red mum

THE internet is a fantastic resource for parents, with all sorts of advice from all sorts of people. The beauty of it all is that you can read something that makes you think ‘why didn’t I think of that?

Years ago people turned to Dr Spock I am more like to turn to Ask Jeeves or Google.

One recent site I came across had some really good advice about dealing with a teenager in six easy points and they generally made a lot of sense to me.

Firstly the website said to stop focusing on what you are going to make your teenager do, it doesn’t work.

While this may sound vague I realise I spend probably too much time spotting things the Young Wan has or hasn’t done about the house and they turn into a mental checklists which invariably never gets ticked off.

So a lot of energy and frustration goes into this for me and maybe there is a lot to be said for this point. My only question is how does anything get done then, is it because it is all down to me then? Mmhhhh think I will think over that for a while.

Stop lecturing is the next one and I wholeheartedly agree with this, but will it mean that I stop, probably not.

I suppose that when I was a teenager and was on the receiving end of a lecture, I probably switched off just as much as the Young Wan does now.

Unfortunately though much of a parents’ interaction with their teenagers could be seen to be lectures. So does that mean we just shut up? Would that work better? The advice on the internet tells parents to impart information to their teenager in short bursts, possibly in the car when the parent has a captive audience.

Is that not more akin to ambushing, sounds good to me.

When talking to teens parents should stop using adultisms. You know them, they are the phrases when you were young that you never thought you would say to your kids.

Then one day you find yourself saying something that you heard from your parents. ‘Money doesn’t grow on trees’, ‘Ask my friend am I a liar’ or ‘I’ll give you (insert word here)’ as in ‘I’ll give you new mobile’, and we all know that doesn’t mean you are going to get them a new mobile.

If your teen has their teen monster moments, you may have to punish them by grounding them and the site tells you not to ground teenagers for long periods of time except for the most enormous of teen-crimes.

It says: “For adults, two weeks is like a snap of the fingers – gone. For most teens, two weeks seems like forever, which causes diminishing positive results the longer the grounding. Consequences need to be strong enough to get their attention, swift enough after the infraction to have an effect and short term so they can have another chance to do better soon.”

I think this is possibly one of the best pieces of advice I have read and actually learned from our own household. Once teenagers are constantly punished they act out, they might as well because they are already in the bad books.

Another piece of advice concerns something I realised I did about a year ago and it concerns reasoning with your child about rules they do not like or when you say no.

The advice is there are times when because I said so is a perfectly reasonable statement from a parent and all a teenager should be told.

I found myself at one stage that I would say to herself ‘bring out the rubbish because when that is brought out I can brush the floor then I can get the dishes away and dinner on’.

Now I go ‘bring the rubbish out’.

I was misguided thinking that if the Young Wan understood my train of thought that things would get better and faster, wrong.

The last gem says stop making every issue a battle for control and who is in charge. If you do this your teen could make every issue a battle for independence. Pick your battles, leave the hard stuff for big things and make your stand then.

This is something I have realised also, and apart from anything if you were to pull rank over everything, your home life will soon be miserable for everybody.

Do check out the site here http://www.parentingyourteenager.com/parentsteens6stop.htm and do look for more on the internet, there’s a wealth of support there which can be invaluable even just to know that other parents are having the same issues in their home.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo May 25

HAVE I mentioned before that my daughter is a wanna-be goth, I say wanna-be because she’s not really getting it right so far. (She absolutely hates me saying this, sorry darlin but its true.)

She has had more than a few occasions of walking around where we live with the white face and black lipstick. To me this isn’t style it’s more emulating how a heart attack would look. Besides it hardly being an individual, check out the multitudes of teen Goths at the Central Bank in town any Saturday afternoon.

I have to admit too that I just do not want my daughter walking about looking like an eejit, I want her to look the prettiest she can look while developing her own style. And for me personally this does not involve having black lipstick smeared on her beautiful mouth. Not to mention the fact that she appears to forget she has it on and accidentally wipes it across her face.

She went into town recently with a pal and they looked gorgeous. However when they came back, the pal looked as pretty as before (she’s a pretty Goth without the makeup) while my offspring came back looking like an extra from the cast of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video.

It is also worth bearing in mind that not all, in fact few Goths look like the stylish and pretty Rosie Webster from tv soap Coronation Street, Rosie is lucky to have a stylist and makeup artist and she is one pretty goth. The vast majority I see in Dublin look well dirty and in need of a good wash.

I know that’s the mummy in me and I understand that and I also know I have had my black phase as a teenager, most of my wardrobe is still black.

As a teen myself and being pale skinned, I wanted my skin to be as pale as possible, but I never wanted to look like death and I suppose that’s the difference.

I allowed the Young Wan to go and get her first make up and she came home with white foundation, white powder and black lipstick, so that all went back and I got her more suitable makeup.

I have tried to tell her that I can make her look like a good Goth, (not to be confused with good witch Glenda or indeed a bad Goth) where I can make her skin pale, while emphasizing her beautiful eyes and mouth.

And she has the most beautiful skin, why or why does she want to hide it under a layer of real whiteness, not paleness, whiteness.

But it’s not all bad news according to some recent research from Sussex University which found that unlike many teenage clicks Goths are a very accepting and non-violent group, brownie points there for the Young Wan.

The research also found that “[Goths] are refined and sensitive, keen on poetry and books, not big on drugs or anti-social behaviour. They are also likely to carry on being Goths into their adult life.

“They have an ability to express their feelings and are believers in romance rather than one-night stands. The only thing dark about them is their clothing and their sarcastic sense of humour.

“They are usually intelligent youngsters who have rejected the idea that teenagers must fulfill certain criteria.” (From the BBC website.)

Goths apparently also grow up to be successful, sometimes more so than their peers and go into professions such as law or medicine.

I do not relish the day that I get examined by a doctor who looks in need of a couple of hours in the sun, if the stated research which says many continue in this subculture as an adult is true.
How and ever, maybe I should relax about the white makeup particularly if the Young Wan could become a doctor.

Ah who am I fooling. I hate the white look but I will show her how to do the next best thing, a pale face showing off her beautiful features, I think that’s a compromise, don’t you?

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo May 18

THE Young Wan just posted a comment to my recent Schools out for summer post and she left a comment, well she is sitting beside me typing away and I have to say I am delighted at how well she is typing with two fingers. Anyway you can read what she said here and to top it all, she wants to write a post, so over to the Young Wan.

Ahhh the beloved summer meh
3 months what the hell am I gona do for 3 bloody months. So far ive read about 4 really long novels, hum simulating. books entertain for only so long. ive read wuthering heights, Johnny and the dead, starseeker (best book ever nearly made me cry) and Jackie love johnser. its ok for kids whos parents are at home because they can come in and out as they please but sometimes when my mam goes out I cant go out because she’s not at home and cant be there if anything goes wrong so I can understand why I cant do things that other kids do ive no prob with it really because we all have to do wht we have to do blah blah blah. turkey will be kool but I want to be here for a few weeks at the end of the summer so I can go out with my mate because shes doing her exams at the moment!!!. while we,r on the subject yes people im going into the dreaded 3rd year ahhhhhhhhhh run run as fast as you can you cant me im a young wan!!! How are we supposed to get stuck back in to this really hard secondary stuff after 3 months of doing absolutely nothing!!!!! anyway im hoping to start one of these blogger thingies bu bye mwah mwah xxx

Technorati tags: irishblogs redmum Young Wan

WE have had a bit of a funny day with all sorts of random teenage nonsense, must be the sun – here is a snapshot of the day.

Young Wan: “The tears hurt my eyes” – in true wanna-be Goth style! What can you say to this except to attempt to sing it in a kinda dark and menacing way ala Marilyn Manson

Later I asked her: “Am I allowing you to use the phone or am I being a pain in the arse?

This was a rhetorical statement to back up the fact that she could phone her friend but she had to rinse out the dishes first which was met with the stroppiest manner ever.

To my question she said ‘Yes’.

So I replied ‘pardon’ and she went (louder) ‘Yes’.

Then she realised she was actually agreeing that I was allowing her to use the phone and I was/am a pain in the arse and laughed heartily.

And why is it that at home sometimes when I ask her something she mutters, mumbles and I have to keep asking her to repeat herself louder and louder.

Yet when we are on a bus, she happily tells stories very loudly that she has to be asked ‘are you telling the whole bus or just me?’.

She has also recently found the microphone of her long abandoned karaoke machine and has been singing along to Brian Adams because *ahem* it is (allegedly) the only tape she can find.

Thankfully she has stopped serenading the street and appears instead to be making some kind of farting noise that is travelling out her bedroom window and through the air into the living room window where I am trying to chill out.

She just came in and asked me if she can sing. And she always could, though you cannot hear it from this evening’s performance.

I remember during one holiday Karaoke event where she sang Leann Rimes (or however it is spelt) ‘How can I live without you’ where she hit perfectly that mad note in ‘how can I ever, ever surrRRRVIIIVVEEE’.

Tonight has been a different matter.

She just asked me pointedly there can she sing and I said ‘well you used to be able to, I don’t know what is happening in there now’. It appears she wasn’t happy with her accompaniment to ‘Summer of 69′.

“I thought I could sing, but well just then…”

Then she said ‘wouldn’t that be a good blog? The Young Wan discovers she can’t sing!
Already on it darling, already on it.

[No mention of the world cup you will notice, I don't know whether to run away or go with the flow.]

Technorati tags: irishblogs redmum teenagers

THE Young Wan has had a pretty miserable time lately after falling out with some of her wee pals.

The incident preceding her isolation was full of the amateur dramatics associated with teen dramas and all began when one friend (a boy) fancied one of the other girls in the group.

To cut a long and boring story short the falling out occurred when my daughter told the girl something the boy said about something unrelated to his crush and he denied it.

Feeling umbrage for Ireland the Young Wan was not speaking to the boy and he was not speaking to her.

At first this was quite funny because the pals would call to the door and this particular wee fella would call too but ignore her.

This went on for weeks before I proceeded to ask the Young Wan to phone him up and talk to him about it and apologise for any misbehaviour on her part.
Only he wouldn’t speak to her at all and left her very upset.

The only thing I could offer her was to say that I didn’t think it gracious that he wouldn’t even talk to her let alone be big enough to accept an apology.

That was about six weeks ago and just before the prank phone calls started.

Because this young chap fell out with her, so did the rest of them. And not content with not speaking to her en-masse, they began to make nuisance phone calls to our house. To begin with they were just hang-ups but they progressed to something more sinister.

On one particular Sunday they phoned a number of times and even left a message when I was on a call and such a charming message it was ‘we all hate you, we hope you die!’.
The Young Wan wanted to take the phone off the hook to avoid the calls and I could see the whole thing was starting to have an awful effect on her with constant complaints of a sore tummy.

So I told her not to take the phone offline but instead to answer it and hand it to me and I would deal with it.

Lo and behold they rang again, I could tell by the awful look on her face, so I took the phone off her.

I informed the pranksters that the Gardai were notified about the prank calls and to keep calling because the more they did the more evidence we would have, besides it was a wet Sunday afternoon what else had I to do but listen to some eejits waste their mobile phone credit making stupid noises on the phone.

The difference in my daughter was massive, she had a big beaming smile on her face for the first time that week. She thought I was great. And I’d like to think I gave her a boost to be brave and move on from these obviously horrid children.

I’ve no doubt they think this is all a bit of fun, but I saw the effects of their fun on her and I was shocked by the ‘we hate you’ statement.

Later that evening whilst out walking the dog the Young Wan encountered the boy who made the nasty comments walking with the boy who originally fell out with her and his parents.

She went up to them saying hello and the parents spoke back asking about her and me. She then said: “We’ve been getting these awful prank phonecalls and we had to phone the Gardai. One even said they hated me and hoped I die, isn’t that awful?’

The parents agreed that it was indeed and who would do such a terrible thing. She then said bye to everyone and came back in looking like a different wee girl.
Children can be absolutely horrible to each other and I can easily see just how much this so-called pranking (I’d call it bullying, intimidation and harrassement) can drive a child to do something drastic.

They have phoned since and she said in a faux-American accent ‘I’m sorry there is no one to take your call, we are far too busy to deal with assholes’.

In this instance I have to say there was no correction for bad language.

Thankfully now the Young Wan doesn’t want to be friends with these people again, they are no longer her type and I am happy for that. But I do feel for her having to go through it in the first place.

I would not be a teenager again for anything.

Technorati tags: redmum irishblogs Redmum column The Echo May 11