Giving your teen their own smart phone is a privilege and responsibility. It will include setting some limits on acceptable uses for the phone and any other devices that connect to the internet or wifi. Once again the speed of technological advances (driven by the availability of teen’s disposable income to buy relatively inexpensive apps for their phone) has complicated …
The Study Clause
What do you do if your kid doesn’t follow through when it comes to keeping his or her grades up? If you were my mom, you would bring “Mr. Spoon” to the conversation (a large, thick wooden spoon that could be very convincing). I am more likely to recommend that parents have an understanding with their kids, a study clause, …
Grade Expectations
Well, school is now in full swing and soon the first progress report will be making its way to emails near you. For some, this means being faced with setting (or revising) some expectations about grades and studying. Hopefully, you have one of those conscientious kids who love schoolwork and see grades as a challenge to be mastered. In that …
How To Get Your Teenage Boy To Open Up
Everybody knows boys are just not talkers. Boys brains are wired differently when it comes to language and emotion. Boys are doers not thinkers. Boys are naturally better at math and visual spatial tasks. Well. Actually, these “facts” are myths. Most differences between boys and girls appear to be more about how they are raised than how they were born. …
Emotional Intimacy: Some Things Your Son Needs To Know
There are a lot of ways teenagers can learn about healthy romantic relationships. Most media representations are focused on titillation and sexual licentiousness. Romance in movies is mostly characterized by idealization, infatuation, lust and one dimensional people (think Twilight, The Hangover, Iron Man, Spider man and 300). Relationships in music lyrics emphasize hedonism, sexism, the objectification of women (and men) …
Parenting Teens for the 21st Century Work Place: Achoring Skills
Twenty first century workers will have to contend with the reality that there are smart, accomplished people all over the world that can transmit their knowledge instantly anywhere in the world. While your kid will need to have a solid intellectual foundation, they will also need skill sets that can’t be outsourced to workers other countries; skills that can only …
Parenting Teens for the 21st Century Work Place: Continuous Learning
By some accounts, digital information doubles every 18 months. That would make the amount of digital information currently available be at around 3 x 1021 (that is 3 with 21 zeroes after it). And growing. That’s a lot of information. It is no longer sufficient to establish a basic knowledge set that will carry you through the end of your …
Self Confidence and Body Language
Self confidence is an important quality to cultivate in your kid. It is associated with better grades, more satisfying personal relationships, better decision making, greater self-control and general assertiveness. (It can also keep your kid from being mugged.) Self confidence is derived from skills and competencies, experiences, treatment by others and the nature and frequency of successes and failures. But, …
Preparing Teens for the 21st Century Work Place: Project Management
Jobs in which workers are responsible for discrete, repetitive and isolated (assembly line) tasks are disappearing in the 21st century work environment. In all levels of employment, workers have to accomplish multi-step tasks toward the completion of complex projects. In this environment, your kid’s ability to plan, coordinate and bring to completion complex projects will give them a decided advantage. …
Preparing Teens for the 21st Century Work Place: Leading by Influence
Traditional top down leadership (sometimes called bossing people around) works best in (and perpetuates) a static economy. The rapidly changing economic forces of the 21st century along with the increasingly collaborative nature of 21st century work environments are not well suited for this kind of leadership style. Instead, your kid will need to be familiar with and (ideally) practiced in …