Do You Know What Your Children Are Up To?

Once you start thinking about it, it becomes a scary, haunting question: What are my children up to? Many parents may think they know, or they may think they are able to trust their children completely, while reality is in fact somewhat removed from perception.

In today's world, many things are different from our own childhood days. There are a lot more criminals out there, there are a lot more drug dealers out there, and your child probably is subjected to a lot more peer pressure than you ever had to face.

On top of that, the limits of acceptable behavior" have moved dramatically. Take a look at the movies we saw thirty years ago, and the current popular movies. The levels of violence and the details of explicit scenes have increased substantially. The fact that the limits of "acceptable behavior" has moved, makes it incredibly difficult to reason with your child.

The typical reaction is a "we live in a different world now" response, leaving you accused of being unable to adapt to the changing times. The fact that these changes are the exact cause for your concerns becomes irrelevant. You become the villain because you fail to see it from the child's perspective.

To make things worse, your kids are exposed to more dangers than you ever had to face. Thirty years ago young rebels experimented with drugs by smoking marijuana. Today, there are a number of drugs that will cause addiction right away.

The only way to avoid this is by creating mutual trust from an early age. From the age of ten, the average child is able to evaluate, and differentiate between right or wrong, and good or bad. Starting small, let the child start making decisions. Afterwards, talk about the given choice. Give credit where credit is due, so it does not appear that every decision is a bad one. Also keep in mind that it is a ten year old making those choices, so don't expect perfection.

This will allow the child to learn proper judgment step by step, while the choices offered will be ones of little consequence. By the time your child becomes a teenager, exercising common sense will be a habit. Additionally, you can create an environment for open communication by your attitude: Instead of exploding about a mistake, discuss it objectively, relying on logic rather than emotion.

Keep in mind that by the time the mistake has been made, it will be of no use to show anger. All that is left is to deal with the situation. However, if you have a relationship that allows open communication, you are likely to be told sooner rather than later, allowing you to do some damage control.