Last night’s event with Joanne Stern reinforced so many of the messages we’ve been hearing throughout our series.  Her book, Parenting Is A Contact Sport, offers practical advice for communicating and really connecting with your kids.  The examples she shares from her experiences in raising her two daughters proves that there are no perfect kids and no perfect parents, but that building strong bonds pays off when families face challenges that could otherwise pull them apart. 

Early in the book (pg 2) she challenges us to think about what our reaction would be to really shocking news from one of our kids and points out: “That’s when you’d either make it or break it with your children, because that’s when they’d learn whether you’re open and compassionate or judgmental and critical.  That’s when your kids would decide whether to trust you with their difficult stuff.”    

This reminded me so much of what I learned from our discussion a couple weeks back when we discussed So Sexy So Soon with Diane Levin.  As a parent of a seven year old, I haven’t been faced with the issue of drugs and alcohol or sexting yet, but I’m learning  that my reaction to the things that are important in her life now are already giving her signals as to how open I am to discussing things that might be uncomfortable.  In the end, we want our kids to choose to come to us when they’re confused, or curious or scared about the big things in their life.  The goal is to create a “safe” environment for your kids to talk to you about everything.  If we send the message that certain topics are off-limits, they’ll find someone else to talk to.

Teenagers are faced with a lot of choices and challenges as they navigate the internet, exposure to drugs and alcohol, peer pressure and media messages.  Parenting is a Contact Sport shows you how to build the type of bond with your teen that makes it safe for them to come to you for advice and support.  And, like Vanessa Van Petten warned a couple weeks ago in our series, if you resort to snooping to find out what’s going on in your teen’s life,  you’ve violated their trust and it takes a long time to rebuild that bond.  Dr. Stern’s book shows you how to build the type of relationship that makes snooping completely unnecessary.

Listen to the Interview

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