Tame Your Teenager

So the big question of the above video is, ‘Do we blame the video game?’

My first answer is that I would find it hard to go back to the creators of the video game and tell them that they will be held liable for ‘poisoning the minds of our youth.’ Mainly because we as a society have allowed the graphic violence and total disregard for authority and other individuals that these games exploit to seep into our homes and lives. The developers have tapped into a vein that intrigues our imaginations and people are out there paying big bucks for the games as they fly off the shelves.

My second answer is that everything that we are exposed to influences us, our decisions and ultimately our actions. Good or Bad.

Is every kid that watches grand theft auto going to go out on a crime spree? (more…)

You really need no formal training at all to know that boys and girls are different, especially if you have at least one of each. For you parents who have tried to keep weaponry out of the house and away from your boys, you know first hand that a carefully chewed cookie easily becomes a revolver. Likewise, your little girl continues to hone her social skills in the absence of friends by throwing a tea party with her fifty-two favorite stuffed animals.

The reality of these differences is never more telling then in how children resolve conflict. Two seven-year-old boys who get in a scrape on the baseball field one afternoon are back the next day playing on the same field. However, if you have three third grade girls who one day are the best of friends, and the next day two of the girls decided to ostracize the third, they will have the uncanny ability to carry that grudge through graduation and to their twenty-year high school reunion.

Girls have a very tough row to hoe. (more…)