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Adolescence
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Entitled, spoilt son (17) — please help
24 May 2006 by Rod Smith / 3 Comments
My son (17) is a high achiever in every aspect of his school life. He is extremely popular and enjoys clubbing/parties most weekends. I am afraid that over the years I have spoilt him because he has been so charming. Lately, signs that were there years ago are becoming a huge issue for me. We are constantly banging heads. My son does not communicate with his family in a friendly or meaningful way, or tell us about his life, instead he complains about his meager pocket money, expects us to run to and fro at all hours, complains about the lack of food in the house, grunts when his mother asks him if he liked his school lunch she lovingly prepared, moans when asked to lock up (this at 2am when we have just fetched him from a club) and generally displays an attitude of entitlement. He almost always makes excuses when asked to help in any way. I love my son very much. His lack of respect for the feelings of all his family, his rudeness and lack of gratitude are making me very sad. Can you help? A Father (Letter edited for space)
I will reply to this letter tomorrow. In the meantime readers, please send me your ideas.
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Lies, bad language – undesirable habits, and your children
22 May 2006 by Rod Smith / 1 Comment
Parents: don’t lie to your children. Don’t lie for them. Don’t lie through them. The world is confusing enough without you helping to muddy the waters. Young people have enough pressure to be deceitful without mom and dad adding to their confusion.
Parents: avoid bad language. There’s nothing cute or endearing about your toddler swearing like the proverbial trooper. To come out of his mouth, the words must first have entered his ears.
Parents: if you make your child get you a beer, or your cigarettes, you are training your child in habits most adults wished they did not have. If he can get your beer and cigarettes, he’ll be getting his own before you can say, “Where did you learn that?”
Parents: be financially, sexually, spiritually faithful to your spouse and you will teach your child better lessons about life than can be learned at the finest of schools. Let “I’m sorry” and “please forgive me” be words your child frequently hears and he too might learn to say them.
Parents: repeatedly remind your child that despite your many errors and failures, it is your child and your child alone who is ultimately responsible for making his life effective, creative and fulfilling.
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The sad, sad life of children who have everything…
17 May 2006 by Rod Smith / 5 Comments
My heart goes out to children who have everything. I know the son of a friend whose name I will say is Christopher. He is twelve and he has everything. At least his parents think he does. The slightest suggestion of Christopher being bored, lonely or short-tempered, they take him shopping. His very loving parents want him to have all the things they did not have when they were growing up. His environment suggests they have kept their word.
Christopher goes without nothing that opens, shuts, sails, sings, flies, slides, glows, flashes, rides or thrills – his room is an altar to the god of kid consumption, of clothing labels, sports clothing and sports equipment, sound equipment, musical instruments, the latest DVD technology (a VCR lies abandoned like it were a primitive tool), iPods, cellular phones and computers. He has two computers: one for games and the other for his “online life” and music.
Yet Christopher is usually bored, angry or both. He doesn’t know where to start having fun. This makes Christopher rather upset but his anxiety is placated by his ability to kill (and I am not kidding) virtual kids he creates, then sends catapulting into brick walls in skateboard, car or bike accident on his TV monitor. This seems to make Christopher quite happy – but only for a very short time.
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Son (13) comes home from dad’s house with bruises…..
14 May 2006 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
Reader’s Letter: “I am divorced but live with a wonderful man and have a very stable and loving home environment for my son (13). My ex-husband and his new wife have boys aged 17 and 13. All three boys get on very well. My son arrived home from the weekend with his dad and showed me a black bruise on his arm. When I asked him how he got the bruise I was told that his dad had made a new rule: if the boys don’t brush their teeth by 9.30am, don’t pick up clothes, or use bad language, the boys are allowed to punch each other as punishment. So my son was punched in the arm by the seventeen-year-old for not brushing his teeth. I contacted my ex-husband about this and he told me to keep my nose out of his affairs how he runs his home. Your advice would be greatly appreciated.”
Everything pertaining to your son is always your business – keep your nose in it. Meet with your son’s stepmother, who will surely share your concern, and request this barbaric approach to cleaner teeth, rooms and mouths, stops! Such behavior among three boys can do none any possible good. But be wise; the children do get along. Be unrelenting in seeking your son’s absolute safety. “Running his home” is about who vacuums the house, who takes out the trash – abusing your son does not quite fit into that category!
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Are you in an abusive “arrangement” (I cannot use the word relationship when things are so toxic)…
30 Apr 2006 by Rod Smith / 2 Comments
No one can abuse you without your cooperation. Put a stop to it today. If you are in danger, do everything it takes to get yourself to safety. Leave your husband if it is necessary. It is better to be safe than dead, free than “abducted” in the name of marriage. There are things more important than marriage – like patience, honor, respect, freedom, goodness and peace. If he says he loves you but you detect none of love’s qualities and you are living in danger and fear, do whatever it takes to secure your safety. If you do not stand up to an abusive person, the abuse will accelerate and patterns establish themselves ever more firmly. Turn around begins within the heart and a good place to start is with a few simple but difficult decisions.
(I DO KNOW IT IS NOT EASY TO DO THESE THINGS WHEN YOU ARE USED TO LIVING IN FEAR – BUT CHANGE HAS TO BEGIN WITHIN YOU IF THE FUTURE IS TO BE BETTER THAN THE PAST).
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Verbal log-jam
When I was a boy I’d endlessly practice the fluent delivery of my name but it seldom flowed easily from my lips. As if it was new news to me, adults pointed out my stutter. Perhaps they thought I was beginning, at that precise moment, for the first time in my life to spit from the mouth, twist at the neck, jig my head back and forth trying to expel some inane statement log-jammed between my gut and my throat.
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Life in our beloved 122
If the inside of a house (outside, too, I suppose) is a metaphor of the lives of the people who live in it – which is something I once read somewhere – gosh, are we in trouble. Our house is a mess.
I consistently clean it room by room, thinking often of the legend that the Golden Gate Bridge that says there’s some guy constantly painting it. I feel for him. While I am sure the view is wonderful I must believe that the poor guy whose doing it daily from one end to the other must find the wind and the weather quite a challenge.
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Being a white South African can come with complications
Being a white South African reared under Apartheid is no simple matter. It permeated everything for me. While I do not pretend to have been a political activist, I was always cognizant that my privileges, simply a result of being born white, were unmerited, and most unfair especially when enjoyed at the expense of others who were not. I think this unsettling truth (for I took advantage of my station in life) was somewhat of a companion to me from the age of about six or seven.
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Location, location – remembering winter in August
We live very close to our school and church, so close we can hear the school bell from our kitchen and the church bells in my bedroom.
Sometimes we walk to both and we don’t see the car for days.
I like it. I like not having to get in and out of the car. I like not having to negotiate traffic, something as synonymous with life in the USA as Disney, Fast Food, and the Fourth of July.
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Ready to adopt?
If you wait until you are ready to adopt a child you never will because you will never be ready. The baby, and only the baby, will make you ready. Reading the right books will be helpful, but “ready” magically comes upon you when a real baby is sleeping in your arms or crying in the middle of the night. If you are not ready to change diapers – and I always am amused at the big deal about this non-issue – being unprepared will last only as long as a clean diaper.
Life inside the Smith household
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