Yesterday, I was sitting in my favorite coffee shop, listening to the political dialoging that was going on. Usually, I just listen. But yesterday, I was thinking about what I wanted to write about today on teen parenting so I got involved. Because I live in San Francisco the conversation is always about agreement on how amazing President Obama is and how President Bush destroyed the country.

I was reading earlier in the day, Attorney General Eric Holder pardoned those men, who were carrying sticks outside the polling booths in Philadelphia during the elections, threatening people to vote for Obama and were caught on tape saying “this is the end for all you crackers”. These men were already arraigned and didn’t show up for court. All the justice department had to do was sentence them. AG Holder, however, pardoned them. It was the first time on record something like this has ever been done by the AGs office.

I questioned one of the guys in the coffee shop if he thought Pres. Obama was doing a great job. He, of course, said yes. I told him about the above news. He said he hadn’t heard. I asked him if it was true what happened would that make him question his faith in the president. He said, he really doesn’t care about that, and then remarked “Look at what Bush did”. I couldn’t leave it alone, at this point, so I asked him “Are facts not important to you when deciding whether you believe the president is doing well”? Continue reading Teen Parenting and Critical Thinking

This blog will be a little more practical than the two previous ones. If you are having problems getting your kids to do their chores or want to give your kids chores and don’t know how to, this is for you. Parenting tips and chores.

Why should your kids have chores?

Can you answer this question that will make sense to your kids and get them to do them?

If you can’t answer the question you just figured out the first problem. If you can answer the question and your kids aren’t doing their chores then you haven’t explained it to them properly.

Parenting Tip #1 Continue reading Parenting Tips and Chores

Many parents ask me for parenting tips when it comes to their teens. They want to know how to stop yelling, how to get their kids to do their chores, how to make rules in the house and the list could go on forever. Today, I want to speak about something that kind of addresses all those issues.

The first of the parenting tips is to connect to your children. Do you remember when you were a kid and sometimes you just didn’t understand or agree with your parents. Were you right? Were they right? The odds are sometimes you were and sometimes they were, but more often then not it was the parents. In teenage parenting, or any parenting, the point is that if your kids don’t understand why you are upset with them or why you say what you say there will be a disconnect. A disconnect means there will be a break from connecting with them.

It won’t matter if you are right if the connection isn’t created. I’ll give you an example from our family. My second son is just shy of 18. He has been accepted into a couple of colleges and is doing really well in school. He just doesn’t ever want to come home. He’s having a great time. So, my wife called him and told him to come home. He said “why”? My wife told him because she said so. He didn’t get it and stopped answering his phone to her. This is the disconnect.

The parenting tip is this. Continue reading Parenting Tips in Teenage Parenting