Mary, the “mom”

People are upset and angry; they’re petitioning their representatives; they’re writing letters to the editor.  Why?  The choice for the 2009 high school play!  A few weeks ago, the high school drama department announced that the 2009 play would be Rent: School Edition.  My reaction went along the lines of “Cool, something different; a little edgy”.  Boy, am I naïve!  This week, our small town newspaper features a cover story about how upset people are and how they’re petitioning the school boards to prevent this play and a letter to the editor encouraging citizens to contact the high school and express their dismay.

I am well aware that I am a tad more liberal than the average middle class suburbanite, even in New Jersey, but I just didn’t realize the extent of the divide.  People are signing a petition because they are upset about high school kids being exposed to themes such as homosexuality, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS, promiscuity, etc.  I, on the other hand, see only good from exposing them to these themes.  Maybe they’ll be more tolerant of the peer who “comes out of the closet”, or more cognizant of the risk of AIDS/HIV and the dangers of promiscuity and drug abuse.  I want my teenagers exposed to these themes, not sheltered from them.  Am I off base?  What does the rest of the family think?

Rach, the “older teen”

My high school did Sweeny Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. The total body in our rendition of the play was well over ten. Ten high school students pretended to get murdered then eaten on stage. I was the stage manager, and we sold out almost every show. It was a hit, people loved it!

In case you don’t know, Sweeny Todd was a barber who killed people, then his girlfriend made them into meat pies - it’s a true story, he killed hundreds then fed them to fellow Londoners, but is significantly less famous than Jack the Ripper, who only killed five.

If my high school did Rent, there would be a lot of angry parents. I find this incredibly disturbing. Homosexuality, sex, and drugs are all considered less school appropriate than murder and cannibalism? That’s messed up. Being open and honest about sex and all types of sexuality is a good thing, murder is not. I believe that teens (and tweens) should be well educated (really educated, not just told to “say no”) about sexuality, pregnancy, and drugs.

Of course, I take a stand that most don’t seem to agree with. We let our kids watch the nightly news filled with murders, rapes and fires - but we won’t let our kids watch movies that have naked people in them? Gosh, we sure live in a seriously messed up society.

Brad, the “dad”

This part of the family is sick-to-death-tired of people sticking their collective heads in the sand.  “Exposing their children to homosexuality, drug abuse, HIV/AIDS, and promiscuity”?  What, like they’ve never heard of these things before?

I admit, we live in a far more urban, and some would say more ’sophisticated’ environment.  To me, there’s nothing sophisticated about it.  It’s just the world, and what with mass media, free and easy travel, and the global economy it seems to be pretty much the same all over.  And I’ve had too many friends die of AIDS, seen too many have unwanted pregnancies and unhappy marriages, suffered with too many friends who’ve had drug problems or died of overdoses to think that avoiding “exposure” to any of the above, pretending to be unaware of them, would do anything but make matters worse.  Ignorance does not breed anything but grief.

And they’re not too young.  We weren’t “too young” thirty years ago when I was in high school; we just pretended we were.  The first suicide I was ‘exposed’ to was back in high school.  So were the first instances of promiscuity.  And drug abuse.  And alcohol abuse.  And one of my best friends in high school “came out” in college, and two others died within the decade from HIV.  Mostly because, you know, we didn’t TALK about “gay cancer” back then.  And in this case, not talking about it killed them.

I know these people think that RENT somehow ‘celebrates’ these lifestyles simply by showing that some people who are gay or sick or making bad decisions still have some element of dignity and potential for happiness in the face of tragedy; that they have some fragment of hope in their lives despite everything.  But RENT doesn’t make any of these challenges look particularly attractive.  I can’t imagine anybody leaving the show and thinking, “Oh, boy, I sure wish that was ME!”  So what’s the problem?  That it’s not Annie?  Or Sound of Music?  No, wait, we can’t go there: Rodgers and Hammerstein might expose them to themes involving fascism, anti-authoritarianism, and people of other, less desirable, religious faiths.

Sheesh. 

If you asked me, RENT shouldn’t just be allowed in your school.  Attendance should be mandatory.  And then they should take it on the road and bring it to OUR schools. 

Sorry. That REALLY annoyed me.  Probably because I’ve fought this same fight in middle schools and high school over and over and over.  And like I said: I’m sick-to-death-tired of it.

Enjoy the show.  It’s great.

Lauren, the “younger teen”

In EVERY high school there are teens who are having sex, there are kids doing drugs, there are homosexual kids, and so on. (Gasp!). So, show teens how dangerous HIV/AIDS are and how important safe sex is. Let teens truly understand that there’s a reason that most drugs are illegal. Drugs are dangerous! Being homosexual is hardest during the teen years. Help those students understand they’re not alone. Doing a play is a much better way to teach these topics to teens rather than sitting in a stuffy health classroom. Also, it makes something very dangerous, such as AIDs, which most teens say “can’t happen to me”, more realistic.

Some parents know kids do these things but think “not my child”. Some parents are completely oblivious and think teens are innocent children. So many parents are unaware in one way or another of what’s going on in their teen’s life. So I think it’s the perfect play to help both the students and parents to understand and make them more aware.

Rach, the “older teen”

Sleeping is a big issue for me. In high school, I was exhausted in the spring after all the work I had been doing with the school musical. And in the fall, watching TV and doing homework weren’t exactly the most tiring activities, so I stayed up later and did more nothing.

My parents never really hassled me about it. If I was still watching TV at 11 or 12 then they would tell me that I should get some sleep soon. Or, if I was in bed before dinner, they just let me sleep. I guess all the sleep I got sort of balanced out.

I’ve been working on a more normal sleep schedule, now. I go to bed more or less consistently on weeknights, and I take naps between classes if I feel like I need it.  I’ve noticed: as teens get older they sort of realize how much sleep their bodies need. So, sleep becomes something much more important than it was as a younger teen.

I’m wondering how you deal with sleep schedules in your house? I haven’t had a “bed time” in years… is that still a thing now that you have teens?

Brad, the “dad”

It’s amazing how “bed time” and “maturity” have become inextricably entwined here in my little kingdom. Looking back, I realize this is where we first starting losing control – or, more accurately, the illusion of control: when we stopped enforcing reasonable bedtimes. But you’re right, Rach: as the kids get older, parents feel oddly guilty about tucking them in, and it’s the first place where even ‘easy’ kids take a stand, no matter how impractical…

Meanwhile, this particular conflict made for middle-school early-morning hours that were pure, unadulterated hell. Getting the girls up and running was darn near impossible. There were some classic days where they stumped off to school carrying most of their clothes rather that wearing them because they just…could…not…WAKE UP. And for some reason, “I told you so” didn’t have much effect on changing their sleepy-times.

Our solution? We came to accept, and even encourage, the Miracle of the The Nap. Yes, there’s a certain maturity-edge there, too: “Don’t treat me like a baby!” But I was more than happy to lead by example. If I had to stay up late or pull an all-nighter to work on a project (a feat that, trust me, gets harder and harder as the decades pile up), I would make a point of proudly catching a few winks during my natural creative/energy downtime (for me? About 4:00 p.m.). And if one of the girls pulled the same late-night antics, it was easier to enforce a late-afternoon lie-down than cut the power to their bedrooms and strap them to the mattress, just to get them asleep by 11:00.

And it still works. They may not get eight hours in a row, but by and large they do get closer to eight hours of sleep out of every 24…and in the process, they’ve become more flexible in their planning and more aware of when they really need rest-time. And there are generally fewer arguments about lights-out and wake-ups.

Consider it. The Miracle of the Nap. It’s not just a good idea…it’s a law of nature.

Mary, the “mom”

Our teens have a bedtime on school nights, but it’s not a time that we mandated, it’s one they agreed to. Unfortunately, it’s also not a time by which they are actually in bed very often. So, rather than serving as “bedtime”, it’s serves as the time at which mom and/or dad start nagging that they should be in bed.

I know they’re tired. In just the last week, each of them has made a comment about having a light homework night and planning to get to bed early. Somehow, that never happens.

As a “night owl”, I am a terrible example. I blame it on bio-rhythms. I guess that’s just an excuse and if I really wanted to change, I could. The fact is that I don’t really know whether I could change or not, because I’ve never tried. I like staying up late. (Really bad example.)

Unfortunately, also like their mother, our teens never nap. With the exception of a few times when I’ve been really sick, I haven’t had a nap since I was two, even when the kids were babies and I’d be up half the night. I just can’t nap.

So, while I’d like to believe that, like Rach, my kids will start listening to their bodies as they mature and regulate their sleep schedule, I suspect that instead they will follow they’re mother’s bad example. But hey, I get a lot done in a day, how bad can it be?

Lauren, the “younger teen”

Normally I get to bed between 10:00 and 10:30. I don’t have a real bedtime per say, but at 10:30 my parents will start to push me to get to bed. I always feel tired. It’s a rare occasion when I don’t feel ready to fall asleep right then and there. Unfortunately, my busy schedule doesn’t allow for naps or an earlier bed time. The not getting home from dance until 9:30 and still having to eat and shower makes it hard.

Napping sounds like a great solution, but I don’t think too many teen schedules allow it. I wish sometimes I had time to nap, but I don’t. I also don’t think I’ve napped since I was 2. I was never a big on napping as a little kid and now since I want to, I don’t have the time to.

Teens seem to stay up later than they should given they have to get up at those ungodly school times. Mornings are hell for me. My alarm goes off, I turn it off, roll back over, go to sleep, my mom comes and wakes me up. Then later on my mom calls the time, I reply “oh, crap” because I’m not ready, My make-up has to be finished before I go out, I miss the bus every other day, so I go to my neighbor’s house because they get on after me. They don’t even look up when I come anymore, and, knock on wood, I’ve never missed it at their house.

So maybe as teens we need more sleep than as kids, but of course end up getting less… a lot less!

Rach, the “teen”

Sex education is a real issue in my mind. In four years of high school I’ve never had a sex education class. This bothers me because I feel like it is irresponsible for the schools (and the government) not to teach kids and teens about sex.

But, I didn’t feel like I had to worry, because when I was hitting puberty my parents did more than just “the talk” – they bought us books about everything. We had growing bodies books, we had books about differing sexualities, and we had books about the science of sex and pregnancy. But we did much more than read, we talked about what was ok in our family, and we discussed the issues relating to sex in the news. And this discussion never really ended, we still talk about these issued openly in my family.

I think what my parents did was great. Both my brother and I have grown up to be very responsible and safe about our sex lives. But I think teens that don’t get all the information from their parents are worse off, and this is where the schools should step in.

So, what do you think the school’s responsibility is for teaching sex education? And what information should be left to the parents to teach?

Mary, the “mom”

Rach, I agree, what your parents did was great! Parents need to talk to their children about sex and responsibility. Parents can offer so much more than a school sex education program because, while talking about sex and responsibility, parents can impart their values as well.

But I think these parental talks are most effective when supplemental to a formal sex education class. So, I do think schools have a responsibility to teach sex education and parents should be reinforcing those basic messages and adding their own perspectives and values. Like anything else we learn, repetition helps.

I know that the schools my children attend do teach sex education, but I’m not relying on that. For my older two, who already know the basics, I think these talks work best informally…maybe when prompted by something we watched together on TV or in response to the news my daughter heard about a 17 year-old “friend of a friend” who’s pregnant.

I try to use those opportunities to open the conversation and make my points. Like that 17 year old “friend of a friend” – she says it happened the first time. There’s definitely a lesson there!

Brad, the “dad”

Ahh, the ‘sex’ thing. Or as my daughters would say, “Oh my GOD, not that AGAIN!”

We’re in a particularly odd position here. The California public schools do teach something like sex ed, though it’s very brief and rather…hesitant? But for our girls, the real sex ed came from our church. The Unitarian Universalist Association has a carefully constructed multi-week curriculum called “Our Whole Lives” that covers the biology, the biochemistry, the ethics, the variations, the social context, all of it. And just to make it worse for our girls, they not only had to take it, they had to sit there while their parents taught it.

I wouldn’t suggest every parent go out and get training as a sex educator, but running the OWL program for a few years has taught me a few surprising things: One: most parents still don’t talk to their kids about sex. It still embarrasses them, no matter how wild they were when they were growing up. Two: For all the access to information, most kids still have a ton of misconceptions about everything from the likelihood of pregnancy to STD’s, so getting – and repeating – accurate information is always, always a good idea, no matter how much they groan. And Three: once the basics are laid down and nailed in place, casual conversations about sex – as “Mom” said, prompted by TV shows or commercials or real-world events – can be incredibly helpful, making sex important but not a Huge Deal, and still mysterious but not Secret. (You should have seen what kind of conversation Juno triggered around our house, and who ended up on which side. Weird…)

So, talk about it enough, through school or church or home to make casual conversation and reinforcement easy and frequent. Then when it gets serious – and it will, one day – everybody’s much for ready for it.

Though I admit I still get all icky inside when my wife says “masturbation” in front of the girls. Eww.

Mary, the “mom”

So, as the mom I am supposed to make sure that my children eat a nutritious diet and I’m also supposed to try and have family dinners.

I do manage to put a reasonably nutritious dinner on the table for a family meal most nights. But, by the time we’re all home (from work, baseball, dance, etc.) to sit down to dinner, my youngest has consumed several meals worth of after school snacks because she’s “starving” and then she eats no dinner. My son comes in from baseball so ravenous that he eats enough for a meal and then he, too, picks at his dinner. (My other daughter just grazes her way through after school snacks and dinner!)

So, my kids are filling up on snacks, some of which are of dubious nutritional quality, and I’m packaging up leftovers every night. I do try to push one night’s leftovers as the next day’s after school snack, but sometimes Chex Mix or the like win out.

I have always believed that you should listen to your body and eat when you’re hungry, not when the clock says its mealtime. Yet, I really do value that family dinner time. It’s the only time we’re all together and we actually talk to one another. It’s wonderful, until the bickering starts! Hmmm…maybe separate meals aren’t such a bad idea after all!

How do you juggle the family dinner issue in your house?

Rach, the “teen”

It’s really important to have regular sit-down meals, and it’s fantastic that your family tries to. Besides all the bickering that gets done, it’s a good time to just sit and be a family.

Anyway, the food thing has never been a big issue in my family. Dad has dinner ready somewhere between five and six every night. If someone is late (due to work, friends or rehearsal) then they eat the “saved for them” portion.

As for pre-dinner snacking - if your kids are starving before dinner, set out something healthy for them. Nuts or fruit, something easily snack-able, but nothing that would spoil dinner. Remember, if you’re the one who buys the groceries, then you’ve got control over what they consume. Don’t want snacking? Don’t buy snacks.

Brad, the “dad”

I admit it: we’ve given up on the Meals Together thing. With two kids at different, distant schools, and with jobs that frequently involve late hours or out-of-town trips, the ritual of the Family Dinner died a pathetic death around here a couple of years ago.

So we looked for a replacement – a more natural opportunity for family connection, when we could spend some low-pressure, non-distracted time together.

In short: we discovered Starbucks.

A few times a week, we either travel together to one of the 8,302 coffee bars in the immediate vicinity, or send The Chauffeur/Delivery Man (i.e., me) down the hill with orders in hand. Then we spend an hour with latte, frap, or – in my case – brew of the day and each other, and just talk. No TV, no headphones, and no ‘family meeting’ Big Issues allowed — just catching up. Joking. Maybe even making plans for a movie or a road trip. Sometimes it’s at four in the afternoon, sometimes not until ten at night, but we do it pretty consistently, and I’m happy to say we’ve reached a point where even the kidlings kind of expect it. If we all get too busy and don’t have a sit-down, it can just as easily be one of them as one of the parents who says, “Hey, can we have Starbucks tonight?” – meaning, “Hey, can we do that Family Thing?”

It ain’t no traditional dinner, I confess, and it ain’t even all that healthy. Sue me. It’s never been about the nutrition anyway: it’s been about the connection. And I’m willing to use any illicit device at my disposal to keep that connection alive…even caffeine, chocolate, and hazelnut syrup ‘way after dark. I’m sneaky that way. (And have you tried that new Pikes coffee? Not bad!)

Don’t miss these relevant articles from ParentingTeensOnline: Family Dinners Cook Up Responsible Teens and Balancing the Scales: Keeping Teen Nutrition on Track.

Go to ParentingTeensOnline and take the poll on how you create family time.

Rach, the “teen”

This morning I dragged myself out of bed, drove to school and promptly fell asleep in homeroom (then in math, British Literature, and physics). The girl next to be woke me up when the bell rang, “time for class”, she said. I looked around, everyone looked dead.

Older teens, like myself, thrive on sleep. And we rarely get enough. Sometimes I find myself coming home from school and sleeping until dinner. I go to bed no later than 10, and I get about 8 hours. So, my question… is 8 or 9 hours enough for a teenager?

At twelve, thirteen and fourteen, I had 12-hour days. Getting to school, being in school and then crazy long sports practices. That was totally fine then. Now I’m eighteen, and I have 7-hour days. And it’s not fine.

I’m not the only one sleeping through class. If we aren’t flat out sleeping, we’re thinking about sleeping. What’s up with that?

How come the moment we enter High School we suddenly need so much more sleep? It can’t just be our boring teachers… right?

Brad, the “dad”

There is, in fact, some complicated and impressive biological reason for this change in sleep-needs – I just don’t know what it is. I am sure, however, that the minute the Elf and the Valkyrie both hit their teens, ka-bam, their heads hit the pillow for hours upon hours. Around here, however, the problem is not with them sleeping too much; it’s getting them to acknowledge that they need to sleep more than before – like nine to ten hours a night (sleep experts say) instead of the eight to nine that indolent old dudes (like me) need.

I mean, do the math: if the Valkyrie or the Elf were really interested in getting the nine-plus hours their bodies need, they’d be going to sleep about 9:00 p.m. every night, since they have to get up at 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. And good luck getting them to go all lights-out at the same bedtime they had when they were eight years old. “Look,” I have said, “it’s not because you’re lazy or depressed or psychotically antisocial. It’s because your brain is still soft and it needs extra sleep to firm up properly.” Not that this approach is effective. In fact, it has worked exactly never. I can’t even pry the PSP out of the Elf’s hands at 9:00 in the evening; her grip strength doesn’t begin to falter until at least 11:00. (Believe me, I’ve tested it.)

So my advice, Rach, is quite simple and yet comforting: don’t feel guilty. Just get to bed.

Mary, the “mom”

As I contemplate how to answer Rach, it is 6:45 am. I’ve been up for an hour and I got to sleep about 12:30 am. So, I got just over 5 hours of sleep last night. This is the standard weekday schedule which, of course, falls far short of what I need. I try to make up for it on the weekend.

I know I could go to bed earlier. It’s all about priorities. Once I’ve finished all of my daily responsibilities, I want an hour to “veg” in front of the TV and then when I finally climb into bed, I want a half hour to read. And, at night, I want that more than sleep. Of course, come morning it looks like a bad decision.

My 16 year old averages 7 hours a night. Should he get more? Absolutely! Could he go to bed earlier? Sure! Does he admit he needs more? Of course not! Most of the time it’s him choosing to have some “down time” that keeps him up. By the time baseball practice is over and homework done, it’s already late, so “down time” cuts into sleep time.

It’s all about priorities - in this case “down time” versus sleep time. The teachers aren’t likely to get more stimulating, so you either have to go to bed earlier or figure out how to stay awake in class.

Have I mentioned caffeine?

Check out Late to Bed, Late to Rise article on ParentingTeensOnline.

The “Dad”

The Elf – 13.666 years old (with the accent on the “666”) has just made a major-league pitch to us for a…for a…tattoo. And not just some tiny little rose on her ankle you could cover with a stocking or a sports bandage or a skin graft. This time the Elf is living up to her nickname. “It’s a hand?” she told me. “But smaller, like a gnome or a fairy’s hand? And it’s curling around from behind, like it’s grabbing my arm. Won’t that be cool?”

I have to hand it to myself: my head did not explode. But I hauled out every counter-argument I could think of. I tried the ‘health’ angle, and I she showed me articles on how safe “skin art” was these days. I said, “Nobody your age is getting –“ and she listed half a dozen kids in her 8^th grade class who already had tattoos. I even tried Being Reasonable – I was that desperate. “Honey,” I said, “I know how much you want this, but really, I think –“

She put an affectionate hand on my arm and smiled – no, really, she actually smiled “Daddy,” she said. “I love you – you know that. But I don’t care what you think.”

I was stumped. The best I could do was cross my arms and looked oh-so-very stern and say, “We’ll see.”

“Right,” she said. “I’m going to go talk to Mom.”

I’m going to have to get there first. Seriously: The Mom and I are going to have to talk this through. ’m dead-set against it, and I think she is, too. And of course The Elf can’t get it done without a note from her parents. But we’re going to have to formulate a really good counter-offensive to avoid getting…well, you know, offensive.

There’s not going to be any tattoo. Not on my watch. But I’d really like her to agree that it’s not a great idea, at least for a few years. Or decades. Or lifetimes.

The “Teen”

To be completely honest, I don’t have any really strong feelings about tattoos. I’ve seen some cool ones, and I’ve seen some really horrible ones. The cool ones, well, they tend to be on people who are really extreme. Old punk rockers covered in tattoos, that’s pretty cool, very hardcore. Teenagers with lame body art, not so cool.

It’s cool that The Elf is so open about what she wants. But it’s too bad that she wants a tattoo. It’s going to be hard to convince her that getting a tattoo at 13 is a bad idea, because it can be hard to persuade someone to not do something.

I feel like getting a tattoo is like picking out a shirt. A shirt that you would never take off. A shirt that you would wear every single solitary day. You’d want that shirt to be perfect, right? It would need to look good with all your other clothes. It would have to be appropriate at weddings and funerals, during school and during play. It would be a permanent fixture of your life forever and ever.

The “Mom”

I’m with “Dad” – not on my watch!

I agree that it would be great if The Elf could come around to agreeing that a tattoo doesn’t make sense, but if she doesn’t, this is a battle to pick. (You know, “they” always say, ‘pick your battles’.)

So, you’ve tried a few arguments and none have made an impression. I’d focus on how her tastes have changed – and will continue to change. The hair style that looked so “cool” two years, but she wouldn’t be caught dead with now. Or, the outfit that was a ‘must-have’, that’s now been discarded as “so yesterday”. What happens when she changes her mind about the tattoo? I know, The Elf will say “but, I won’t change my mind”. But, we know she will.

Stick to your guns! — with loving explanations of why and the promise that if she still wants a tattoo when she turns 18, she can do it. She’ll thank you for this down the road. Of course, in the meantime, you’ll probably pay for it in many creative ways!

Check out You Want To Do What?!!! A Parent’s Guide to Body Decoration from ParentingTeensOnline.