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Parenting

Submitted by jaz on October 5, 2008 - 7:31am.
Wasn't sure where to put the review I'm going to post below, so decided to start a new forum on the topic.
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Teen Parenting

Submitted by jaz on January 31, 2010 - 9:49am.

Joanna Weiss in this op-ed piece describes the MTV program "Teen Mom" (hmm, interesting title) as something that should be required watching for all 13 year olds, especially given a recent increase in the numbers of teen pregnancies.  Weiss begins by focusing on the maturity of one of the boys on the show, Tyler, who encourages his girlfiriend to give the child up for adoption so that she can have a better life and helps his girlfriend through the pregnancy, birth, and aftermath.  She then recounts the story of a teen mother that she knows and trying to get at some of the causes of teen pregnancy.  There she finds that sex education may not be the key.  Girls tend to get pregnant because they see this as a way to keep their boyfriends, or as a route to maturity.  Education that led to girls feeling more confidence in themselves and less dependence on an identity as girlfriends or mothers as a version of "adulthood" would seem to be key.

Real life for teen moms

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Mentoring

Submitted by jaz on August 12, 2009 - 9:16am.

Couple good links--one on mentoring generally, one specifically for high school students:

Mentor

BoostUp

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Review of "The Secret Lives of Boys"

Submitted by jaz on May 24, 2009 - 1:29pm.

I read a brief review of this book in the paper and then researched it on Amazon.  Reading the introduction available on Amazon convinced me that this writer has taken the right approach in investigating what life is like for teen boys at the moment.

The Secret Lives of Boys: Inside the Raw Emotional World of Male Teens

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"Making it up as we go along" :-)

Submitted by jaz on October 13, 2008 - 7:20am.
I liked this column by Chris Bohjalian about how we view our parenting and adulthood as very different from our own parents'--when in fact we're all just making it up as we go.
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Must be my "parenting" day

Submitted by jaz on October 5, 2008 - 5:59pm.
Heard a "This American Life" segment about the Harlem Children's Zone, a program designed to try and alleviate the problem of poverty by bringing in ideas about parenting that are prevalent in the middle class suburbs into the inner city--especially the idea of early childhood language acquisition.  According to the program, the greatest cause/effect relationship between adult success and early childhood is exposure to language/vocabulary.  The Harlem's Children's Zone begins with parenting classes before children are born, continues with preschool programs and then follows children through their entire school career up through college.
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Making the Harlem Children's Zone a Nat'l Program

Submitted by jaz on May 1, 2009 - 7:33am.

An article in the paper today was describing the Harlem Children's Zone concept because apparently the Obama Administration is planning to make this kind of program a central piece of their education policy.  I find that so heartening as it seems like a really sensible and holistic approach to raising and educating children.

For children an urban lifeline

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Review of Parenting Books

Submitted by jaz on October 5, 2008 - 10:51am.
A review of 3 recent books on parenting, all of which look worth exploring.  The one thing I disagreed with in the review was the description "Teenagers are a breed unto themselves" in regard to the third book: Cringe: Teenage Diaries, Journals, Notes, Letters, Poems, and Abandoned Rock Operas.  I dislike the whole categorization because I find it's most often used as a way to avoid examining what's happening in a particular situation and avoiding responsibility of either the parent or child.  Heard a guidance counselor at my son's school say recently as a piece of advice to parents that teenagers can be expected to act like two-year-olds and will swing from extreme clinginess to hyper independence and tantrums at not getting to assert doing things their own way.  This was said to calm parent's fears when their children behave this way apparently.  To me that whole attitude is part of the same avoidance of reality and disappointment that is often given as advice about how to treat children, but here it's applied to the parents themselves.  That kind of avoidance/denial is the subject of the second book reviewed: The Self Esteem Trap: Raising Confident and Compassionate Kids in an Age of Self-Importance.  The first book is So Sexy So Soon: The New Sexualized Childhood and What Parents Can to Protect Their Kids.  One of the authors is Jean Kilbourne, the woman behind the "Killing Me Softly" criticques of gender stereotyping in advertising.
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Teenagers

Submitted by ESi on October 5, 2008 - 12:19pm.
I thought the teenager phenomenon was explained by the underdevelopment of myelin sheathing in the frontal cortex.
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Teenagers

Submitted by jaz on October 5, 2008 - 6:17pm.
Well yeah, there is stuff going on in the brain that explains why teenagers are less able to control impulsive behavior--but it's not like they are less able to control impulsive behavior than 10 year olds.  Being a teen is presented as if it's this odd period of regression.  I suppose it can be confusing because teens can seem very adult at times and then clearly aren't at others.  I just think the setting aside of the teen years as a separate category from the whole developmental process of growing up seems to me to have a motive of abrogating responsibility of anyone--of not connecting teen behavior to earlier behavior and the parenting they've already received. 
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Treading Lightly

Submitted by ESi on October 5, 2008 - 8:52pm.
I'll try hard not to ruffle any feathers here, because I don't know much about anything here. I'm definitely with you on the responsibility part, because I believe that 90% of America's problems can be traced directly to our uncanny ability to transfer responsibility to someone or something else. It still seems to me that teenagers are in the oddest spot because, unlike that 10 year old, they can be expected to have a very clear understanding of right, wrong, and consequences. Unlike a 25 year old, they have a harder time rectifying the conflict between emotion and reason. There's also the hormonal issue during that period. I certainly won't say that teenagers aren't responsible for their behavior or that parents get off the hook either, but it seems that biology is working against them somewhat. I don't know that I buy into any idea of it being a regression period any more than you do, though.
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Treading Lightly

Submitted by jaz on October 6, 2008 - 6:20am.
I agree with your description, ESi, and I do think biology is working against teens.  I also think it's important for parents to understand that odd position teenagers are in where cognitively they seem to have an adult understanding of right and wrong, but can't control their behavior, especially under stress, as an adult would be able to.  But I think we are setting the bar very low when the norm for teens, at least as this counselor was describing it, is for them to return to two year old behavior with tantrums and emotional meltdowns.  She was coupling this description with the additional message to parents that since it was normal, it was nothing for them to get overly concerned about--everyone goes through it.  I was looking around the room and all the parents I saw were nodding their heads in agreement and breathing a sigh of relief.
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Middle Ground?

Submitted by ESi on October 6, 2008 - 8:50am.
I think I could agree with the idea of it being normal and not something to be overly concerned about, but I could not agree with the idea of it being something that could be safely ignored just because it's normal. My daughter isn't two yet but I've nicknamed her "Meltdown Dramaqueen" because it appears she's entered that phase. We deal with it each and every time. I don't think such occurrences are particular to the two-year olds; I think they are with us throughout life and we just get better at handling them as we age. Just as we deal with it directly at this age, we'll continue dealing with it directly when she's 16 and 18 and 20.
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Reflection

Submitted by 3rdSon on October 6, 2008 - 12:06pm.

I don't think we ever get over the unreasonable responses.  I call them that, because that is what tantrums are.  I have three age groups in my house with regards to children.  I have a 12(almost 13), 8 and 2.5 represented.  Each of them still have their moments of unreasonable behaviour, with the 2.5 yr old being the most extreme. 

The oldest is getting much better, but will be swinging in to the teenage years.  I expect to lose him for a while, but he will come back to normal once he leaves and has a family of his own.  I am more worried about the 8 yr old.  I have never been a little girl and I'm not terribly sensative about girl things.  I have noticed that the children are reflections of the wife and I concerning their bouts of unreasonable behaviour.  Where the boy takes my approach more often than not, the girl takes the wifes approach.  Tantrums are a part of life even as adults. 

The only thing we can do is be examples to our children.  My 2.5 yr old says cute things like "Stupid light" at stop lights and "Move Dummy!" to people stopped at stop signs ahead of us.  I'm not entirely sure where he learned that since I am an AngelInnocent.  Maybe Mom likes to Hollywood out(insert movie scenario where woman gets mad at man and walks away without explanation chance).  Maybe Dad likes to throw a wrench across the garage floor after scraping his knuckles for the hundredth time.  Our actions do dictate theirs whether we like it or not.  

My wife and I like to joke about having the complete melt down at work like the 2.5 yr old does and how funny it would seem.  We don't do it because we know it is ridiculous.  I think younger kids grow out of that kind of tantrum phase when they are able to see how ridiculous it is.  I don't think we ever grow out of the tantrum phase though.  We just modify our response to the tantrum that seems more acceptable as adults.     

#3 Son

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So right

Submitted by DaBot on October 7, 2008 - 7:54am.

"I don't think we ever grow out of the tantrum phase though." --3rd Son.

I know I didn't... Laughing

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Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaamen!

Submitted by The GC on October 5, 2008 - 7:58pm.

Preach it, sister!

Smile

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