Real Communication
Not many children who are not invited to their peers’ parties when everyone else is, just shrug it off and looked at it from the bright side of I’ll spend the money I would otherwise have had to spend...
View ArticleMedia Manipulation
They said it about telephones – and later they said it about internet connections. These days, the focus is on smartphones. Modern means of communication, it seems, work better and swifter than “paper...
View ArticleDeath in the Classroom
China school knife attack in Henan; 22 children injured. Connecticut elementary school shooting: 18 children killed. Two headlines that are bound to raise questions in the minds of all children,...
View ArticleTeens and Alcohol
“Peer Pressure” is something I could never understand, when the expression is used to ‘explain’ how teens do wrong by their contemporaries. Because if someone begins the trend for ‘bad things’, it is...
View ArticleThe Fear Factor: Top 10 Worries of Parents
It’s written into the job description contract of parents – “Thou shalt worry yourself sick about your children”. The variables and nuances of this simple-looking statement together run into the...
View ArticleBeware of the Message!
Teens tend to call anyone they meet on-line a “friend”. More than enough has been said about the perils of this – how the lovely young lady who is so keen to help your daughter with her Italian...
View ArticleTruth and Consequences
The other day, Sharon Johnson, principal of the Cincinnati public school in Hyde Park, cancelled the Prom at her school. Most people who do not know the story would think she was throwing her weight...
View ArticleEating Disorders
Most parents tend to associate the phrase “eating disorders” with skeletal catwalk models or teenagers who get by on the proverbial apple a day – if that. The truth is much more insidious. Teenagers...
View ArticleFacing the Facts
Selfies have taken over. This blanket statement is borne out by the number of photographs of teens on social sites, as opposed to the number of ‘other’ photos featuring their pets, their friends, or...
View ArticleAngry Young men and Women
Some teens look back, forward, and around them in anger – the ultimate in one-upmanship over the horde of (mostly) working and middle class 1950s British playwrights and novelists. Kingsley Amis,...
View ArticleFat Lot of Good!
Obesity in adolescents is a growing problem, whoever way you look at it. Ironically, it is easy to diagnose – but very difficult to treat. This happens because it is not a simple matter of telling a...
View ArticleNot That Mobile!
We’ve all seen them – the cartoons where the mother calls her child on his mobile phone… to get him to come down to dinner; or the restaurant patron who calls the waiter… to tell him that he would like...
View ArticleA Letter to Miley
Dear Miley You may not be overly familiar with the word twerp, seeing that it is a slang term used mostly by the English. But I have to point out that it is ironically similar to twerk. Young lady – if...
View ArticleSitting Ducks
hands crossed, eyes cast down picture of serenity yet my mind’s frantic This haiku is the digest of a term recently thought up by Stanford University to describe what is happening to teens and youth...
View ArticleTexting Like Crazy!
There was a time when a plain and simple cellular telephone was somewhat of a status symbol. These days, in many peer groups any teen without the ‘in’ model popular with his crowd the risk of being...
View ArticleIs Your Teen S.A.D.?
Most people associate the above acronym with “Social Anxiety Disorder”, never for a moment considering that teens, like adults could be “under the weather” when winter comes around. And yet, “Winter...
View ArticleFat Lot of Good
There was a time when chubby babies made the covers of magazines, and were chosen to advertise baby foods. Baby beauty contests were held – and ever did a baby who did not look like a Sumo wrestler...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Screen Shot…
It’s cold outside. They huddle close to the heater, tapping away at their keyboards, closed to the outside world and hibernating in their virtual one, peopled by friends and pseudo-friends. This is...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Death Watch
I had written two posts mentioning suicide. I had hoped never to write another one. But the recent sorry excuse for reportage – a pathetic hotchpotch of biased comments with concerted, subtle, yet...
View Article
