Teenagers want Privacy

This is the Webster’s Dictionary definition of “privacy”. In my home there is no privacy, period.  There are no locked doors, no internet freedoms and no stones unturned. Oh, what? You say I am not respecting their space or their “right to privacy”?  What space?  Did they move out and buy a house? Did they start paying bills? What rights? They have the right to do what they are told or face consequences and repercussions. Now I have gone and done it.  I sound like a crazy mom don’t I? Let me roll it back a few notches and talk more about strategy and what has and hasn’t worked in our home.

The goal in our home is to raise two college-bound women who find fulfilling careers, then wonderful husbands and, lastly, rear kids of their own. With those goals in mind we set rules and priorities that will further our endeavors not hinder them.

Rule - No phone calls after 8pm during the week and 10pm on weekends. How do you enforce that with cellphones that seem to be attached to their fingers? Cellphones stay downstairs out of their rooms overnight and as an additional measure T-Mobile, our service provider, has a feature where you can shut off service to the phone at certain times. 

Rule - Your phone is not your phone it is our phone that we let you use. All text messages my daughters send and receive are sent to my Gmail account (SMS backup, it’s a free app get it). I will and do pick up your phone and look at pictures sent, apps you have downloaded and whatever else I want to do with the phone I have provided you.

Rule - We must know all passwords – FB, email, phones, Twitter etc., etc.  If you lock it, I must be able to open it! Side note - Computer browsing happens downstairs in the open.

Reason behind these rules – try reading your kids text messages posted after 10pm at night (if you have never read your kids’ text messages, stop right now, go get their phones and become enlightened by the things your little darling is texting to his or her friends) kids say the darndest things after they think their parents are asleep. Don’t even get me started on the pictures they send.

 As a parent it is your job to protect your kids from the world. You wouldn’t let someone hit your child with a car would you; well why would you let them stay on their phone/FB page overnight when most online bullying happens? By adding the above rules you begin to protect your child not only from the world but from themselves. Give them phones, FB accounts, computers etc. But give them the tools and the boundaries to stay safe.

So for the nice side of raising teenagers with no privacy we spend a lot of time together most of it having fun and enjoying each other’s company. When my daughters were young I learned something from two women in my life, both with very different backgrounds. The first a single mom of five kids, she and her children did everything together and she kept them firmly in line. All of her kids are over 18 now and are wonderful adults. The other a married mom of two girls, her family did everything together as well, same result two wonderful young adults.

When we go to the mall we go together, if you are bringing friends sure I will let you roam but then we come back together. I volunteer at my kids’ schools, go on fieldtrips, we eat dinner together, go in their rooms and watch TV with them. They do stuff alone, don’t get me wrong, I am not crazy and sometimes they do hate spending time with us as a family but they get over it and end up enjoying themselves. Your kids will eventually appreciate the effort you put into raising them just like you appreciate the things your parents did for you.

Let me know what you think about privacy and your kids. Do you feel it is necessary to respect your kid’s privacy? Did your parents respect yours, how did that turn out for you?

Tune in for more – Upcoming Blog subjects

Shopping – How to turn your kids into reasonable shoppers, who understand wanting style doesn't have to translate into breaking the bank.

Communication – Sure the subject might cause an attitude but don’t be scared to talk to your kids.

War - Pick your battles, have a strategy, don't let them know everything you know about their actions.

Teenagers want Style

This is the Webster’s Dictionary definition. For me, the other day, it sounded more like this; Mom I can’t wear any of the jeans you bought me four months ago because they are out of style, “they don’t scream my name”. To give you a little history on me shopping for my two girls at any age, I don’t often buy things when they aren’t present and they have a lot of say in what is actually purchased. (I will save the story for another posting). So on that note, I was surprised to find out that the jeans my youngest picked out no longer “screamed her name”. But I am a mom who rolls with the punches and Dad is a dad who doesn’t think we should rush out to spend money on new jeans when the ones she has still fit.  So we set out to make the jeans “scream her name” again.

This issue was sparked when one daughter came downstairs in a pair of jeans that where so tight you couldn’t pinch them off of her skin. Now in a weird twist of fate they have three pairs of the same jeans in three different sizes.  She happened to have the smallest pair of the jeans on at the time. I gave her the mother look and said, “What do you have on? Those jeans are too tight. Do you not have any jeans that fit? Do we need to buy you more pants? What is going on?” Of course, both of the girls heard “buy you more pants”. Yes Mom, Yes Mom we need more pants; we don’t fit our pants anymore. I told the girls, bring every pair of jeans you own to me right now. Put them into piles by size, not by to who they belong. As we go through the jeans it is determined that someone has lost weight and the other one had a growth spurt.  Okay easy fix, these bigger jeans are now yours and the smaller ones are now yours problem solved, look Dad I saved some money. Oh these are yours and they fit but you don’t like them anymore. Michael’s to the rescue, we can do something to make them “scream your name”.

Teenagers and parents are always in a tug of war about many things and one big thing is style. Determining your style is part of figuring out who you are as a person, which goes back to parents feeling scared and powerless. My oldest daughter has a muted sense of style. She wears neutral colors, no make-up and hasn’t tried to pull of anything to inappropriate as far as skirt lengths. Her only requests are touches of purple and Coach bags, shoes anything. The Coach situation is not as bad as it sounds (more details in the shopping blog) suffice to say she is reasonable and the Coach Outlet store has a mind blowing sale during the weeks after Christmas. So the oldest daughter set a false sense of security for us which the youngest shatters every week. My youngest daughter likes to express herself with color, bright clashing colors and zebra print, don’t forget the zebra print. She pulls it off well, if you like that sort of bright clashing color look. Now you might be asking yourself why I let her have that stuff if I don’t like it. The answer is the lesson in this story. She has to have the creative freedom to become who she is going to become.

What I have learned and what you as a parent of teens needs to understand; is to set the boundaries and make them non-negotiable but set them based on your child’s safety and not your need for control. For example, our daughters have started to want to wear skirts, the boundary: you must wear leggings. The youngest wants to have bright colored hair, the boundary is: clip in hair or fake hair braided into her hair. Set boundaries that allow your teenagers to figure themselves out but don’t permanently damage or alter them. My daughters have separately come to me recently and asked for a second hole in their ears. The oldest one actually said matter-of-factly, “Mom I am ready for my second hole.” I gave them both different reasons and arguments but ultimately the answer is no, boundary: get some clip on earrings.

Find ways for your teenagers to express their style with safely and reasonably set boundaries. This doesn’t have to be one of the wars you wage with your teenagers. If you allow them to express themselves in their dress you may see that they don’t take more drastic measures to express themselves. Some of the boundaries in our house are nothing with skulls, no short shorts or skirts, nothing too tight, nothing too grown, revealing or sexy. The girls know if we start arguing about an item I will walk out of the store and they will get nothing.  That includes if they are buying it with their own money. They know the boundaries, we reasonably relax them as the girls grow and they stay within them even when they are out shopping on their own.

See you next Tuesday for another edition. Follow this blog if you want to receive notice that a new adventure in parenting is posted.

Teenagers want Independence

This is the Webster’s Dictionary definition of “teenage”. To those of us who have been teenagers or are parenting teenagers it means so much more.  

When you were a teenager you were fighting for independence. Your parents kept reminding you that you would be an adult soon and on your own so you better get your act together, but they were scared to give you too much responsibility and control because you might mess up your life.

As a parent of one and now two teenagers I can see things from the other side. I am scared that I might have done something wrong while raising them and they will turn out to be huge failures and there is no time left to go back and fix them. I am excited because I see the rare moments of responsibility shine through and I have hope that they will grow up to be everything I have always dreamed they would become. I feel powerless because they are developing their own minds and world views and sometimes they are completely alien to what I have taught them. I am relieved because soon it will be all over, win lose or draw they will become adults and begin to be responsible for themselves and I will pass on to the next phase of my life.

Mothering two teenage daughters means a variety of adventures for me; 2 young ladies with their own range of mood swings to match mine, 2 extra people using my lady products or should I say using up and then not telling me that they are gone so when I go to reach for them I come up empty handed. 2 extra people to buy $45.00 bras for so now that means I have to sacrifice my shopping experiences. 2 extra people to get jeans and new shoes for, once again sacrifice. 2 people using my razor so when I go to reach for the razor it is gone or dull. The combs, brushes, hair oil ect all used up or missing. Now of course Dad says buy them their own and they won’t use yours and maybe some of you are thinking that as well. That doesn’t work they use or lose theirs and then come hunting for mine.

In this blog I will share some of my experiences raising my teenagers. You will also see my frustrations, my successes, my failures and my triumphs. If you have questions, suggestions or comments please share them. You will also from time to time see guest blogs from teens, mothers of boy teenagers, dads, parents who have already raised teens and others. I hope you find taking this journey with me exciting and informative.