Improve your Parent/Teen relationship

First mind shift change to improve your relationship with your teenager.

I was asked to write some tips for parents surrounding my manifesto and, since there is so much in my manifesto I though I would take one point at a time and give parents some tips. My manifesto is designed to change not only the way we act towards young people, but the way we think about them and our relationships with them. To read the rest of the manifesto, go here. In the meantime, here is the first point.

First mind shift change to improve your relationship with your teenager.

Quick fixes will not fix the problem.

So many of the problems with our young people are systemic, yet we think that a quick intervention will “fix them”. We see a problem and we rush to fix the young person with a quick solution. People are so much more complicated than “quick fixes”.

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It’s easier to teach compliance than initiative

Wisdom from Seth

Found this on Seth Godin’s Blog and had to share it.

Compliance is simple to measure, simple to test for and simple to teach. Punish non-compliance, reward obedience and repeat.
Initiative is very difficult to teach to 28 students in a quiet classroom. It’s difficult to brag about in a school board meeting. And it’s a huge pain in the neck to do reliably.

Schools like teaching compliance. They’re pretty good at it. To top it off, until recently the customers of a school or training program (the companies that hire workers) were buying compliance by the bushel. Initiative was a red flag, not an asset.
Of course, now that’s all changed. The economy has rewritten the rules, and smart organizations seek out intelligent problem solvers. Everything is different now. Except the part about how much easier it is to teach compliance.

Really love this by Seth and it has really made me think of the definition between the two what do you think?

Teenagers and Sleep

Video games, mobile phones and TV are keeping children up at night, answers to a BBC questionnaire suggest.

Newsround sent a questionnaire to 1,000 children aged between nine and 11 at schools across the UK.

Most said they went to bed at 2130, but a quarter said bedtime was 2200 or later and half said they were not getting enough sleep and wanted more.

Health experts have linked a lack of sleep to problems with concentration, behaviour and school work. About half the children asked said they were staying up to play on computer games or their mobile phones or to watch television.

and in another report:

According to researchers, teenagers are suffering from what they call “night owl syndrome” because they do not get enough sunlight.
A study by the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lighting Research Centre in the USA concluded that teenagers were missing out on exposure to light, especially in the morning, and that this was upsetting their body-clocks.
The research was led by Mariana Figueiro, who said: “As teenagers spend more time indoors, they miss out on essential morning light needed to stimulate the body’s 24-hour biological system, which regulates the sleep/wake cycle.
“These morning-light-deprived teenagers are going to bed later, getting less sleep and possibly under-performing on standardised tests.”
The study was published in the journal Neuroendocrinology Letters.

So what is the answer?

OK, here we go again, criticising the technology. How on earth can it be the technology’s fault and not the parents? If this stuff is keeping your child awake, remove it from their room. Surely it is that simple!

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Children are being increasingly exposed to sexual imagery

And their parents have limited opportunities to stop it, a report for the Home Office warns.

The report calls for tougher regulation of sexual imagery in adverts and a ban on selling “lads’ mags” to under-16s.
It also recommends selling mobile phones and games consoles with parental controls automatically switched on.
Author Dr Linda Papadopoulos said there was a clear link between sexualised imagery and violence towards females.

Her report said the material children were being exposed to included the growth of lads’ mags and pornography on mobile phones, through to big-name fashion brands using sexual imagery to advertise clothes targeted at young teenagers.

The report’s 36 recommendations include calling for games consoles, mobile phones and some computers to be sold with parental controls already switched on.

This would allow families to automatically filter which on-demand services and online material their children can use.

Other recommendations include:

* A ban on “sexualised” music videos before the TV watershed
* A ban on Jobcentres advertising positions in lap-dancing clubs and massage parlours
* Internet service providers to block access to pro-bulimia and pro-anorexia websites
* The creation of a website where parents can report any “irresponsible marketing” they believe sexualises young children.

Dr Papadopoulos said there should also be symbols to show when a published photograph had been digitally altered – such as pictures of celebrities manipulated to make them appear thinner.

While I agree with all the findings in the report, especially a sign saying if a picture has been digital altered and selling phones with the parental lock on, I think it may be too late. I personally am not sure why we say this is recent; I remeber this and worse when I was a child, While we didn’t have the internet, images were certainly sexual; do I need to mention the Cadburys Flake adverts, Madonna in her bra or the calenders that were everywhere we went? And what about Page 3, how many children on the tube and public transport are subjected to that topless picture?

I am not sure how feasible these recommedations are or if they are too late. We have created a society where sex sells and it would take decades to rid us of the culture. Even when lads mags were not around, boys got hold of porn. Surely a better and quicker way was for us to start having open conversations about these subject in our schools and in our homes. We cannot leave it to the government to do something, we need to take action rather than blaming. When we see these videos, are we asking our children what they think, what message it gives out? The media that we want to ban can also open up so many conversations…I cannot tell you the fanatstic conversations I have had with my children while watching programmes like America’s Next Top Model. While I am not saying that this imagery is a good thing, I really don’t think we can remedy anything by condemming it.

While I do hope these reports findings are taken seriously, I also think parents have a responsibility not to tut and blame when these images come on, but to have conversations about them.

Oh, and by the way, you can always ring the mobile phone company and get the parental lock put on.

My best parenting is on the school run

Is the school run the best place to educate your children on life?

I have to say, I think so. Once all the hassle is out the way and we are in the car, the conversations we have are amazing and I think I parent most effectively when locked with my child in a confined place, with no means for escape.

The other morning Freya was telling me how tired she was and she was hoping that the big coffee in the road mug that she had in her hands would help her through the day. I asked her if she had used my coffee to make it, which she had, so I then when on to inform her that is was actually decaffinated so it would give her no benefit at all in that department.

This led her to ask what caffeine is, which led me to explain about stimulants and depressants and what they do to you. She listened intently and then went through every drug she knew, trying to figure out where they would fit.

The conversation then went on to legal and illegal drugs and I told her the truth about the amount of alcohol and nicotine deaths there were in a year, which she found quite shocking. She then asked the obvious question of why they were legal, which started a whole debate about consumerism and ended with her wanting to write a letter to Gordon Brown!

It was maybe one of the most productive conversations that I have had with her and goes to show me that if we are prepared to talk openly and frankly, to give information without judgement and allow for the difficult questions, we can have amazing conversations.

What about you on the school run, are you using the time wisely?

Neew help them why not try our family communication cards .

The cigarettes, crisps and creme egg diet

Do you know what YOUR teenager’s eating?

A recent study revealed that teenage girls are starving their bodies of essential nutrients and smoking in an effort to stay thin like their celebrity role models.

The Daily Mail tracked one teenagers diet and the results are mind blowing to say the least!

DAY ONE

MORNING: I woke up really late for college, as usual, so I skipped breakfast. My mum leaves for work before I’m awake, but she always puts out a bowl of cereal and some fruit for me – but I just threw it in the bin and then covered the evidence with coffee granules.

I know it’s a waste and she’d kill me if she found out. I just had a glass of water instead.

AFTERNOON: My Dad gives me £50 at the start of the week and that’s meant to cover my lunches and my train fare to college.

But I always buy about two packets of cigarettes a week which cost £12, so there’s not much left for healthy food.

I read that models such as Kate Moss smoke to suppress their appetite and thought I would try it, and it does really work. All the girls at college smoke – I think I’d stand out if I didn’t.

I’m not worried about the health effects because I’ll give up in a couple of years. I always carry perfume and mints so my parents can’t smell smoke on my clothes or breath. Today I had three cigs instead of lunch.

EVENING: By 5pm I was starving and I ate a bar of Galaxy, a full bag of prawn crackers and a current bun.

In the evening, I told my mum I was going to a friend’s house to study, but went to the pub with my boyfriend. I had a glass of water with lime in it and a glass of cola.

I didn’t order alcohol in case one of my parents’ friends saw me – I hate living in a village sometimes.

In the pub, I also ordered taramasalata with pitta bread, but it wasn’t really enough because when I got home I had half a tube of Pringles and some sour cream dip. I also smoked two cigarettes out of my bedroom window

Read the rest here

When you read this, it is quite shocking and, from my experience, cigarettes and junk food can make up the diets of teenage girls. However, younger children do appear to be getting the health message and I think this will soon be a thing of the past.

When you read this, what becomes clear is that, when they have a family meal, this child does eat correctly, which is very encouraging. And while you cannot dictate what your child eats outside the house, you certainly can inside the house. If you don’t want your child to eat junk food, don’t buy any and make a rule that if they want it then they have to buy it themselves. Believe me, it will soon stop.

While this does not obviously tackle all the problems of body image and smoking, it would ensure that at least they were eating healthier. Read the diet and make your own conclusion, but my two pieces of advice would be to eat a family meal each day and don’t buy junk food.

When is comes to body image and cigarettes, I believe that nothing beats having a conversation about this with your children. And if you are not sure where to start, you can always buy a pack of our teen conversation cards.

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