While women today have more opportunities then ever before, “media is channeling that opportunity to a place of hyper-sexualized stupidity. It’s not who you are — it’s how hot you are”.  Should parents be concerned?  To read more click here.

Working, traveling, sleeping, socializing – How should teens spend their summer vacation?

It is hard to believe but another summer is upon us!  am It’s not only the weather that changes with this season, but routines and expectations too.  I think everyone, parents and teens, get a bit anxious about how to fill the potentially empty days of summer.  So I am wondering,  what are your thoughts and plans summers?  Do you think it’s a time for rest and relaxation or do you think kids should be getting a job or volunteering?  Should it be a time to spend with family? What are your plans and what are most of your friends doing?

(Your Teen’s Virtual Family Blog welcomes Emma, a recent High School graduate and a friend of our Virtual Family)

When I was a teenager I worked each summer, and I think that’s the way it should be.
I don’t want to sound like the “old” person who walked both ways to school, uphill, in the snow. I just think it’s better. Working gave me a sense of responsibility.  It taught me to show up on time (even when I wanted to sleep later).  It also taught me how to deal with a boss who I thought was mean, unreasonable or simply stupid – because that’s what you have to do in life. Maybe most importantly it taught me the joy (and value) of having my own money, which I could spend however I wanted.

I know the job market is tough. It’s much harder to find a summer job as a teenager these days. It’s more fun to travel on a charitable mission/ or take an exciting internship ( which may be funded significantly by the parents). I understand that getting in to college or getting a real job needs something on a resume which stands out. But I think the long term value of a “boring” summer job has become under rated.

This summer I plan on splitting my time working in Columbus and working in Cleveland.

As far as what kids should do over the summer, I feel like it is up to them. I have worked every summer since my junior year of high school. But that was because I wanted money to spend on trips to the Cedar Point Amusement Park and other fun places. I feel like kids are expected to have fun during the summer and if they do decide to do something responsible too they need to not overburden themselves. Summer is about letting all the stress go.

Recently with the pressure to build a strong resume I have been spending my summers working and doing several internships at a time and the result is a summer just as stressful as the school year. When it comes to internships, one at some point is great, maybe even a couple.  However, one every summer is not necessary. Take a break because having fun is part of being young too and you will have years to work as some suit’s coffee retriever but never enough time to go to the beach.

In my opinion, summer is a time for kids to just chill. No tests to worry about, no projects to work on over the weekend, no grades to freak out over. Summer is the greatest time of the year because there are no worries. Everyone loves the weekend right? Well summer is nothing more than a kid’s two and a half month weekend. Even my summers, which are packed full with all kinds of lacrosse tournaments and football practices, are the best part of every year. If teenagers want to work to earn a little extra cash, then that is up to them. Kids should make their summer what they want it to be, not what parents think it should be. Kids have adults telling them what to do for 7 hours a day, 9 months out of the year. Just give us a month or two to do what we enjoy.

I believe that having a job is a good way to earn experience points. By the end of my senior year, I was anxious to become more disciplined and get used to working long hours. There is something to be gained from having that kind of responsibility (like the joys of hard-earned spending money), but in the end I feel like I would be just as ready to go into a job the year after or even later. In my experience, the need to work comes with maturing. A kid’s eventually going to work, whether they’re pushed into having a job earlier or not. If I had to name a starting point, definitely by the time they’re a college student.

And once college starts, there are many interesting internship possibilities. I would get long lists of opportunities from my school every month and they required no financial support from the parents. Whether it’s a paid internship or not, having something to do for the summer is important and feels good.

This summer I’m doing corporate design, animation, and video work, and I might be going to San Francisco for an animation residency in August!

Emma

This is my first summer since I started high school where I don’t have any set plans. For the past three summers, I’ve been a camp counselor at my school. Last summer, I added a summer internship at a hospital and a workout plan to earn gym credit. This summer, I’m planning on waitressing and babysitting as much as I can to make money to take to college.

I’m going to school out of the country, so I won’t be traveling much this summer. I was considering a job as a nanny out of state, but because this is my last summer at home before such a big move, I thought it would be better to stay in Cleveland. Besides maybe weekend trips with friends, I’ll be home working.

In a way, it’s nice to have so few concrete plans. I spent all of high school worrying about college and wanting to make sure I did everything that was expected to get into a selective school: I volunteered, I interned, I went on way too many college visits. While these experiences were definitely worthwhile, I’m looking forward to a summer without any expectations.

My friends are traveling and working. I anticipate we’ll all be spending a lot of time together before we all part ways. Some play sports, so they have summer practices or jobs as coaches for younger kids. Since we’ll all be graduating seniors, we’ll have a ton of graduation parties to go to together.

Even though no explicit plans are in place, I expect that I’ll be spending a lot of time with my family. I’m the oldest child, and I know my parents are really dreading when I leave for school in September. Because my mom is a teacher, she’s home during the summer, which is nice. My brother and sister are younger than me, too, so hopefully I’ll be able to spend some time with them before I move away.

When Time magazine’s recent cover story asked “Are You Mom Enough?”, one Mom took Time Magazine and Attachment Parenting to task:   “He is not an appendage to be dangled from my breasts on the cover of a magazine, his success is not my ego’s accessory, and I am not Super Mom.”   To read more click here.

PUT DOWN THE PHONE!  We talk to our teenagers about drinking and driving, now we need to add Distracted Driving:  “Parents’ involvement and influence in the teen driving experience can literally mean the difference between life and death for their child”. To read more click here.

Deborah Gilboa, MD, aka Doctor G, is a Pittsburgh-area family physician who also offers parenting advice on Huffington Post and is founder of AskDoctorG.com.

QUESTION

I feel like I am experiencing adult peer pressure. My husband and I believe sleepovers should end in 9^th grade. We believe that, with teenagers, nothing good happens after midnight. We know that in high school, teenagers use sleepovers as an excuse to stay at a house with parents who tolerate drinking.  Also, parents rarely stay up until the kids fall asleep, so there is unsupervised, free time.
How do you stand on your own, when you are the only parent going against a trend?

ANSWER

If you are positive something is best for your teenager, it does not matter what others think. You can model for your teenager the value of doing what you know is right in the face of great opposition – even theirs.
Empathy for your teenager, for their frustration and suffering, is completely appropriate. But, that empathy does not require you to change your mind or your boundary. That empathy also does not give your teenager the right to treat you disrespectfully.

The second question, “Are we too strict about this?” is trickier.

You are correct that lots of risky behavior happens in high school and that much of that occurs at night when kids are unsupervised. Yet, we have to give our kids chances to experience freedoms while we still have some say over consequences when they abuse those freedoms. In high school, you have the opportunity to help your teen prepare for college, a place rife with risky, nocturnal behavior.

How do you prepare them to act like a responsible, resilient adult? Probably not by keeping them under lock and key for all of high school. Unsupervised time, within reasonable boundaries, is crucial to a teen’s development.

Your teen is in the difficult position of separating from you. Weaning involves a lot of struggle because it is so hard … on all of you. Worse, the struggle is drawn out; it takes years.

My guess? Your teen is campaigning for more freedoms than just sleepovers. Let them earn this by starting with a smaller request that you’ve previously denied. Figure out how your teen can earn that privilege in the next month and clearly communicate how you will revoke that privilege if they abuse it. Then, continue to establish this pattern of privileges earned – or revoked, as necessary – as the months go on.

Let your teens prove their responsibility. Give them opportunities for small mistakes while you are still involved. Mistakes don’t have to end badly; they can instill resilience and problem-solving abilities in your teen. And, this chance to monitor and follow-up with your teens about actions and consequences is short-lived.

It’s hard to have faith in our kids in a world abounding with temptations. However, most kids deserve that faith.

“…a significant number of young people’s “commitment” to remaining childless involves crossing their fingers, not wearing condoms or swallowing pills.”   These are the frightening results of a new study, to read more click here.

“I started looking at pictures of my girls on my phone and realized I wasn’t in any of them,” - Don’t Miss Your Life – an inspiring song and video by Phil Vassar. To see video click here.

Genie Francis – Devoted Mom in the Movies and in Real Life 

Your Teen had the opportunity to speak with Genie Francis (Laura from General Hospital) who co-stars in the Hallmark Channel’s new movie, Notes from a Heart Healer, airing this Mother’s Day weekend. We asked Genie about her life as Laura and her life today as the mother of two teenagers.

Have your kids been affected by your career?
I hope not in a negative sense. I made an effort not to bring my work home, and we don’t spend a lot of time watching ourselves on TV or anything like that.

Do your kids want to go into show business?
My son is not the slightest bit interested. He is an excellent musician. He has a terrific natural understanding of physics. And he is interested in film – working behind the camera like his father.

I think that my daughter wants to be an actress. She probably got somewhat influenced by what I do for a living.

Do you support your daughter’s career choice?
If she really wants to be an actress more than anything else, I will support her. But I feel really strongly that I don’t want her to go to work as a teenager.

At what age would you let her pursue acting?
I let her do local theater, and I let her take acting class with a very good teacher. I would let her do a guest spot for the experience. But I would never allow her to be on a TV series. That commitment pulls the teen right out of their normal life environment and their peer group.

I know this personally. I skipped too many developmental steps. I definitely have holes in my life. I started on General Hospital when I was 14 with a three-year contract for 52 weeks a year. Within the first six months of working, they pulled me out of school and gave me a full-time studio teacher. I never set foot in school again.

So you missed out on all of high school social life?
Completely. I missed the social and emotional development you gain in high school.  My social life was at work, but I was nine years younger than the next youngest person.

There are important steps that happen during high school. Your first love should be in an environment with someone your own age. It should be private, and it should not be exploited.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved what I was doing, and I wanted it as much as my daughter seems to want it. I loved having the opportunity to prove myself as an actress. But she does not know what she is going to miss. I do know what she is going to miss, and I am not going to let that happen.

People who grew up with General Hospital want to know how you felt about the rape scene?
I was so young. The producer told me in no uncertain terms that it was rape and to play it as a rape. So I did. A 17-year-old doesn’t step back and judge whether or not she is sending a good message; a 16-year-old does what she is told.

How did you handle the controversy?
When the controversy began to bubble, they threw me to the press. I thought that was really unfair. People were angry about the rape, but they were also angry with me; I thought I had done something wrong. I think it was wrong of the people that where in charge to throw me out to the wolves like that. It was their idea and their story, and they really shouldn’t have put a kid out to take the heat.

And then you fell in love with Luke, your rapist.
I was looking at some old tapes, and they have a line where Luke and Laura are having a heated conversation. She’s getting emotional, and he says, “Laura, stop crying. Don’t make me hit you.” This would never go on the air today, but that was another era – a time before women took their power.

Did any roles prepare you to be the mother of a teen?
I learned some things when I was Lucky’s mom on General Hospital. But for the most part, not really. I mostly learned by trial and error. It bugs me that after you’ve done it, then you understand how to do it right.

Are you a relaxed mom?
With my first baby, I was not relaxed at all. I left the hospital in a full panic about the responsibility. I actually cried because I knew that I couldn’t be perfect, but I thought that my baby deserved a perfect mother.

And is your home relaxed?
I think we have a relaxed house.  We have lots of open conversations. I ask tons of questions so my kids know that I’m aware of what’s going on. I don’t have GPS on their phones or stalk them on Facebook. I trust them, and I think they are really good kids. I am pretty permissive, but I ask a ton of questions so they know that there’s not much room to get away with stuff. But I don’t micromanage them.

You don’t seem like a helicopter parent.
No. I really do trust my kids. The more I talk to them, the more they come forward and tell me stuff. They will share moments of vulnerability and tell me about something that has happened – I feel like that’s a good relationship.

Hallmark Channel original movie Notes from the Heart Healer Saturday, May 12 (8pm ET/PT, 7C) and (10pm ET/PT, 9C) and Sunday, May 13 (12noon ET/PT, 11C) and (8pm ET/PT, 9C)

Is your mom a heart healer?  Hallmark Channel is looking for inspirational, poignant or funny stories about moms who have healed a heart.  Post your tributes to Facebook.com/hallmarkchannel  #HeartHealer #HallmarkChannelCountdown

“Attachment Parenting” and the picture of the breast-feeding toddler on the cover of Time magazine are hot topics, find out what is causing all the controversy. To read more click here.

The Fault In Our Stars

Review by Eca Paz Taylor

My roommate was diagnosed with cancer the third week of our first year of college. Being 18 years old and not knowing a thing about cancer, I asked her what she expected from me. She was easy to please; she wanted support but mostly laughter.  “The Fault in Our Stars” by John Green is a novel about teens with cancer. It brought back many memories of the years we spent as roommates.  n an interview I read with Green, he commented that during his book tour he had teens with cancer tell him that he “gets them” like other adults can’t; he understands their sense of humor and their anxieties

Green’s main characters are just trying to be normal teenagers while dealing with a devastating disease. Hazel and Augustus, the two primary characters in the book, meet at a teen cancer support group where they are trying to navigate the uncertain world of cancer and mortality while coping with the normal aspects of adolescence. Both of them have been in and out of school and hospitals and are not really sure of their roles as student/friend/patient. Not only are they going through their awkward teen years, but because of their illness, they are also pariahs among their peers. Augustus utilizes humor to cope with his disease. Hazel finds that she needs the humor. Their dialogue is snarky and irreverent and they laugh at things that are actually quite sad. There is even a humorous anecdote about Make-A-Wish.

As a parent, the book was heartbreaking. Both Hazel and Augustus’ parents are trying to cope the best way they can. They take their cues from their children and try to understand their children’s humor, but it isn’t easy. I felt so sad and helpless when reading about their appointments, treatments, hospitalizations, etc. For parents of teens with cancer, this book sheds light on how some teens deal with their disease, painful as it may be.

I couldn’t put this book down. I loved the characters and I needed to see what was going to happen next. I wanted them all to live happily ever after, but that wasn’t going to happen. Sadly it doesn’t happen in real life either, even to a beloved roommate.