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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Is the economy affecting your home life?
Have you had to make changes in your family’s life based on today’s rising prices? Are you teaching any life lessons from it?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
New Mom requested on Tuesday that we talk about the economy. Here’s what she wrote:
“I spent this morning going through our pantry, getting together a donation for our local co-op. Our church received an urgent request from the co-op—their requests for food are unprecedented, and so many families with children don’t have enough to feed their kids.”
“I have been thinking about how many folks our there are not as fortunate, going hungry, struggling to pay their bills, and it’s made me sad…and determined that we will do what we can to help. And show our baby how to care about others, not focus on ourselves. So, I suppose that’s what led to some of my frustration.”
“Might that make a good topic? How are you and your family doing in this economy, and what lessons are you learning? Are you trying to help others, and if so, are you including your children?”
I would expand on her questions to include: Has the economy changed how you are spending — i.e. are you buying lesser cuts of meat, eating out less, doing home improvement projects you normally would have paid someone to do in the past, waiting to buy certain expensive items? What changes have you made in your lifestyle due to the current economy?
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When do you rat out your tween’s/teen’s friends to their parents?
What is the standard of rule breaking or concern for you to call another parent and let then know what you’ve observed?
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
So yesterday we talked about the rules of cell phone use and text messaging for kids and teens. My friend’s original message to me included a second dilemma: “Should she tell the parents of the kids who were texting her daughter in the middle of the night just so they know that it’s going on?” (She says she doesn’t know the parents of the other teens very well.)
Which raises a bigger question in general: When do you “tattle” on your kids’ friends to their parents? How big does the problem need to be for you to make contact and pass along the info? What would you want to know from other parents?
One of my friends told me to use this definition of tattling with small kids: Tattling is when you tell on another kid just to get them into trouble. You should always tell the teacher or an adult if the behavior of the child could hurt themselves or someone else.
So if you see someone else’s teen drinking, drugging, or making out — do all these fall into the definitely tell column? Cutting class, heavy make-up, skimpy clothes — do these get reported? Should we view other parents as our eyes and ears when we aren’t around? Does that invade our teen’s privacy?
Does it make it easier or harder if you know the teen and parents well?
I don’t guess the texting at night would fall into that category of a must tell based on our tattling definition, but I kind of think the parents would want to know so they could just tell them to stop doing it.
What would you want to know from other parents?
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