Parenting in the Digital Age

When our three kids were in middle school, we did a lot of things wrong – especially with the first one. But along with those parenting mistakes were some parenting wins. Beginning in the middle school years, we made a few concerted efforts to protect our kids from the more negative aspects of adolescence. Here are a few parenting wins in that I think we got right.



Plan Something Fun Every Weekend A lot of bad things start in the middle school years: peer pressure, experimentation with alcohol and pot, sexual activity, walking around the neighborhood at night Getting Up To No Good. No one gets invited to every party, but that doesn’t mean your thirteen-year-old isn’t feeling miserable about it – and she’ll never tell you, either. They will feel pressure to go to the junior high dance, but secretly not want to go.

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Be Home Base
Our kids knew they could have friends over any time. I hate sleepovers with the white hot intensity of the sun, but we hosted them anyway. Team dinners, poker night, football viewing parties, cooking parties, we made it a point to offer our house.

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Reading for Pleasure
Of all our parenting wins, the best was to make reading a family activity. We read out loud together at night, fought over the latest Harry Potter book, and talked about what we were reading over dinner. We went to the library as a family. If we went to a movie, we would always discuss afterwards how it stacked up against the book. We listened to books on CD on car trips.

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Eat Dinner Together
Even if it was just grilled cheese eaten after cross country practice, we made sure to sit down as a family at dinner. We made a ritual out of each person sharing our Best and Worst of the day. Sometimes that was the only way I learned anything about what was going on at school.

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Family Pets
Yes, they shed, track in dirt, and vomit on the oriental rug. But they also search for you in the crowd of school kids at dismissal, and literally jump for joy when they see you. They don’t ask you how your algebra test went. They provide stress relief, companionship, and unconditional love. Experts say that pets help keep family members more emotionally engaged with each other, and teach teens, even those who don’t readily express emotions, how to give back love and affection to others.

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Time Outdoors
We spent a lot of time outdoors – in the yard, hiking, having river walks, or just a family walk around the neighborhood with the dog. Big problems seem smaller outdoors, right? Our kids complained before every single one of them about being forced on “another Bataan death march,” but by the end of the outing they were laughing and having a great time. It got them away from the computer or Xbox, and helped to instill a lasting love of the outdoors. Two of the kids have joined outdoor clubs in college, and the other has taken up rock climbing. It cuts down on screen time, too. It’s a parenting win that keeps on giving.

Source: yourteenmag.com