Tell me if any of these sound familiar:
“How can you call that crap music!”
“That video game is going to rot your brain out!”
“Why are you texting? Why can’t you just call them?”
“Five-thousand text messages! No one has that much to talk about!”
“Why do you need four hours on Facebook? Didn’t you just spend all day with them at school?”
You’ve probably either SAID these things, or had them said TO you. (Or you’ll be tempted to say them sometime in your near future.)
Parents may think those are legitimate questions and comments. But what kids often hear instead is, “Blah, blah, blah, that stuff is stupid.”
I don’t know about you, but I always respond the BEST when someone infers I’m stupid. Don’t you?
It’s kind of like your friend who has never had kids criticizing the way you handle your screaming toddler. You just want to slap her and say, “What the hell do you know?!”
Think about that for a minute. Now think about the defiant look your kid gave you the last time you were harping about something. Were they maybe thinking that EXACT thing? “What the hell do you know?!”
Instead of sounding like informed advisers, we come off like Ralph Wiggum on The Simpsons, “I’m a unitard!”
I just know someone out there is thinking, “I won’t allow ANY of it in MY house, then I don’t have to worry how they use it.”
You poor misguided soul. That would only eliminate any possibility of your kids learning to choose wisely for themselves.
That’s like thinking if you never let your kids get near water when they’re young, they won’t drown when they fall out of the boat as an adult.
Isn’t your REAL goal to get them ready for the REAL world?
My last PoP was to make what’s important to your kids important to you. This is similar, but almost more important, because it makes you SMARTER.
PoP #3 – Dive Right In!
You can’t stand on the shore shouting instructions. Get in the water with your kids and SHOW them how to SWIM!
You can’t POSE as an expert, you have to BECOME and expert. You have to immerse yourself in their world and show them how to navigate it.
For instance, it was always easy to monitor Jen’s music, because she pretty much stuck to mainstream pop. It was easy to listen to, and obvious when the lyrics were inappropriate for her age.
Zach, on the other hand, liked the offbeat stuff. I’m not even really sure how to classify all of it. Some of it I loved, some not so much. But I downloaded it ALL and listened to it on my iPod like I’d be lip-syncing at their next concert.
And then I went online and found places that said, “Other people who bought this also bought…” And I downloaded those CDs also.
Some of them were great, so I’d burn a copy for Zach and say, “I think you’ll really like this.”
Some of them were genuine crap. And guess what? When I heard those CDs invading my house through Zach’s speakers, I could go down to his room and say, “Seriously, bud? You know the third track on that CD uses the F-word twice. We don’t listen to that stuff in our house.”
And he knew that I REALLY knew what I was talking about.
I’m pretty sure he realized there’s a lot of GOOD music out there in the style he likes. You don’t have to give up an entire genre, just certain artists, or maybe just a few specific songs.
Probably the hardest thing for me to get my head around was video games. It just seemed like you needed to learn too much to be able to play. And I couldn’t imagine how a person could be fully occupied like that for HOURS on end.
But how could I tell Zach what a waste of time it was when I was barely even a casual observer?
So I asked him to teach me how to play.
When we first played Rainbow Six, Zach would make me sit my guy down a hall and around a corner so I wouldn’t get killed and mess up our progress. But by the time he left home, I could clear the room of terrorists right along with him.
I get it now. If you don’t play video games, I could never explain it to you. It’s one of those things you have to experience yourself.
But I CAN tell you, after a really hard day at work, Splinter Cell was a great way to relax and unwind. I can see how it would be a good escape from teen drama.
Learning to enjoy video games also meant I might pop into the room randomly to watch whatever Zach was playing, because it was genuinely fun to watch. That meant he had to choose games he knew wouldn’t be offensive. I’m not saying he NEVER played Grand Theft Auto, but he knew better than to buy it or bring it into our house.
Texting was a no brainer for me. I saw instant value, literally. Besides being able to have brief, to-the-point conversations, it also gave me a way to keep in touch with Jen, and get status updates when someone wasn’t where they were supposed to be WHEN they were supposed to be. And by someone, I really mean Zach.
From time to time, I’d send random weird messages to Zach while he was in school, because I knew he had his cell phone with him in class even though he wasn’t supposed to. It amused me to know his pocket was buzzing, and he was sheepishly telling a teacher, “It’s my mom.”
I admit, I never grew up. So maybe diving head first into the world my kids were living in was just as much for me as it was for them. But it certainly didn’t hurt anything.
Unless you ask Dave.
He thinks a lot of the music I listen to is garbage, and I waste WAY too much time on my Xbox (I have my own now.) And he’s constantly asking me why I don’t just CALL Jen instead of texting back and forth.
But what does he know. He still listens to Bruce Hornsby and The Range.
PoP #1: A Little Practical Magic
PoP #2: Fall In Love With a Vampire
PoP #3: Don't Be a Unitard
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
A phone and food, in that order of importance
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