EmpoweringParents.com

“Mean Mommy” reared her ugly head again last week when my 5 year-old son glared at me, licked his lips, and spat on our living room floor. The look on my face must have been pretty scary, because he then squeaked, “I had a bug in my mouth! It was an accident!” and ran behind the couch to hide. I now understand what it means to “see red” when you’re angry, because I felt like a cartoon character with smoke pouring out of my ears and hot lava spewing from the top of my head.

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Last week, the story of 17 teen-age girls in Gloucester, Massachusetts who agreed to a “pregnancy pact” made international headlines. Whether the pact is truth or fiction (some are now saying no such promise was ever made) the fact remains that seventeen teen-agers who are all 16 years of age or less are about to become parents, and that these young girls saw pregnancy as the only answer to the question of what they were going to do with the rest of their lives.

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This question came in on the blog from a reader named Dawn, and I thought I’d share it with you all. She’s wondering about using the timer on the XBox to limit her kids’ video game time. Has anyone else out there used it?
Here’s Dawn’s question:

“My son (12)also has become a “basement vampire” for about 10 hours a day, if I let him. He wants GTA - the new one and I said no. I have read the ratings and I talk to the guys in the store. My philosophy is that all of his friends have the games but at my house I keep it to No strong language and No nudity at all. There are M rated games that he can watch as long as he is killing aliens or some other nonhuman thing. I read every game before he buys it. I call the parents of his friends and say no GTA. My newest thing is that XBox has a timer. I haven’t used it yet. Has anyone else - some thoughts?”

Here at EP, we’re also wondering how other parents set up video game time in their homes–do you set limits on the time your kids spend playing, or do you take away video games as a consequence for bad behavior? And would anyone out there be interested in a resources page on Empowering Parents that would help you navigate the maze of video games, online concerns and technology? Let us know!

When my son was a toddler, getting out the door of our house was always the hardest part of any trip. Nowadays, it’s the leaving of a place—any place, whether it’s the park, a birthday party, or even the doctor’s office—that throws him for a loop. At karate last week, he actually kneeled in front of the vending machine they have there and literally refused to budge. He had his eyes on the Skittles and was not giving up on them without a fight. “No candy today,” I said, bracing for the eruption I could feel was coming.

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Have you ever been in a situation in public where your ADHD child continues to annoy others (or you) with their inappropriate behavior, even though you’ve given them every cue that they should stop? A recent study* conducted by The University of Western Australia found that ADHD boys had a hard time correctly identifying the emotions of facial expressions in drawings they were shown.

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Here’s a dirty little secret: I long for the type of family bedtime that you see in the movies. You know, the one where the parents read their children a book, kiss them on their freshly-scrubbed foreheads with an “I love you,” and softly shut their kids’ bedroom doors at 7 p.m. Read more »

Recently, meditation has been featured in Newsweek as a way to help kids to calm down and focus.

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Could Red Bull and Amp be behind some of your teen’s behavior? A new study from Kathleen Miller at the University of Buffalo links energy drinks to risky behavior, including substance abuse, unprotected sex, and violence. Miller was careful to point out that the drinks don’t cause the bad behavior, but that teens and ‘tweens who consume them are “more likely to take risks with their health and safety.” (The study, by the way, focused on teen athletes, energy drinks, and risky behavior. Her team coined the phrase “Toxic Jock” during the course of their research, which was reported in the Journal of American College Health.)

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This speech, also known as “The Eleven Rules of Life,” has been widely attributed to Bill Gates, but it’s actually part of educator Charles Sykes book, Dumbing Down our Kids. We’re posting it again here during this season of high school and college graduations.

RULE 1
Life is not fair - get used to it.

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I was on the phone with a good friend of mine the other day when she stopped me cold with a comment about working moms. She said, “I never wanted to put my kids in daycare. I could never do that to my children.” It took me aback because 1) I’m a working mom and 2) I’ve never thought that having my son in daycare was a form of torture for him, or that it made me less of a parent somehow. As usual, I got flustered and said something like, “Er, well, it hasn’t been that bad…”

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