Talking to Teens About Current Events

The mess in the Middle East, the global economy, the Great Recession, unemployment, the presidential race, and a host of other big news are all over the TV, Internet and radio. While adults don't have trouble talking about the news, how do you get your teens to talk about it?


Right now, teenagers are really still children. They don't have to worry about current world events because, well, it's our job and world events are, like, totally boring. (eye roll here) To a degree, this is true. However, if parents are to teach analytical thinking, discussions of current events need to take place. These discussions ideally should happen at the dinner table, but can happen in the car or any other place where your child is a captive audience.


Some schools are encouraging teachers to engage students in these discussions. My own daughter came home and told me of the debate in class on the Republican presidential candidates. Talk to your child's teacher and see if conversations on current events are taking place in the classroom. If not, find out why. 


It's really amazing how teens interpret the world around them. It makes them feel valued when you ask their opinions on issues in the news. Those opinions may or may not necessarily match yours. That's okay. Respect your child's thinking and have a great, insightful conversation. It beats nagging about homework.

Motherhood - The Wisdom of Many

If every mother wrote a book on her experiences as a new mom, the books would fill the Library of Congress ten times over - I don't have stats to support this theory, it's just my opinion.

NBC's Today Show had a piece on parenthood from the show's anchors and it made for fairly interesting reading. The side piece on motherhood myths next to the article was particularly interesting because it reflected a few things I experienced and foolishly believed I was alone in my feelings. Wow! I'm normal afterall!

When I had my beautiful, handsome, brilliant, funny, exceptional baby boy 18 years ago, I spent days trying to nurse him only to find that this natural mothering thing was very painful and very difficult. All these years, I thought something was wrong with me - nice to know I'm not alone. Also, during the first few weeks after he was born, I would look out the window and wonder when his parents were coming to pick him up. This mom thing hadn't really kicked in until after about a month. A word of advice to all new moms - that adorable, soft, squishy, gurgly, bundle of cuteness eventually grows up to be a purple-haired, tatooed, body-pierced, loud teenager that you won't even recognize as having come out of your body. Ladies - you have been warned.

Do I feel like I'm a better mom than my own mother? That depends on the subject. I'm more involved in the kids' schooling than my parents ever thought about. Were they bad parents - not really. This parent involvement is a relatively new thing - my parents were never encouraged to be part of my school day except at parent/teacher conferences and even those were competitive events between the parents with money and the parents without. The money won, by the way; therefore, my parents were pretty much ignored by all my teachers.

I think I was more involved in my kids' lives when they were littler - seemed more important then. Not that it isn't important now that they are teenagers - if anything, they need me even more now. It's just they want more independence and they should have it. I'm luckier than some parents. I know where my kids are at night, I know who they run with, and I know their teachers by name.

Parenting isn't easy - its not supposed to be. That's what love is all about.