Why do we not want our kids drinking? Simple, we don’t want them doing what we did as kids, or what our friends did, or even just kids we knew did. Drinking makes you stupid. When drunk you don’t think strait and do stupid things, like having unprotected sex with someone you don’t know, jump off a bridge to go swimming, play chicken with a train, try drugs, and that is just what adults do. I don’t want to think of what underage kids do when drunk, probably the same type of things.

There are underage boys and girls getting ID’s that gives them preserved legal ages. They use these to get into clubs, bars and buy alcohol. This is bad enough. They are out drinking and partying and doing everything we as parents don’t want them to be doing. Now for the most part it is kids 16 and older doing this but there are kids as young as 13 getting into bars. They look older then they are and the have the ID to back it.

So what do you do when you are a single Mom and Fathers day comes along? Things are fine if the Dad still has consistent positive contact with their kids. Unfortunately this is not always the case. I have several friends who are single Mothers having to deal with difficult Fathers day decisions.

Balancing a child’s safety with the need for free explorations is handled differently today then it was in the past. Why, because each generation has learned from the mistakes of the last generation and technology has changed.

Now please note that this is not ignoring a child but to praise positive behaviors and to not acknowledge negative behaviors that are not harmful. The idea is that if we give positive attention when children are doing what we see as being good we are reinforcing the positive behavior.

So you have to deal with the reality that your teenager is going to party with her friends some where out of your control.

Adults expect children to do things to keep them safe, but don’t do those same things themselves. Who pays the price?

With all this positive imagery of alcohol, what is the influence of alcohol on teen life?

I was watching the Montel show about identity theft and learned something new today. Sure I used to laugh when my husband would save our mail and shred it, I don’t now. I never thought about my credit or getting a credit report at all, let alone every 6 months. Check my bank account and credit card balance at least once a day, why would I do that, I knew what I spent. Cut the pin code off of an old credit card and dispose of it at a latter date, what cutting the card in half was not enough? My husband is having the last laugh now, because what he has always done is what we need to do now to keep our identity and credit for ourselves.