FRENCH: About Parenting Teens: Teen Lies About Grades

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From Denise Witmer, your Guide to Parenting Teens

Getting 14-Year-Old Back On Track at School

Mom's question: "I have found that over the past few years my 14-year-old daughter keeps lying about all sorts of different stuff. The lies are not about huge things but small stuff and I feel like even though they're small things she's lying about it's still lying. I'm having trouble getting through to her. I've tried taking things she enjoys away, grounding her, and I've tried the one on one thing, the mother-daughter thing and she has no cell phone, no iPod, no t.v. in her room. I'm stuck and I need help. I just found out she failing math class and she's been lying about staying after school. How can I make her see the wrong in all of this?"

Denise's thoughts: In order to help your daughter with her grades, you will need to do two things:

do not rely on her word,
start giving consequences, not punishment.

Call the school and set up with their online system then take five minutes and start checking her grades daily, If all of her grades - homework, quizzes, tests - are above passing she gets the use of her cell phone for the day. If not, she loses the privilege of having a cell phone until you check again on the next day. This creates a win-win situation in which you have given her the ability to make the right choice, where the right choice is important to her. It's unfortunate, but grades are not always important to teens.

When you punish a teen too much, you start to chip at a their self esteem. It makes them feel like they are in a pit that they can't get out of and they will do anything - like lie - to get out of it. Assigning one consequence for a short duration of time that resets works best. On a side note, it may take her time to get used to it. She may try and 'wait you out', seeing if you will continue to check her grades after a week or a month. Just keep consistent and it will work in the long run.

Asking our community of parents of teens: Is school going well for your teen? What advice do you have for this mom? Please share your thoughts, experiences and opinions in the comments area.

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Teen Texting Project Shows Use of Profanity

I found this study on teens and texting interesting. Teens don't seem to care if someone is reading all of their texts, just as long as there are no consequences. That is one of the interesting pieces of data that is coming out of a study(link on blog) done by Marion Underwood, a University of Texas at Dallas professor, which I read about in this article(link n blog). Looking at the data, Underwood found that 7% of the texts contain profane language, and that 6.6% of messages contained sexual language, which is similar to what other researchers found when analyzing conversations in teenage chat rooms.

The teens are very aware that someone is reading their texts, they are reminded every time they turn on their cell phones. But it doesn't seem to matter to them. I have to wonder if this is how it works for those parents who are able to read their teen's text messages. I wonder if their teens understand that there could be consequences for inappropriate use of their cell phone or do you think that there would need to be consequences following the monitoring?

I also think this study shows a bit about why teens are sexting. The federal laws against child porn, which is what teen sexting is by law, are so far out of the realm of possibility in their minds that sending a few naked pictures of themselves or others doesn't seem like it would be a problem to a teen who feels that they would get caught or no one really cares what they do with their cell phone.

Asking our community of parents of teens: Do you ever check your teen's texts? Do you feel your teen uses too much profanity when they text message? Please share your thoughts, experiences and advice in the comments area.

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Social and Emotional Development in Teens Ages 13 - 18

Adolescence is a time of growth, development and change. Your teen will develop emotionally and socially as well as physically. This development may seem quick to you, but there are distinct things happening in your teenager's social and emotional development that are helping them become who they are going to be - helping them to form their... read more.

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5 Things You Should Do if You Think Your Teen is Depressed

If you think your teen is depressed, do not ignore it. If your teen is depressed, there are things you can do and steps you can take that will help your teenager overcome their depression. If it turns out he is not depressed, you've showed him that you cared enough to check it out. Either way, you and your teen wins.

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