To the parents of teens...I am fed up with you!!

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My kids are not allowed to have TVs in their rooms until they are college age. Doesn't matter what their friends have and I am not mad at other people for different rules--we make our own rules, they make their rules.

They also may not have a computer with internet connection until then. My 15yo does have my old laptop, but the wireless card is out. He can bring it downstairs and hook into the internet or use a study computer. He uses the computer for his music and homework and we weren't using the computer otherwise, so we don't mind him using it, but again, no internet on it.

We did get our boys cell phones, tied to ours (family plan). Our middle children are 12 and 15 (we also have a DD who is 18 and a 6yo son). Our DD is also on our cell plan. It was cheaper to do this than to buy then the pay as you go plans since it's only $10/month for each of them. They had to buy their own phones.

We do live in an affluent area and will always be faced with people who have more, just as my kids have friends who do not have as much as them. Just a way of life.

My kids don't lack TVs in their rooms or computers because we can't afford it, but because it's a decision we've made. We have plenty of TVs in the house and they can use one of those TVs. The cell phones allow us to easily keep in contact with them. We were at an amusement park yesterday and they were off with friends and it allowed us to stay in close contact with them.
 
isyne4u said:
Now you have me thinking (i'm a teacher so don't hate me!) am I lazy parent for buying a portable dvd player for the car? I bought it so I didn't have to drink while I drove my kids to Natural Bridge this weekend. :teeth:

but hey my kids don't have tvs or computers (heck they aren't allowed to touch MY computer!!)

tara

Nope, no hate for most teachers. Like I said, I'm the daughter of a teacher (who was amazingly UNJUDGEMENTAL when she was teaching, as I recall).

I think your DVD purchase might be the lesser of the lazy evils. Drink and drive to dull the pain, or park the kids in front of a DVD to dull the pain. Yep, I think you chose correctly. :rotfl2:
 
DD14 and DS13 are quite deprived. They have to share a computer at their mom's house and it's out in "public" space. They don't really use either of ours when they are at our house. They do have TVs in their rooms at their mom's and at our house (they also have DVD players in their rooms at their mom's). DS has a Playstation in his room at our house, but we all play that (his room is also our reading/video game room). They both have cell phones, which actually is nice.

All three of us are horrid parents, and the kids should be taken away. :rolleyes: ;) :teeth: :lmao:
 
:confused3 How come none of my threads have ever received this kind of response? :confused3
 

foolishmortal said:
How LAZY of you to get a free post in this thread.
Well, you have a point there. My time is freed up because I just shuffle my kids between public school and the loneliness of their bedrooms where they are being electronically indocrinated into the sleazy, adult world...
 
My 13 1/2 girls each have their own cell phones and we love them having them. They are always in reach if we need them and if they need us they can always get us. And yes, they have unlimited text messageing too!!!! They do not abuse their minutes or their text messageing and that is because we raised them to listen to our rules.
The major benefit of the cell phones is that they have sattelite tracking that the poloce can use to see exactly where they are if god forbid they are abducted. And they each have their own tv's in their own rooms, but they never watch them because they love to be with their parents, and that is because we listen to them unlike many parents.
 
debster812 said:
Nope, no hate for most teachers. Like I said, I'm the daughter of a teacher (who was amazingly UNJUDGEMENTAL when she was teaching, as I recall).

I think your DVD purchase might be the lesser of the lazy evils. Drink and drive to dull the pain, or park the kids in front of a DVD to dull the pain. Yep, I think you chose correctly. :rotfl2:
whew!! I feel better now! :teeth:
 
Michie said:
:confused3 How come none of my threads have ever received this kind of response? :confused3
Maybe because you haven't called a lot of parents lazy, immoral, etc. Perhaps if you did that, you would get the same kind of response. :confused3
 
Evil parent that I am, my dd9 has had a tv in her room for 5 years!!! And you know, she hardly ever watches it. Of course, if I hook her up to cable (as I'm considering), that will change a little. See, I TRUST my dd. She's very responsible, she's pretty predictible, and her tastes are pretty boring.

Basically it does come down to trust. It's unfortunate that you don't trust your son to only spend short periods of time watching tv or on his computer in his room. (Or maybe you're not willing to invest the $$ for the amount of use-hours you would allow? Or maybe YOU'RE the lazy one because you don't want to have to monitor it.) Personally, I think kids learn more by having limits set an followed, not by being denied access to fun stuff.

And I think kids benefit more by being raised by non-judgemental parents than by having to listen to how all their friends are exposed to BAD parenting.

p.s. my dd prefers card games to board games.
 
parents make the decisions for kids to have these things you can say no
if you dont want your sons to have them
say NO you can
 
OK, now that I've read the whole thread...

If I thought I had to listen to one more episode of "Charmed" or "That's So Raven" blaring at me from the (centrally located) family room, I'd lose my mind. It's perfectly acceptable to allow a child to watch television in any room of the house. What's lazy is letting any child go unsupervised in front of TV for hours at a time. I'm never so out of touch with what my children are watching that I can't immediately identify it by sound alone from another room, and I have ultimate veto power. When I say, "TV off, please!" people listen. For the record, DDs have a TV upstairs in their playroom, but not in their bedrooms. Younger DD has a DVD player for spend-the-night company to watch movies after they are in bed. Older DD watches downstairs because the screen is bigger and she and her friends can see the sex scenes better when they watch "Sex and the City." Any parent who allows a child to have a television in the child's bedroom is...a parent who gets to make that decision for their own child.

DD17 got a cell phone on her 14th birthday. I am looking forward to the day when cell phones are so common that we will stop having these discussions. Ther will always be an electronic device that separates the haves from the have nots, the cool from the uncool, the Joneses from the rest of us. Right now it's the cell phone, soon it will be something that hasn't been invented yet.

It does strike me that parents who have the hardest time with this issue are the ones who most need to have tight control. After all, we're just talking about...talking. The device used isn't really the issue. It always seem to amaze some parents that their kids want to be like other kids, want to have privacy, want to particpate in activities that seem more grown up. Personally, I'd much rather watch someone feel grownup chatting on a cell phone than trying to find that feeling somewhere else. And as the mom of a daughter who is a senior in high school, believe me when I say that the cell phone is the absolute least of the difficult situations you will find yourself negotiating with your teen.

Poor OP, I feel your pain. I feel just as strongly as you do, although we're on opposite sides of the fence. My feeling is, "Let's try this and see how you handle it." Yours is "Let's keep this away as long as possible and hate everyone who doesn't do it our way." I expect in the end we'll both get the kids we want...
 
I mean is it really so hard to see why kids need these things...

Really, just how do you expect my kids to be pulling in my drug money in the internet child-porn business without the computers and cellphones, etc???

Don't you know that the key to successful business is in technololgy???
 
Geez, my kids are deprived. All they have are cages & duct tape. :lmao:

Seriously though, my kids have one tv they share in the playroom. And horrors of horrors, they have a VCR, DVD & Gamecube in there, as well as a computer. All 4 have CD players, computer games and more. They share a cellphone. And you know what?

Taking them to the bookstore gets them more excited than anything. Blows a lot of theories put out on this thread. :rolleyes:

I can provide these things for them. It's no skin off anyone's nose.

What is it that they say about glass houses? Or the grass on the other side of the fence? :rotfl:
 
clutter said:
Evil parent that I am, my dd9 has had a tv in her room for 5 years!!! And you know, she hardly ever watches it. Of course, if I hook her up to cable (as I'm considering), that will change a little. See, I TRUST my dd. She's very responsible, she's pretty predictible, and her tastes are pretty boring.

Basically it does come down to trust. It's unfortunate that you don't trust your son to only spend short periods of time watching tv or on his computer in his room. (Or maybe you're not willing to invest the $$ for the amount of use-hours you would allow? Or maybe YOU'RE the lazy one because you don't want to have to monitor it.) Personally, I think kids learn more by having limits set an followed, not by being denied access to fun stuff.

And I think kids benefit more by being raised by non-judgemental parents than by having to listen to how all their friends are exposed to BAD parenting.

p.s. my dd prefers card games to board games.


DD prefers poker ;)
 
I must say I feel pretty blindsided for actually giving my son a computer as a tool for school and learning then being called lazy and immoral for it... boy are my priorities messed up! :rolleyes:
 
DisTeach1 said:
Well, yes, it is judgemental. But, everyone judges at some point in their lives, and this is a hot button with me. So, take it or leave it. I stand firm on what I think of these issues. Now, with the weather we are having, my connection is as slow as molasses, I have taxes to do, and a son that I'm actually going to play a board game with! Remember those...Board games??

What makes you think that we don't play board games with our children? Do you actually think our children sit on their cell phones watching TV all day? Could you imagine what that cell phone bill would be? :confused3 My children have TVs because they don't like to watch the travel channel & HGTV as much as I do. My 14 yo DD & 10 yo DS don't have the same taste in shows. My 14 yo has a cell phone so that she can contact me if she is out & about. In our development children will often spend a summer day walking from one friends house to another friends house, if I had to call house to house to find her it would take quite a while.

That board game comment really made me mad. :furious: Most of us here must have pretty close families or we would have such a strong desire to drag them off to a hotel room & visit Mickey Mouse every year! Honestly! Do you really think we don't play games with our kids? :confused3
 
DisTeach1 said:
My son is on a campaign because he wants the following items that "everyone" has...

First of all, your response to him should be "If everyone jumped off the Brooklyn Bridge would you follow?"

Next, if you've raised your son to be so materialistic that he has to keep up with the Joneses, why is that anyone's fault but yours?

My son never had these keep up with what everyone else had issues as a kid. He wore whatever clothes were comfortable, didn't care about trends. He got a TV for his room when he was 15 or 16, and he didn't ask, we gave it to him. He didn't have a computer in his room until he was 19. He got a cell phone at 15 because it he called me at work when he got home from school everyday--a long distance call, and it was less expensive to get him a phone on our "family plan" then to get one of those other phones.

What was your point?

Anne
 
DisTeach1 said:
My son is on a campaign because he wants the following items that "everyone" has...

1) He wants a TV in his room. Every child he knows has their own TV and DVD player in their room.

2) He wants a computer in his room! Of course, every child he know has one in their room.

3) He wants a cell phone. Now, he has a MIGO, which is a phone with 4 programmed numbers where he can reach my husband and I, but he is teased about it and he is embarrassed about it.




Why does a 12 year old need a regular cell phone? Why does any teen who doesn't drive yet need a cell phone?

My 14 & 10 y/o have cell phones because I work, and want to be able to talk to them after school. Know they got home safe - know who's house theyre at - know if their track meet runs late, etc, etc, etc. It's the best investment Ive ever made. I would get SCARY paranoid when I couldnt get in touch with them. The money Ive saved from driving around the neighborhood - pays for the phone....honestly. I'd FREAK! AND..... we dont even have a home phone, all 4 of us have cell phones, on a family plan... :confused3

My older one has a PC in his room cuz he bought it with his graduation money. My 10 y/o has a laptop because he asked for one for X-Mas, and my ex-in-laws, and his Dad all pitched in for it.

Thats why mine do.
 
L107ANGEL said:
DD prefers poker ;)
as long it is not on the computer in her bedroom!!! Does she have a visa card to put her gambling debt onto?? I hear those are popular with the kids these days!!

Please don't let this get locked before I get back from the car dealership!! :teeth:
 
DisTeach1 said:
Boo's Mom: My communication with my son is just fine, thank you. He knows and understands he will not be having a TV, DVD, TIVO, telephone, computer in his room. He's not happy about it, but too bad. I've explained to him that we will not make the same BAD choices that other parents make!

However, my husband and I talk about the lack of common sense that so many parents,like you, show when they give these things to their kids. It's something that I completely disagree with, and yes, I do think these parents are lazy!!

Whoa... I was going to steer clear of responding to this thread until I saw this blatant flaming.... "Lack of common sense that so many parents, like you, show when they give these things to their kids..."

The reasons (valid or not) why parents give these items to their kids is a personal choice - I for one like to watch programs geared towards adults & don't feel it appropriate for them to watch, not to mention.. why should I be subject to watching Cartoon Network or Nickelodeon on a nightly basis. Further, both my kids have computers.. I commonly use mine for work & theirs for homework.... the last time they crashed my computer it took weeks to get my data back...

It's also a perk.. you do well you get to keep these items... you don't, they get taken away....
 
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