Just out of curiousity, which parent is letting their teenagers wander around the neighborhood at midnight? Because your kids were playing frogger on the busy four lane road in dark clothing as I was driving home. Obvoiusly they are not ready to be let out alone yet.
I always wonder what the parents are like who allow their kids to do things like that. I want to have a talk with them, and explain to them that teenagers don't need you to be their friend. They have friends. They need you to set rules, and be their parents. I know that we don't generally look back at our teenage years and think, gosh, I really wish my parents had restricted me more. Or gee, I'm glad they had rules! At least, not until we get older, and have children in our lives that we worry about. And I'm not suggesting that parents don't give their teenagers some freedom to take risks, but they shouldn't just take risks willy nilly. There have been studies, people. Very good ones. You are there to teach them to be responsible, caring adults, who have good decision making skills. Yes, they need to make some decisions on their own, and be in charge of themselves more and more. If they are developing those decision-making skills at midnight with their friends in the dark between games of frogger, do you think that will help them more than being at home with you in the middle of the night? Possibly getting some sleep? Because they also need more sleep. And more sleep will help them make better decisions, like not running across a busy road at midnight in dark clothes because the cute boy you like is telling you to.
No, I'm not a parent. But I was a teenager. Also I work with them. And read studies about them all the time. And take classes about them, because every two years they seem to change and want totally different things, have different slang words, qualify different things as cool and uncool, and listen to different music. It's exhausting to keep up, I tell you. So I'm not saying I will succeed grandly as a parent of a teenager. But my hope is my kid won't be the one playing frogger at midnight.
2 comments:
So you think the parents knew they were out playing frogger? Judging by my 3 year old's current level of rebellion I'm guessing he will be capable of sneaking out of the house in his teen years. And capable of doing stupid stuff while he's out. :)
I'm willing to bet that at least one parent of the three kids knew that they were out. Also, it was a weekend night when I saw it, so I'm betting their parents waved to them as the walked out of the house. And I don't think Little Man will be that dumb. He would at least walk down to one of the FIVE crosswalks and push the little walk button that stops traffic. Because his momma taught him right.
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