Each of my parents are now on their third significant other...I've seen lots of messed up ways to treat others. Rather then let their bad relationship habits be repeated by me, I seeked out help through counseling to work being a better person, husband, friend, and parent. I think what KRB has some validity but one never knows just how long it takes to be in a solid relationship before having kids. One thing I know is that we'll never be perfect parents and my parenting job is partly to reduce the amount of counseling they'll need as adults. Meaning...I hope I didn't mess them up like I was ;-)
We have two beautiful daughters...16 & 11 that are honors students, love sports and music. The 16 year old also drives our old 4Runner which is a manual drive. Save the manual! They are pretty even keeled kids that don't get caught up in the overtly dramatized world of today.
A quick parenting example that came up last night...my oldest is on the high school swim team which is just forming for next falls season. The swimmers want to setup a swim team Facebook thingy...no biggie...except the kids are saying no parent access allowed. We've always operated that parents can do random checks of electronics, internet, facebook, etc...just to make sure everything is going smoothly. Nothing is being overused and their are no weird stalkers or anything. So, back to swimming...the swimmers want to state their independence from their parents from banning them this Facebook page which is a bit petty but understandable. The other swim parents are very controlling and overbearing. Our daughter first fought for us to have access, which made her out to be an outcast. We decided that it was more important to keep her in good standings with her friends by not friending or liking or whatever to give us access. But, asked that she come to us if things get awkward, or uncomfortable on this facebooky thingy. She thought that was a great idea and the team is creating their facebooky page. Anyways, I just wanted to share a small snip of our parenting of a teenager.
Cheers,
Mike