Karen Sullivan - You Want to Do What? - Instant answers to your parenting dilemmas

Copyright Copyright Dedication Introduction Abortion Alcohol Armed forces Babysitting Bedrooms Bedtime Bicycles Birth control Books Bras Bullying Calculators Cars Clothes Communication Community service Computers Cooking Crime Curfews Debt Drugs Ears Employment Entertainment Exams Exercise Eyes Family Fizzy drinks Food and drink Friends Gambling Gap year Growth Hair Health Homework Household chores Independence Languages Leaving home Leisure Lost property Magazines Make-up Marriage Masturbation Menstruation Mental health Mobile phones Money Morals Music Motorcycles Mouth guards Name change Organisation Orthodontics Parties Passports Peers Personal hygiene Pocket money Pornography Privacy Puberty Relationships Religion School Self-harm Sex Sexuality Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) Shoes Skin Smoking Sunbeds Surgery Swearing Swimming Tattoos Teeth Testicles Travel TV Weight About the Publisher

Thorsons

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in 2007 by Collins

Collins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.

Text © Karen Sullivan 2007

Karen Sullivan asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Karen Sullivan asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks

HarperCollins Publishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

Source ISBN: 9780007254378

Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2017 ISBN: 9780007556632

Version: 2017–03-16

Dedication Dedication Introduction Abortion Alcohol Armed forces Babysitting Bedrooms Bedtime Bicycles Birth control Books Bras Bullying Calculators Cars Clothes Communication Community service Computers Cooking Crime Curfews Debt Drugs Ears Employment Entertainment Exams Exercise Eyes Family Fizzy drinks Food and drink Friends Gambling Gap year Growth Hair Health Homework Household chores Independence Languages Leaving home Leisure Lost property Magazines Make-up Marriage Masturbation Menstruation Mental health Mobile phones Money Morals Music Motorcycles Mouth guards Name change Organisation Orthodontics Parties Passports Peers Personal hygiene Pocket money Pornography Privacy Puberty Relationships Religion School Self-harm Sex Sexuality Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) Shoes Skin Smoking Sunbeds Surgery Swearing Swimming Tattoos Teeth Testicles Travel TV Weight About the Publisher

For Cole and Luke, my teenagers

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

Abortion

Alcohol

Armed forces

Babysitting

Bedrooms

Bedtime

Bicycles

Birth control

Books

Bras

Bullying

Calculators

Cars

Clothes

Communication

Community service

Computers

Cooking

Crime

Curfews

Debt

Drugs

Ears

Employment

Entertainment

Exams

Exercise

Eyes

Family

Fizzy drinks

Food and drink

Friends

Gambling

Gap year

Growth

Hair

Health

Homework

Household chores

Independence

Languages

Leaving home

Leisure

Lost property

Magazines

Make-up

Marriage

Masturbation

Menstruation

Mental health

Mobile phones

Money

Morals

Music

Motorcycles

Mouth guards

Name change

Organisation

Orthodontics

Parties

Passports

Peers

Personal hygiene

Pocket money

Pornography

Privacy

Puberty

Relationships

Religion

School

Self-harm

Sex

Sexuality

Sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)

Shoes

Skin

Smoking

Sunbeds

Surgery

Swearing

Swimming

Tattoos

Teeth

Testicles

Travel

TV

Weight

About the Publisher

Introduction

There is no one more persuasive than a teenager with an agenda, and certainly no one more capable of making a parent feel inadequate or behind the times. Conscientious parents regularly fall victim to the supreme negotiating skills of their offspring, and have to adjust their own beliefs, values and moral codes in order either to keep the peace or fall in line with current trends. After all, times change, don’t they? Perhaps the way we were brought up is outmoded, and children can and should be allowed different sorts of freedoms and liberties, different levels of independence and trust, and a different role within the family.

There can be no parent in the land who has not heard regular wails of:

I am the only one not allowed...’ (to stay out late, walk to school on my own, take the bus into town, have my own bank account – add your own to this).

The only one who doesn’t have...’ (new trainers, a TV in my bedroom, a mobile phone with a camera, my own room, parties, pierced ears, a tattoo...).

The only one who has to...’ (clean my room, work for my pocket money, visit my grandparents, have my homework checked, do my own laundry, be accompanied to the doctor...).

The lists are seemingly endless, and from the word go, parents are put in the awkward position of trying to work out if their demands, expectations and rules are fair and realistic, or if they are, in fact, creating social lepers by denying their children the norms of today’s society.

There is no central database of currently acceptable thinking and practice when it comes to parenting. Indeed, most parenting manuals stop well short of the years when parents actually need the most advice. These days many parents are isolated and have less contact with others parents, the result of increased independence, and the fact that many parents work during the day. Couple this with frustration engendered by the impossible task of trying to glean information or make conversation with an adolescent – and it becomes obvious why we’re often working in the dark when it comes to parenting.

It’s no good relying on age-old wisdom handed down from our parents, either. Most of us will remember the irritation of being told that rules were rules, that things were ‘always done that way’, because: ‘that’s how I was brought up, so that’s how you will be too’. Many of us have chosen to forge our own path on the parenting front, and to make decisions based on our individual children and their capabilities, needs and demands, rather than create rules for the sake of them. But this too can be a minefield – one ill-chosen step off that path and a child could be in serious trouble, well out of his or her depth.