What Tools Do YOU have ready?

15 miles from Poughkeepsie, NY this past week and on my way to speak at Vassar College, the tire on my rental car blows out!  I was in a remote area on a Restricted Roadway (tow trucks cannot service the area without a State Police request first).  I like to give myself an extra hour leeway for driving time to be safe and I did in this case. However, the Emergency Service said they may need that entire time to get to me.  What do I do?  First, I called the school to give them the entire situation – to insure no one was surprised or taken off guard.

Next, I went into the trunk and started working on changing the tire myself.  Everything was going well. I had the car jacked up and then suddenly realized the hubcap was not coming off.  A few minutes later, a state highway vehicle pulls up and helps me get the tire changed. What could have easily have been 75-90 minutes turned into only 20 minutes and everything went smoothly.  Why?  The state emergency employee had a special tool for getting the hubcap off. I arrived at Vassar with PLENTY of time to spare (no pun intended) before conducting my sound check.

When working on talking with teens and students on sexual decision-making, do you leave leeway for what could go wrong in your conversation?  What could blow up your conversation?  Someone’s temper, attitude, assumptions, judgement?  How do you prepare for those possibilities?  Do you practice the exact scenario?  I’ve changed tires before. However, I had never run into a HubCap problem before (the Emergency Service had).  Even though I had a little experience, I needed more tools to solve my problem.  What tools could help you in creating a positive impact with teens and young adults decisions regarding sexual decision-making, supporting survivors, and bystander intervention?

Share below by LEAVING A COMMENT about what you do and/or have done to best prepare for all the “What If” scenarios when talking to teens and young adults.

Technology verses Words

When teaching verbal skills, many Moms, Dads, and educators continually share how teens would rather text than talk.  To their credit, many teens are fantastic at multi-tasking and quickly absorbing technology uses to fit their lifestyle.  The unfortunate consequence is these skills are happening at the cost of losing one-on-one verbal tools.  What do you do?

Use technology to show the need for verbal communication! Send texts to your teenager which could be interpreted various ways (commonly happens when texting is done frequently).  This way, you are utilizing a medium they love (texting) to bring them to verbally discuss the confusion with you.  I know! I know!  Stop before you say, “The teen may just attempt to text back and say, ‘Explain’(or a slang text phrase in place of the word).”  Then, walk up to your teen and ask them what was confusing.

You OWN the confusion so the conversation is not about them misusing technology.  As you clear up the confusion, subtly ask, “How do you handle it when this happens with friends?  Misunderstanding each other’s texts?  Do you ever just call to clear it up quicker than texting?“

If they say, “No,” follow through with, “Why not? Isn’t talking to your friends a lot of fun?”  Be GENUINE in your approach. No one likes to be lectured to.  Ask because you WANT to know (not just to make YOUR POINT).  The more you understand your teen, the more likely you will be able to connect with him/her verbally!!  Thus being a positive role model for verbal communication.

YOUR TURN: Share how you use TECHNOLOGY to HELP enhance the verbal skills of teens.  Ask us questions based on your own experiences.  I will answer each COMMENT personally!

Mike talking to parents

Check out this video:

Kids online activities and Parent Monitoring

How many hours a month do you think pre-teens and teenagers are online? On average, most kids are spending 20 hours online. Most kids between the ages of 13 – 17 believe their parents have no clue as to what their activities are online.  imagine the freedom college brings 1st year students and their online explorations.  Here’s what they do, where they go, who they meet:

Friendships.
35% of our children ages 8-17 have made friends online 50 % of U.S. of our teens ages 13-17 claim to have made friends online 33% of children prefer spending time with their online friends rather than their offline friends

Social networking.
76% of our teens. teens ages 13-17 "constantly," "frequently" or "sometimes" visit social networking sites.

Shopping online.
35% of kids report being "very confident" or "confident" in shopping online.  Do you know where your credit card is?

Getting requests for personal information.
42% of kids ages 13-17 have received an online request for personal information.

Being approached by strangers.
16 percent of them have been approached online by a stranger; however, U.S. adults believe that just 6 percent of children have been approached online by a stranger.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?  Learn about online monitoring programs and software packages.  They can track EVERY little detail for you (from Instant Messaging to every visit online).  At the same time, you need to continually TALK with pre-teens and teenagers about the internet.  When they are at a friend’s house, your monitoring software is not going to do any good.  Educate them and empower them.

What program do you use for monitoring?  What do you like about it?  Help other parents by sharing with us here on the blog.

Sexual Predators only need 15 seconds with your child / teenage son or daugther.

How many seconds does it take for a police officer posing as a minor to be approached by a sexual predator? 15 seconds. It only takes 35 – 45 seconds before a predator turns on his web cam and begins performing sexual acts for the camera.

Sexual predators are crafty and have a sixth sense. They know how to spot the weaknesses in young children and what they will respond to.

Talk to your children about being safe while on the internet. Review the following with them:

1. - Never allow your children to give out personal information over the internet
2. - Never give out your true name
3. - Personal diaries should be just that, personal and never to be posted online
4. - Anything posted on the internet is a permanent record
5. - Never meet anyone from the internet in person

Parents, educate yourself – know terms and internet slang.  Research software programs allowing you to put parental blocks on certain web sites.  Many of the newer programs are very in-depth which is what parents need nowadays.

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