I Have a Teen Daughter and I Am Scared

It was Friday evening and our 19-year-old daughter Eden talked again about going to dance Salsa in the city. She had been talking about it for over two months and had never gone. None of her friends had wanted to join and she had not wanted to go by herself. Gal and I decided to go with her (aren’t we the greatest parents?).

It was a feel-good party. There was a band on stage and many dancers on the floor, dancing beautifully. We could watch them for hours. Many people sat on the floor around the dancers and watched with us. Eden was invited to dance with others and we were very happy to see her dancing and shining.

We looked at each other and said, “It was worth coming”, but was it?

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Would You Say "No" to Violence Against Children?

In one of my parenting workshops, I had a discussion with one of the fathers about the use of negative words and we talked about the slogan “Australia says ‘no’ to violence against children”. I explained that the brain records “Australia says to violence against children”, omits the “no” and focuses on “Australia”, “violence” and “children”. Paul thought it was a great slogan (and he did not work for the copywriting company who came up with the slogan).

At that stage, all the other participants already understood that “no smoking” only promoted smoking by focusing on the smoking, so pretty quickly, there was a lively group interaction going on.

This week, I got a video made by a great organisation, which presented the answer we were looking for in our discussion at that parenting workshop. What would you want people to focus on? We want them to focus on creating a child-friendly environment for our kids. We want them to be happy, to feel safe and to have good relationships with others.

The answer to (the pink elephant) “Australia says no to violence against children” is now “Australia says yes to a child-friendly environment for our children” and I love this new focus.

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Kids are Like Fish

Kids are like fish. No, not because they are pretty and cute (although they are pretty and cute) but because their ability to grow depends on their environment, much like fish.

Did you know that fish will grow to the size that will be supported by their surroundings?

If you put a fish in a small bowl, it will grow to fit the size of the bowl. If you take the same fish into a small pond, it will grow bigger. If you move it to a lake, the same fish can grow to be big, really big.

Kids also have this fishy characteristic. For them, life is a fish bowl and they depend on the grown ups in their life to find a good size bowl to call home. They also depend on the grown ups in their life to “clean the water” and supply them with “food”.

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14 Tips to Protect Your Kids Online

The Internet is a great source of information and allows us to connect easily with many people around the globe. For kids, like adults, the Internet is a fascinating world of discoveries, great exploration and yes, some danger. Like many other areas of life, in order to appreciate the “light” of the Internet, we need to have some “darkness”.

There are horrible stories of abuse and even death through misuse of connections formed on the Internet. Sneaky people exist on the Internet as much as they do in any other place society and they abuse their right to participate and become a risk to our children. Education is the answer, I say (surprise, surprise :D ).

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