Teaching Responsbility (Part 2)

Continuing on from the card with a list for parents that I had found and have held onto for years. I will comment on my take/experience with my efforts to implement these suggestions.

6. Provide your teen with ways to earn, save and manage money.

The toughest part of this one for me is the saving. Who I am kidding, I don't make them save and I know that I should. My son had a short summer job last year and when he got his first paycheck all he wanted to do was buy a weight set. Now the cool thing here is that we have shown our kids the value of a second hand purchase. He was thrilled to go on craigslist shop around, and purchase the one he wanted. He even made all the phone calls to inquire about the sets he was interested in. He spent every dime of his paycheck on the set he wanted. The great thing is, nearly a year later he still uses it (unlike most exercise equipment).

Also on managing money - my freshman daughter is in charge of decorations at the upcoming dance at school (it's tonight). She had a meager budget of $100. Luckily it's a luau theme and oriental trading company had sent a catalog with a ton of stuff. Anyway, I was so proud of her, she went through the catalog, picked out everything and even looked up the shipping charges. She went online and entered all the items and I even gave her my credit card and she entered everything. Her total was $100.82. I was very impressed. I didn't even check the items to make sure they were appropriate. I left it to her and told her that I had complete confidence in her. When the items arrived she went through the entire order and checked it against the invoice to make sure she got everything. It was fun to watch. My daughter is a YOUNG freshman. I started her in kindergarten at 4. So, she is almost a full year younger than her friends/classmates. So, for 14 years old, I am proud of her handling of the whole thing. Now, I was at Walmart the other night and they had a whole wall of luau stuff so I bought her some more stuff to add to it as a little surprise. She was thrilled. I am sure the dance will be fun.

7. Allow your teen to make personal choices in certain areas. These can include dress and extracurricular activities-- anything that doesn't put your teen in danger.

Dress! Dress! I have two words that drive me and many other mother's crazy "saggy pants." They drive me crazy and they especially drive my husband crazy. He just gets so irritated by them. Hell, my son even sags his pajamas! What is up with that?

I have to remind them on the dress code. It's easier to blame the school and take it off of yourself - they can't argue with that one - though they will try. There are a couple of sexy tops I refuse to let her wear to school and when she picks them out at the store I'll tell her first thing - if you buy that: 1. You're taking money out of what we budgeted to spend today and 2. YOU CAN'T WEAR IT TO SCHOOL! If she likes it enough she'll buy it, if not then she'll put it back and sigh heavily at the unfairness of the world.

Both of my kids are heavy into extracurricular activities and we support that heavily. It's a crazy life, but then again most parents already know all about that. I will say that due to circumstances at school, the cheerleading coach was let go and I got a call from the principal and was asked to be the "cheer advisor," since my son is a cheerleader, I of course accepted and let me tell you I have had the time of my life! It's too much fun and I get all this extra time with my kid and get to know his friends. I love it and am planning cheer tryouts for the end of this month for next year!

8. Help your teen consider consequences of every action. Provide facts when appropriate on such issues as using tobacco or taking unwise risks.

I have already talked A LOT about this in my blog - Please read other posts for many many of the challenges I have faced in this area.

I do have another story though (don't I always?) I smoke, my husband just quit. Our son unbeknown to us started smoking. Apparently for a while. We caught him and were both at a loss as to what to do. I knew it was the one thing I could not do anything about. Because no one could have stopped me, I started at 17 years old. My mom begged and pleaded. Though, I was heartbroken, I really thought that there was no way I could change it. I said everything I could think of to stop him. But, I knew none of it worked. I saw texts on his phone that referred to him smoking even though he told me he would not.

I realized he was taking MY CIGARETTES! that really made me mad. I told him if he was gonna smoke he was gonna have to find a way to pay for it. I hid my smokes every night. Sometimes so well that I could not find them, it was quite irritating.

So, I got a call from a friend of mine who is also the mother of a VERY good friend of my son. Her son had told her that we knew our son smoked and we were fine with it as long as he paid for them - OMG NOT TRUE!! We were just at a loss. She had told her son that maybe he should not hang out with our son if he was going to do adult things and wanted to be an adult (her and her hubby also smoke). This REALLY upset my son because her son is one of his best friends. I told her of all my verbal efforts and how saddened I was over him smoking. She was pretty adamant that I couldn't give up. She told me to take away allowing him to be out of my sight. Well, for me that was not possible, he has sports and activities and I guess I was just not willing to take that away from him.

THEN AN EPIPHANY!! Track season was just around the corner and he wanted some supplies. All of a sudden it occurred to me. So, I did not put on my "mom, no you can't hat." I put on my "now let's be reasonable hat." I said something to the effect of "You know, it would be really stupid for you to do track this year . . . that's just dumb. Smokers can't to do track. It's a contradiction. So, I am going to have to say, that I can't put in all the effort of track (shoes, time driving to and from practice, etc etc) when you obviously don't even care about the sport - you are smoking. C'mon that's just stupid!!" I left him alone with that thought. He kept asking me if I was serious and I would just say something like - "of course, you have to realize how it would be stupid, and I am not going to put in any effort for something so stupid, you obviously don't take the sport seriously, why should I?" Somehow that did it!!! He realized he had a choice between smokes and track. He loves track, he loves his coaches, he loves the whole experience and wasn't willing to give it up.

So, for now that battle has been won. As a smoker myself, I am sure this will be something we will have to address again. Though he just turned 17 last week, so my influence is only good for so long. However, I just realized he'll have college expenses that I can bargain with. For goodness sakes the kid is planning on being a firefighter/paramedic - smoking would be a ridiculous choice. I wish myself luck on this one! But, it's important enough to us that we'll keep drudging along finding ways to help him make good choices.

Wow that was a long one!!

I'll save 8 and 9 for another post.