The Teenage Parenting Challenge

 Let’s make no bones about it parenting is a big job which becomes more problematic as our children become teenagers!

 Yet there are no instruction manuals supplied with our children when they are born and there are no formal educational programs we can undertake to better prepare ourselves for this huge responsibility.

 The skills that we bring to our role as parents are largely sourced from our own childhood observations and experiences. In short many of the skills we use in our own parenting roles are likely to be not too dissimilar from those used by our own parents in rearing us.

 If your parents struggled to know what to do then I’m guessing you are probably struggling as well. In spite of this most of us stumble along and do alright until our children reach their teens – yet as to how much this is due to good management or just plain good luck?

 If you had thought that you understood your child up to the age of 12 years old then hold on to your seat because when your child becomes a teenager you will most probably wake up one morning and think to yourself – who is this strange young person living with us?

 As a parent myself of four children I often find myself wondering if there is a better way that we can prepare ourselves for our parenting roles particularly as our children become teenagers. Continue reading

Wanted Dead – the Osama Legacy

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.” -Martin Luther King, Jr.

I guess I was surprised as anyone on learning of the killing of Osama Bin Laden by US and Pakistani troops earlier in the week.

What came as even more of a surprise to me was the glee exhibited by many US citizens at his death. Now don’t get me wrong I do not and have never supported any acts of terrorism regardless of the ethnicity of their perpetrators. Bin Laden was allegedly the mastermind behind the devastating Trade Centre attacks. If he was responsible for these attacks then justice required that he be apprehended and brought to trial even though the possibility of him actually getting a fair trial would have been negligible. Continue reading