Importance of talking with your teen
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See Owen McKibbin's video on Importance of talking with your teen...
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Being a single dad has many challenges. It has many advantages and many challenges. You know, a lot of times when there's a mom and a dad, one plays the nice one, the pushover, the this, and then the other one is more of the disciplinarian. And they can kind of tag team the kid that way. I've never had that.
But my mom never had that. My dad passed away when I was 3. I'm the youngest of 8 kids. My mom raised 6 boys and 2 girls all by herself. So there was no time for a pity party. She was a great role model, showed me tremendous strength through all kinds of adversity.
The biggest challenge for me is wearing all those hats. Sometimes you've got to do it all in 10 minutes. You've got to react. Sometimes you're angry. That's normal. You've got to reason. You've got to talk through it. You've got to come to some resolution. And hopefully gain some tools in the process where you don't keep banging your head on that wall.
And with kids, sometimes it takes 10K times. Please don't do that. Please put this away. Please do that. It's exhausting. But you've got to stay the course. But sometimes on that 10,001 request, that's when the magic happens.
Another challenge about being a single parent is having a semi-normal life outside of your kid's life. It's funny. The older your kid gets, the less involved in their lives, but the more you have to police it, because social media comes into the question, Facebook, Instagram, SnapChat, there's so many more moving parts that you have to police.
And I've always had an open door policy with my son. My door never closes. Sometimes his door closes now. But nothing is off limits. We talk about everything - sex, drinking, drugs, consequences, when is the right time.
Kids are curious. And they have so many avenues to get this information. If you're lucky enough to create a safe environment where your kid will actually broach those subjects with you, you better be prepared to actually talk about them, because they're going to leave the house. If you don't and you experiment on their own, they're going to go out there and experiment on their own. And maybe approach people that won't give them the best advice, or that have these ulterior motives. Unfortunately it's a dark world we live in.
See Owen McKibbin's video on Importance of talking with your teen...
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