with my friends than you, be texting rather than socializing at a family event … Read entire article »
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Concerns, Tough Questions and Solutions for Parenting Teens-Part 2
Me and and many of my colleagues carry a deep concern and are asking tough questions about why self harm and eating disorders are on the increase for our teens and young adults. Are we falling short as parents, teachers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, sports coaches and role models in encouraging living values and virtues in our children of compassion, empathy, self-reliance, honesty, perseverance, gratitude, and appreciation? Are our children and teens so saturated with acquired things and constant entertainment, that they have no time to relax? Are we teaching stress and achievement neurosis and ego driven competition as a life curriculum? Are we ourselves modeling materialism, multitasking, and technological idolatry? Are we using the current “economic hard times” as an excuse for pushing our kids harder and harder? Are we teaching them what to … Read entire article »
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Parenting our Teens; Helping them with their Stress- Part 1
This article is about how stress causes problems in our teens like self harm, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and suicide In case you don’t have time to read this, but want the information, here you go: Spend enough quality time with your teens and pre-teens so that you continue to know them and have healthy attachment through these difficult years. Have a clear view of what the parameters of “normal” are for your child, and pay attention to behaviors that call out for help. Sometimes these behaviors will seem like they are intended to alienate you, but don’t fall for it. Not being a therapist or a clinician, I see it as appropriate for me to refrain from description, diagnosis, analysis or suggested remedy for these challenges, and for the rise in their … Read entire article »
Filed under: Blessings, children's music studies, Common Ground, Featured, gratitude, Jewish Community Events, Oakland A's, parenting advice, parenting help, parenting teens, parenting tips, Relationships, self confidence, summer camp, teen driving
30 is the new 10, or at best 20; Raising an adult child
I recently had lunch with my old buddy and his 35 year-old son. As we were celebrating that “50” is the “new 60”, and “50” is the “new 40”, he chimed in, yeah and “30 is the new 10”. We all laughed at that comment! There are many, many young adults between the ages of 18-35 who have successfully moved into adulthood. (How To Be and Adult) and my blog 18 steps to becoming an adult. If your grown child falls into the category of being a true adult, is self-supporting and self-empowered, then kudos to you for your contribution as a parents, and kudos to them for stepping up and showing up. This article may not apply to them or you. However, if you are in the growing group of parents … Read entire article »
Filed under: gratitude, parenting advice, parenting help, parenting teens, parenting tips, Relationships, self confidence
The Problem with Losing Weight
The problem with losing weight is that under most circumstances, with the exception of illness and eating disorders, we view it as positive, even though it contains the word losing. It is peculiar how we use words. A similar situation is occurs with the phrase falling in love. Aren’t we really rising to love? Falling seems so helpless. Here is how I turn losing weight into a gain that actually helps the pounds stay off. In my family there is a prevailing tendency to gain weight easily. It is in our genes, and to make matters more difficult, we are stress eaters, recreational eaters and we so often love what we shouldn’t eat. Many of us are continually putting on weight, taking it off, putting it on again, and the losing it. It is a … Read entire article »
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How to be Heard when Parenting your Teens
Don’t charge it! It is costly to say things with a “charge”, find a better way say it and be heard. Parents only have the part of the day that is left after school, extra-curricular activities and social time. When you add in sleep, parents of children, pre-teens and teens are lucky to have a few quality hours with their kids on weekdays, and often not much more on weekends. How we spend the time in the morning before school, time driving to school and other places, at and after dinner in reality dictates our relationship or non-relationship with our children. We have these few hours to model functional living, self-responsibility, social manners, positive attitude, work ethic, cooperative family life, not to speak of all of the values and virtues we want … Read entire article »
Filed under: parenting advice, parenting help, parenting teens, parenting tips