Mary, the “mom”

I look forward to the end of the school year almost as much as my kids do. First and foremost, I look forward to sleeping past 5:40 on weekdays. But I also look forward to a break from worrying about all the assignments, tests, projects etc. (I know they’re not my responsibility, so why would I worry? See my earlier posts about micro-managing and you’ll get the picture!) And, believe it or not, I actually enjoy spending time with my kids when everyone is relaxed, as opposed to the normal weekday routine where everyone, including me, is stressed out.

Okay, so today’s the last day, at least for my high school student. Now what? He should have a summer job, but he doesn’t yet. (See Rach’s post about her summer job dilemma and you’ll get the idea.) Regardless of how much I enjoy spending relaxed time with him, it won’t take long for the sleeping til noon and hanging around all day to get on my nerves.

So, I’ve explained to him that I will have a list of extra chores for him to do around the house until he gets a summer job. I fear that I’m about to trade nagging about school work for nagging about chores. Which, of course, is in addition to nagging about a summer job.

What are your kids doing this summer? How do you handle the sudden wealth of free time?

Rach, the “teen”

The post about the summer job really helped me. It got me more motivated, and more willing to really look. I knew I needed to get one, so I answered an advertisement, went in for an interview and got a summer job. I did it because sitting around the house listening to my parents nag was the last thing I wanted, and it’s the last thing your kids want to.

I think the first week of summer (right after school lets out) is a great time to sleep in late, hang out with friends and get all that classic summer stuff done. Then it’s time to work.

Last summer, my dad employed me (for minimum wage) to repaint two big benches we keep outside. It took me the entire summer, but it kept me busy. I think chores like that are good for middle and high school students. One or two big simple “around the house” chore they can do.

Paint something, plant a new garden, weekly “all house” cleanings. Something that they can do when they want (flexible hours), but for a certain amount of hours a week (say, 10), and something that they have to do (for the money, for the responsibility, for the drive to the mall you promised them).

It was hard painting those benches (yes, painting can be hard). But it was a good summer - because I made the rules about it. I got the work done, I felt responsible for the benches, and I got paid for it. With only a little nagging.

Brad, the “dad”

I guess I’m just the ol’ softy in the pack this time. Because I have seen how ridiculously hard the kidlings have been working this past year, on grades and friendships and special projects and community service, and I’m actually hearing myself saying, “Hey, it’s summer: take some time.”

Maybe I’m particularly easy on them this year because I can see the future. The Valkyrie will be heading off to college in exactly two months, and there’s a work-study gig and 13 units waiting for her there. The Elf will be starting at an academically demanding high school in just a little more than that – the same school her sister just escaped from – and, as she’s been saying herself, once she gets there the grades and extra-curricular stuff really start to count.

In some ways, this is the Last Great Summer for both of them. Adulthood, or a reasonable facsimile is just over the horizon. So if the Valk takes a month off (yeah, a month) to go road-tripping with her travelicious Mom, and the Elf spends a week or two (or three) doing little but sleeping in, going online and making art…okay. Just this once. Because from here on in, things are gonna get busier and more serious, and I want them to remember at least one more, one last, long, slow summer before the blitz begins.

Am I a fish in a barrel or what?

Read ParentingTeensOnline’s June Hot Topics for ideas for spending time with your teens this summer.

Brad, the “dad”

I’m sorry, I’m running late this week. I … I …

Excuse me, what were we talking about?

All I know is that last night my daughter graduated from high school, and I feel like somebody’s hit me in the head with a two-by-four.

What the heck just happened? There was a baby here just a minute ago. And I remember this cute little girl, couldn’t have been more than four, five years old, sitting in my lap. Then I looked away for just one minute, and suddenly there’s this beautiful, accomplished, confident Valkyrie walking down the aisle in her pretty green robe and mortarboard, picking up her high school diploma, making plans for a month-long road trip, going off to college – leaving. More than that, really – leaving me.

I know we’ve been planning this for months. It’s just that it happened so fast. All of it – the birth, the childhood, the school and Christmases and homework and birthdays and vacations and crises and partnerships and arguments and now…

I guess I didn’t expect quite so much melancholy to be mixed up with the pride and excitement. I didn’t expect to feel like the guy who’s left standing on the dock while the party ship begins to slowly, slowly sail away without me. Of course I’m proud of her. Of course I understand she’s not disappearing, she’s just going to college. I know she’s still my kid, but not a kid and…

Like I said: two-by-four.

I wonder what happens next?

Mary, the “mom”

No fair – you’re going to make me cry! Seriously!

I get this same feeling at every major event (preschool graduation, first day of kindergarten, middle school graduation, first day of high school) and some not so major - and often quite boring - events (2^nd grade concert, Brownie bridging ceremony, 5^th grade band concert…). You get the picture.

Sometime the feeling is positive, as in: “Wow, a few years ago I was worrying about packing a stroller, diapers and baby food for even the simplest outing. Now, they grab their iPods and we’re off. Yeah!” But mostly it’s of the nature of “where did the time go?”

I guess the trick is to remember how fast the time goes when I want to scream at them about the mess they made in the kitchen. Of course I never do remember til afterward when I feel bad – not that I always feel bad, just sometimes.

What’s next you wondered. Well, for me it’s that high school graduation you just went through. For you, I’m guessing college graduation. Maybe even a walk down the aisle eventually. Talk about a two-by-four! I guess those hits are going to keep coming. But, for now, Congratulations!

Rach, the “teen”

You haven’t been left on the dock. The boat won’t leave without you.

I graduated last week, and it’s scary thinking about what happens next. I know my parents are feeling melancholy about me (their “baby”) being done with high school, but, they know I’m not really leaving them. Sure, I’ll be at college, but I’ll never really be gone.

So, what happens next? I have no idea. But you’d better bet that my parents are coming with me on my boat, wherever it leads me.

Mary, the “mom”

About 2 months ago, I blogged about my concern that I was micro-managing my son with Edline, a program which allows students and parents online access to assignments, course calendars, grade sheets, absence reports, etc. I knew that managing his responsibilities for him wasn’t going to help in the long run, but Edline made it sooo tempting.

Well, when our virtual teen, Rach, joined in the conversation, it was a dose of reality for me. I always find it so helpful getting a real life teen perspective from her. So, I took Rach’s advice to heart and backed off. I still peeked at Edline, but for the most part I was simply supportive.

Well, come to find out that there’s a big difference in the maturity level of a 16 year boy (or at least this one) and an 18 year girl. Shocking, I know! So, while I really do value Rach’s advice, it turns out, my son is not really ready to manage this completely on his own. And, I’ve decided that he’s got two more years of high school to come around to the maturity level that Rach obviously has. So, it’s OK that he’s not there yet.

So, with all of this swirling through our home, I open my Sunday New York Times and see an article titled “I Know What You Did Last Math Class” which reports on families using Edline and similar services and how they are popular but can stress out families. It was interesting and funny and now I know I’m not alone in trying to find the right balance in using this service.

I want to try and use it as a means of communicating with my son about what’s happening and as a tool to help him to organize his work – not organize it for him. I definitely don’t want it to be confrontational or nagging. (Rach helped me understand just how unproductive that can be!) I’m thinking this can be a learning experience in itself. And, hopefully, by the time he’s a senior he’ll be managing it all himself and ready to face the workload of college without Mom looking over his shoulder.

So, now I need to go look at Edline and try to remember not to jump to conclusions, not to nag and not to be confrontational when we discuss it. I know what you’re thinking…”there is no way a self-professed control freak is going to be able to walk that line.” Maybe not, but I am going to try!

Brad, the “dad”

Let them alone, but stay involved. Help them, but don’t help them too much. Stay close, but not that close. Yipes. Nobody told us that the national pastime for parenting was Tug O’ War.

I’ve actually given up on subtlety when it comes to grades. Our middle-schooler made that possible when a Progress Report (one of those surprising little middle-of-the-term-it’s-not-a-grade-yet-but-watch-out mailings) showed up on the doorstep with a D+ on it. Yeah: DEE PLUS. From then on, worrying about whether I was being too interventionalist, whether I had to “let her fail” so she could learn, whether I was slowing down her personal development by making things too easy … all that? Floop! Out the window.

We don’t do D+’s in this house. And Edline is now only one of a whole arsenal of tools that I use without a moment’s hesitation to keep her on the straight-and-narrow (and she is: I’m proud to say the Elf was even more ashamed of losing academic control than I was, and the instant she realized there was no getting away clean, she buckled down. We’re back to A/B’s again.).

I know we can’t protect them from everything. But we didn’t teach her how to look both ways before she crossed the street by letting her play in traffic and get ding-bopped by a couple of cars. There are places she can fall down “safely” and places where it’s just plain stupid to let her fall. And I’ve come to the conclusion that grades mean too much – that the schools themselves have made grades mean too much – to let her report card be one of the “let them fail” places.

So I’m on her like a duck on a June bug …. and any time she gets a little grumpy about that, I only have to say two words and she ducks down and accepts it. It’s amazing what the simple utterance of “Dee Plus” can do.

Look on the bright side, “Mom.” Maybe your son can get a D or an F – just once! – and then you can lose the guilt, just like me.

Rach, the “teen”

For a few years in middle school I consistently brought home D’s. I acted a lot like the Elf did - I was so much more disappointed in myself than my parents were (that says a lot, they were heartbroken).

I agree though, too much focus is put on grades. It’s not about “the great war” or the quadratic formula anymore. It’s about getting an A. Learning has gone out the window in most schools. Grades, test scores and resume builders are what school is about. And, that’s really sad.

But this is a problem we can’t really bring up with the students or the schools. This is something we need to bring up with the government. Funding is determined by test scores, not students, and certainly not learning.

Nonetheless, a lot of emphasis is still put on grades. I still think programs that let parents “check in” on their kids are a bad idea. But the few parents that encourage their kids to use it a tool are making it all worthwhile.

I must admit, if I had kids and they were doing badly in school. I might use a program like that to make sure they were getting their grades up. I guess it’s a good thing, for parents whose kids don’t honestly tell their parents about schoolwork.

For ideas on how to talk with your teen about school, see ParentingTeensOnline Special May Hot Topic: Your Teens’ Teachers

Rach, the “teen”

I’ve been watching High School Confidential, a show that follows 12 girls through their four years in a typical Mid-western high school. If the girls didn’t talk so much about Kansas, I would have never known where the school is located.

Northwest, the school portrayed in the show, seemed almost exactly like my high school. Our student bodies are very similar; our communities seemed equally diverse, even our school television stations looked alike. The girls out there seem to wear more makeup than the girls at my school, but to be honest, that’s the biggest difference I saw.

That’s why I liked the show so much. Not only do I feel connected (because of our school comparisons), but because I felt connected to the students. They weren’t Orange County celebrities in the making, and they weren’t actors posing as teens. They were real teens, with real issues, making real choices. That rocks. It really felt like an accurate portrayal of what it’s like being a teenage girl.

Of course it might just be me. Did the high school and the kids seem real to you too?

Mary, the “mom”

It’s fascinating to me that Rachel does feel so connected to these girls and it’s really quite instructive. As I listen to them, they often sound quite dramatic. I think I remember what it was like to be a teenage girl, and of course I do remember some of it. But at this point in my life I’ve managed to put all those high school dramas into perspective. It’s easy as an adult to look at some of the issues these girls are dealing with and realize they are just small ‘bumps in the road’.

The girls in High School Confidential are a wake-up call. They are real. Their issues are real and, most importantly, their perspectives on those issues are real. As a parent, it’s really useful to be reminded that, to the girls, at that moment in time, these issues are all consuming.

On the other hand, some of the girls in this show are dealing with huge, life-altering issues – parents dying, unplanned pregnancies, and so on - issues that any adult would recognize as no small ‘bump in the road’. Yet, in some cases, they don’t get the support they so obviously need.

So, what did I get out of this as a mom? A reminder to not minimize the ‘crisis’ that are the milk of the teenager years and a little positive reinforcement that providing a stable and supportive environment – to whatever extent you can control it - has its benefits.

Brad, the “dad”

Actually, High School Confidential scared the bejeebies out of me. Pregnancy, marriage, death, abortion – ah, good times, good times. Then I reminded myself that even though these are real kids, we’re watching the highlights (or lowlights) of four tumultuous years shrunk down into about 18 minutes.

My 17-year-old watched the show with me, and even she commented on how incredibly dramatic each story was. “We have 100 seniors at my [tiny] high school,” she said, “and there’s been exactly one pregnancy, two other girls who came back to school with babies, one traffic death, no suicides, and as far as I know no dead parents. Yet.” (At which point she gave me a disturbingly speculative squint.) There’s a point there: High School Confidential – being a TV show, after all — is intrinsically attracted to the Big Stories, good or bad; Judging by the experiences of my own kids and their friends, the day-to-day life of the high schooler isn’t nearly as high-anxiety as what we saw here.

The “Mom”

The high school my son attends has implemented Edline, a program which allows students and parents online access to assignments, course calendars, grade sheets, absence reports, team practice schedules… essentially every aspect of the high school student’s academic and extra-curricular life. Of course I am thrilled with this new tool! It should help my son to manage his life. But really, I am thrilled because it’s easier for me to keep on top of what’s going on and what my son should be doing. It gives me more material for those daily chats. Instead of asking “What homework do you have tonight? Can you get it done before baseball practice?”, I can say “So, you have Math and Latin homework and a History test to study for, better get moving or you won’t be done in time to go to baseball practice. Oh, and by the way, you’d better plan on starting that Chem project this weekend.” And, to myself I am saying “Ha ha! There’s no hiding now!”

Again, I am thrilled with this! I am a control freak – and I know it. But I have this nagging concern. I know that my reminders help in the short run, but what about the long run? When does he learn to manage all of this for himself? Am I really doing him a favor when I “manage” this? If he doesn’t learn to juggle these things now, what happens when he goes off to college, where there will be even more distractions?

I certainly never had anyone making sure I got my homework done. Up until now I have sorted of prided myself on being so much more involved than my parents were, but now I wonder if that’s for the best. I know the answer is “a happy medium”…but I’m just not sure where to draw the line for “medium”.

The “Dad”

All too often, our kids see “communication” and “control” as pretty much the same thing, so yes – it’s our job to know what’s going on even if they’re not inclined to tell us, and not just about the juicy stuff like sex and drugs, but about the boring, everyday icky junk like history homework.

We’ve run into the Miracle of the Sliding Grades with all our girls at one point or another, most recently when the Elf, a consistent A/B student, brought home (no, wait – when they mailed home) a B-/C semester report card, and boy, did the fur fly (little Fluffy the Cat has never been quite the same). It wasn’t any major life-crisis, as it turned out; just The Elf easing up and getting lazy, but we were none the wiser until it was a little too late.

Hereabouts we’re not helped much by the schools; where they loved us and begged us to be involved in the classroom and curriculum during elementary school, by middle/high school we’re useful only as fund-raisers, and then only at arm’s length. It’s time, they tell us, for the kids to take responsibilty for their homework and grades or they’ll never learn…and at the same time they’re telling us that grades and academic performance are hugely important, now more than ever, for college and life at large. So, what, we let them fail (and damage their lifetime-chances-options) so they can learn…once again, just a little too late?

I think the GradeGrabber 6000, or whatever that system is, is a nice compromise: you can spy on them just as you should without being intrusive, and offer help when they really need it, not just when you think they might (or just when you – I mean me – really wants to.) Go forth and kibbutz – guiltlessly!

“The Teen”

It’s cool technology, I’ll admit. But I think it’s a bad idea.

High school students have their whole days planned out by teachers. When we get home, we don’t want our parents telling us that “you’ve got math problems, government notes and that big literature paper due tomorrow, oh, and you’ve got to set the table, help make dinner and baby-sit the kids across the street later tonight.” That’s a lot, and we know it! But we can handle it. Emphasis on the “we.” We the students. Not we the family.

Teenagers do a lot of juggling, but if you’re going to be juggling it for us… how will we ever learn?

I understand the need to control some aspect of your child’s life, but when it comes to homework. It should be up to them. A little help might be good, but it should be the their responsibility to ask for help if they need it.

If you see your child struggling to get things done on time, or if their grades are slipping, ask if they need some help (with time management or studying) - don’t just give it to them.

Check out Helicoptering article on ParentingTeensOnline.