Flashback Friday: Who’s to Blame for Bored Teens?

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Barb

Recently we had a terrible tragedy in our area. Nine people, eight of them teenagers and the ninth a 23-year-old adult who was driving (and was allegedly drunk), were packed into a car that crashed in the middle of the night, killing four of the teens. A fifth died a few days later.

It turned out these kids were out looking for fun…at 2 in the morning. A local reporter who is the father of five children has written several columns about this terrible event. In the first, he suggested that parents need to crack down on their kids, and that there’s no need for them to be out at that hour. In a second column, he shared a message he received from a 19-year-old reader, who said kids are out running around in the middle of the night because they’re bored, and because today’s adults won’t provide them with places where they can hang out with their friends. He goes so far as to blame today’s adults for the accident.

Obviously the accident was the fault of the driver, not adults who won’t let them go tobogganing (an example the 19-year-old uses). But the point he makes about there being “NOTHING to do” says more about some of today’s youth than anything we adults could say about them.

At 19, I was in college and working to pay for college. So was my husband. My father was in the Air Force at 19, my mother was in nursing school, my father-in-law was in college and my mother-in-law was working as a secretary and planning her wedding. We were all too busy to need to be entertained.

Isn’t it ironic that with all the entertainment we have available in today’s world, there are young people who demand to be given something to do? What has made these kids think that the world owes them anything, much less entertainment?

This young man also says, “That’s why so many kids do drugs and drink and set things on fire etc.; they’re all just bored!” Being bored is no excuse for doing those things, and in a world where there is so much work to be done, there is no excuse for being bored.

Originally posted 3/5/07

Readiness Applies to Adults, Too

Posted on September 23, 2013 by Barb

(I try not to invade my adult children’s privacy too much, so please forgive the vagueness of this post.)

One of my children, the one who most ignored what I taught them about money, is now (finally) watching what they spend and trying to keep their expenses down. You can’t imagine how happy this makes me.

You see, as a homeschooling parent, I got used to quick (if not instant) results. For instance, I could tell how my kids were doing in math by the percentage of problems they got right. If the percentage was low, we’d work harder on math and soon the percentage would go up. Victory!

But what I’ve forgotten in the years since my children grew up is something I proclaim to younger homeschooling parents all the time: readiness! How well I remember that my kids learned to read when they were ready. Starting before they were ready only resulted in frustration.

So while it’s good that I taught my kids how to live debt-free while they were teens, the problem is that I expected them all to live that way from day one. One of them did, but the others have been learning slowly as they needed to learn, as their readiness developed. I’m just beginning to understand that readiness is a concept that applies to adults as well as children.

I need to remember this when my adult children make mistakes that fly in the face of what they were taught. Apparently they weren’t ready for that particular lesson when we were homeschooling. Now that they’ve reached a point where the lesson actually applies to their life, I guess I just need to be available in case they ask for help…and be happy that they finally did learn the lesson.

Flashback Friday: The Problem with Girls’ Clothes

Posted on September 20, 2013 by Barb

If you have any daughters, you know how difficult it can be to find nice, age-appropriate clothes for them. So much of what’s available today can only be described as trampy.

Writer Mona Charen once said that both liberals and conservatives should demand that decent girls’ clothing be made available in today’s stores. Both sides do agree there’s a problem in the girls’ department, but liberals tend to blame business as the cause, while conservatives blame our culture. Regardless of where we place the blame, the important question is, what are we going to do about this problem? For starters:

Never buy a sexually suggestive piece of clothing for your daughter, no matter how great a deal it may be. Remember, our goal is to keep those clearance racks filled with trampy clothing.
Complain to store management about inappropriate girls’ clothing. Let them know it offends you.
Frequent stores that sell age-appropriate girls’ clothing, such as Lands’ End and Hanna Andersson. Put your money where your mouth is.
When you find age-appropriate outfits, don’t just buy them; alert all your friends who have daughters, so they can buy them, too. Businesses will sell whatever styles make money for them.
Learn to sew, and teach your daughters to sew. It’s fun, it’s creative, and it’s a slap in the face to the clothing stores that sell sleazy styles for girls.
Check out thrift stores for good, basic clothes.
Teach your daughters that they are beautiful inside, where it counts. Raise girls who do not depend on a mirror or leering looks from the opposite sex for their self-esteem.

Originally posted 2/27/2007

Flashback Friday: Raising Stars

Posted on September 13, 2013 by Barb

The announcement that, according to a recent Pew telephone survey, over 80% of today’s American young people consider being rich and famous one of their top life goals garnered a lot of attention. This particular article about the survey results suggests that one cause of young people’s desire for stardom is the “omnipresence” of their parents’ video cameras while they were growing up.

I can’t speak to the cause, but I know where this concept of stardom is being perpetuated, and that’s in the classroom. I recently received the latest edition of our local school district’s P.R. piece, er…magazine, which describes one local school where “learning about health and well-being is fun.” A program called “Staying Well” is the second grade science and health curriculum there, and it includes songs for the kids to sing, including this one (note: I’m sharing it just the way it’s printed in the mailing, sans punctuation.):

I am the star of my body,
The star of my mind
I am the star of my life yeah
I’m doin’ just fine
I take good care of myself
‘Cause I know that I should
I’m feelin’ good
good good good good
Feelin’ good

OK, so not every lyricist is the next Ira Gershwin. But my point is that kids in my town are taught that the key to well-being is reminding yourself of your stardom. You won’t find that kind of nonsense in our homeschooling house. Anybody who starts claiming stardom around here will find themselves the star of a new reality series called “Extra Chores.”

Originally posted 2/10/07

Sometimes technology is so cool……

Posted on September 9, 2013 by Barb

The upcoming bride in our house is designing a guestbook for her wedding using engagement photos and Snapfish. She’s very good at making books there and I know the guestbook is going to be wonderful.

But there are all sorts of uses for these books that are so easily made using your own photos. Like this ABC book you make for a child using his or her own toys. How cool is that?