Archive for December, 2006
December 27th, 2006
Dear Readers: Last week I shared my personal wish list for society. The teen panel now brings you their hopes for our world. You will hear from more of them next week.
From Jennifer, 13: I wish there was no war and that people would quit hating and hurting each other. I have been taught that life is worth more than anything in the world. If that is so, why do we send people off to die in a war that I can’t understand? And why do we have a death penalty?
I wish kids would stop trying to be older younger. Girls much younger than me wear high heels, pants that make their butts look bigger, and save money for boob jobs. The really young girls are playing with Bratz dolls, which make Barbie look like a girl scout. Everybody wants to be a little Paris Hilton. At my middle school Halloween party most of the girls were dressed like prostitutes. I wish we could feel more secure without constantly worrying, “Is my breath okay? Do I look okay? Is my lip gloss alright?”
I wish families were closer. A lot of kids boss their parents around telling them to shut up—or they scream that the food isn’t “what they ordered.” I wish parents had more control and acted how a parent should act, meaning, not as their kid’s best friend, but as the person in charge.
From Sawyer, 15: I wish people would accept others’ differences and not use force to get people to change. You see this force starting at the youngest age when one kid is bigger than another. You see it between countries, too, like in our invasion of Iraq. What we’re doing there is not right.
From Marie, 16: What I want is for my family to act like a family and for my step dad to see me as part of it.
From Laura, 20: I would like for Americans to be more aware. I have a lot of European friends and they perceive that we don’t really care what is going on in the world, especially politically. We don’t take the time to learn about things in-depth. We tend to stay on the surface and make decisions based on shallow amounts of information. I wish we had more awareness of the world we live in and that we based our actions on a deeper investigation of what is going on.
From Lennon, 20: My wish is that we would wake up. I almost wish the avian flu would hit because it would give us a heads up as to how oblivious and self-centered we are. We don’t know how to cope with the amount of people living in the world right now. Our technology is advancing at this fantastic pace, but people are being left behind. Our schools are medieval. Sure, they’re run with hi-tech equipment, but the model behind them hasn’t changed for centuries. We still use the Prussian model that keeps people cogs in a wheel, not able to think critically or independently. The way kids are educated is the key to waking up our awareness. Until our model of education changes we won’t be able to guide technology wisely and it will devour us.
From Geoff, 21: Communication needs to become a part of education. Although humans are known as “the talking animal,” in both oral and written communication we have trouble expressing ourselves. Clear and concise communication is the key to many aspects of our life: love, family, business and politics. And when communication breaks down, everything else soon follows. Structuring our thoughts into spoken and written words is not emphasized in our schools.
I’d like communication skills to be the cornerstone of education. If our education was communication-based, all learning would become more efficient. Speech and writing (language) structures our thought; thus, to think better we need to train in those areas. Although the emphasis on vocabulary, parts of speech and creative writing is useful, learning to write communicatively—having the patience to think about what you want to say and how to say it clearly and efficiently—has been largely ignored. From what I can see this is the skill that many children, teenagers, and even adults missed in their education.
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December 20th, 2006
Dear Readers: It doesn’t matter whether you’re celebrating Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, or the Winter Solstice, our culture has transformed the holy days into commercialized frenzies. But what is it we really want? I’ve been asked this question several times this holiday season.
What I’d like for Christmas is less stuff. But let’s face it, ‘too much stuff’ is a year-round event. And why do we need all this stuff? We don’t. We buy it because it is advertised.
What most people don’t realize is that when television was first broadcast in 1926, there were heated arguments about how to use the medium responsibly. Many thought that advertising couldn’t possibly be allowed because the masses would be too easily controlled. Others saw the malleable nature of humanity as a gold mine. Wisdom lost to greed and television, from its infancy, has been commercial.
We are now in our third generation of television viewing. The Census Bureau projects that in 2007, adults will spend an average of 65 days in front of television, 41 days listening to radio, one week on the Internet, and one week reading newspapers. All these venues make the bulk of their profits on advertising. Why? Because advertising works. Brain research shows that just seeing the logo of a popular brand causes our brains to light up in neon. No wonder we want that logo plastered on everything we own. Pavlov himself couldn’t have conditioned us better.
Our commercialized society is like a snake eating its own tail. I can’t tell you how many teenagers wail to me that if their parents wanted them to turn out differently, why did they let them watch x, y, and z non-stop, since birth—or play x, y, and z games five hours a day? One of them told me angrily, “It’s our parent’s generation that makes all these games and everything on TV. Don’t they care about us?”
So what do I want for Christmas? Obviously if we turned off the TV, it would be easier to break the trance and start living consciously. That’s on the top on my list.
In the meantime, my second wish is for alcohol ads to be banned from the air like cigarette ads were banned in the 1970s. Don’t fool yourself about who the beer and liquor ads are geared to. It’s a fact that if a kid doesn’t start drinking by age 21, he’ll never be much of a drinker.
Third, I’d like to see public and private money spent on an advertising campaign for two things: a drug-free lifestyle; and a television-free lifestyle. Sounds ironic to make compelling ads for television showing people turning off the television and doing something more interesting, but advertising does work, and since we are the snake eating its own tail, let’s fight fire with fire. We could hire the maker of the Budweiser ads. Pay famous personalities to endorse our “product”.
Fourth, I would like every child up to age 21, and every parent of that child, to have health insurance. Mental illness has surpassed cancer as the leading scourge and troubled kids generally have parents even more troubled.
Fifth, I want every child to be properly fed. At the classes I teach at Teens-Matter one of the things we ask is what the kids eat. As far as I can tell, we don’t have to worry about global warming or a dirty bomb wiping us out. We’ll likely keel over dead from our own diets. Most people feed their pets more thoughtfully than they feed their kids. Cokes and candy bars for the dogs? Gosh, no, that’d be bad for them. Hey, folks, your kids are living off that stuff.
Sixth, I’d like sports to be available to all students, not just the top 25 athletes out of 2000 students whose parents have an extra $700. We’ve got to get away from our Super Bowl mentality and realize that all young people need fun things to do that wear them out.
Seventh: Turn off the TV. Yes, we’re back here again. Do you know that I have heard teens complain that sex has become commonplace, that it’s losing its allure? Fascinating, isn’t it? Though today’s teens are more comfortable with sex than previous generations, could it be that 12 million perfectly-lit sex scenes have made sex—actual sex, between one man and one woman—a bit on the empty side?
Santa’s got his work cut out with my list. We could all lend a finger by pushing the power button and taking in the silence.
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December 13th, 2006
Dear Straight Talk: My husband and I have two children, ages 7 and 9, and we struggle financially. My husband also has a daughter from his first marriage that lives here part-time. “Sarah” is 16 and she has never liked me. Her mother is well-off and Sarah has everything she could ever want. She comes and goes like the Queen of Sheba. We used to spend equally on the children at the holidays, but is it okay to spend less on her knowing she gets plenty at her mom’s?—Feeling the pinch
Dear Feeling: You’ll be feeling more than the pinch. At gift-giving time you’ll feel like the wicked stepmother. For a child, receiving gifts is about feeling loved. Giving her less will only make her feel less loved. As long as you’re married to Sarah’s dad, you will have a relationship with Sarah your whole life. You may never bond with her, but where your emotions are lacking, make your actions count. In this case, the appropriate action is to spend equal amounts on all the children and equal time contemplating the right gifts. Life is long. If you start treating her like you love her, one day you just may. That would be the finest gift of all.
Here’s more from the teen staff—and keep reading for a letter from another stepparent.
From Marie, 16: This is so familiar. My step-dad thinks I get everything I want from my real dad. I feel so left out sometimes when it comes to opening presents. Last year I only got three things from him. I know I’m not his kid, but I wish he would treat me equally.
Dear Straight Talk: I am shopping this year for my new stepson, “Kyle”. You did not make it easy on me with all the electronics on the teen Christmas list that ran last week. Kyle plays video games obsessively and all he wants is a new gaming system and more games—which, to me, is a waste. He’ll be watching closely what I give my kids and what I give him. I think I’ll get him a skateboard, some clothes, a desk for his room and maybe a bean-bag chair. It’s important to give each kid about the same number of gifts. At age 12, Kyle seems to count the number of gifts more than their value.—Kids count
Dear Kids count: Kids do count, in more ways than one. And you’re making sure Kyle counts where it matters most: as a valued family member.
I wish more parents had your imagination and strength to avoid the gaming industry. For those parents who are buying games, the games to avoid are: “Scarface: The World is Yours,” “Dead Rising,” “Saints Row,” “Gangs of London,” “The Sopranos,” “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City Stories,” “Reservoir Dogs,” “Mortal Kombat: Unchained,” “The Godfather: Mob Wars,” and “Just Cause.” This list is from The National Institute on Media and the Family’s 11th annual video game report card. All are rated M (age 17 and up), and all excessively glamorize sex and violence.
Dear Straight Talk: I want to share a holiday tradition that started unexpectedly in my family when my children were young. My church had a “gift tree” and I chose a card for a needy family with two kids about the same ages as my youngest. As we headed for the store with the card I was worried they would want to shop for themselves. But it never happened. They searched the toy aisle for almost an hour shopping for the kids in this family and never once asked for anything for themselves. It was a wonderful experience. My kids are teens now and we have done it every year since.—Lincoln Mom
Dear Mom: What a beautiful story. These “Giving Trees” are cropping up everywhere. You can find them in churches, banks, and other businesses. What a blessing to give your children the gift of bringing pleasure to those in need. I hope your letter plants many seeds today.
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