re: #173 Dainn

As the parent of three teenagers, our policy has been to keep them busy with things they want to do. We don’t force them, nor do we schedule their lives for them. But they aren’t allowed to sit around and play Left for Dead all day either. Either they pick their activities, or we do (chores).

You say you don’t force them or schedule their lives but then say you don’t allow them to “sit around and play”…

Do they get the time to daydream? Just hang out? Choose what they want to do, even if it’s “nothing” in your eyes? Nothing to you may be something to them.

I remember that my time alone to do as I wanted when I was a teen was the most valuable time I think I ever spent, even when my parents thought I was “wasting time”. That time was spent very valuably to me, pounding my frustrations out on the piano, fantasizing about my future, talking on the phone to my friends… just being ALONE without pressure for a little while. It was tough to be a teen then, now? I can’t even imagine.