Introduction:

“Mom! You are the weirdest Mom and you are making me look WEIRD! Everyone thinks you are crazy and I’m like a freeeakuuhhhh!” (All teenage words end in an “UHHHH”)

Words I hear basically on a daily basis…doesn’t phase me. This is the lovely reaction I normally get from our youngest daughter about our family rules she has to follow. I really think MOST of the time she gets it and accepts it but there are those moments when our rules get in the way of something “everyone else is doing” and she “hates her life”. The one thing I think she has learned is that I rarely budge and when I say it.. I mean it. I am very consistent. I think kids count on that even if they don’t like it….and I don’t think they realize it but they really do. I believe discipline and consistency IS love. When you show your kids you care enough about them to stick to it even when it would be a WHOLE lot easier to let them have their way they feel loved and protected.

Now as I continue to write I just know there will be parents out there who will disagree with my opinions on parenting and my outlook on today’s youth. But this is my OPINION and I feel compelled to share it. With all I see and experience everyday I can’t rest until I at least try to make a change…even if it’s just a small one.

With most families now having 2 parents working out of the home or being raised by a single parent the way children are parented has for the most part drastically changed. I believe that  we have crossed over into a whole new way of parenting forced by today’s society and the crazy busy lives we lead. A life of an overbearing social media that in my opinion is really the one raising our kids…not us. A life of fast pace, never stopping, never taking a breath, never taking just a moment to see even the most simplest of things. A life that saddens me to my core. And trust me, I am just as guilty of it. 

I am old enough to have lived on both sides. I lived my childhood with no technology….well we had tv’s and home phones and eventually came video games but that’s it. My mind was on ACTIVITY, CREATIVITY, and INTERACTING with people on a face to face personal level. I don’t have neck or back or eye problems from staring down at a phone screen for 12-18 hours a day. I had skinned knees, bruises and a sunburn all summer, every summer. And my Mom never had to worry about me or say “Gosh go get on your iPad or something.” I was gone all day every day PLAYING OUTSIDE and RIDING my bike. You RARELY saw a kid that was overweight because we never stopped. I would love to know how many calories we burned in a day. The scary part is we never wore sunscreen and didn’t even wear seatbelts until later in my childhood. When we were born there was no such thing as a car seat your Mom just held you in the front seat on the way home. Good Lord…

There is so much on this subject that weighs heavy on my heart that I have decided to start a series so I can take the time to touch on many things I feel so strongly about and then you can form your own opinions.

Some may say that I have an issue with embracing change. I don’t think so. I like change, but I don’t like it being at the expense of something else. Change should make things better. I am seeing such a negative downfall in our youth in so many ways and I think most of it has been brought on by change. Things CAN change, of course, that’s what makes the world go ’round but let’s take a look at who or what it is destroying or is paying the cost.

My opinions have nothing to do with a religion, race, who you love, who you support or who you vote for…It’s all about our future generation and what WE can do to help them.

If we don’t start opening our eyes and seeing…REALLY seeing you may not be able to reel them back in. Every generation had certain challenges with their youth. It’s been going on since the beginning of time. Youth will be youth and they will forever be our hardest most rewarding achievement. But we have lost sight of how to do it and have been blinded by today’s world sucking us in to it’s social media fast paced agenda. And I will tell you that my life experience on this subject spans over nearly 31 years of child rearing (my kids were pretty spaced apart) and I have seen first hand all these many changes and what it has affected. There were no cell phones when I started having kids and even when they manifested on to our daily lives they were just phones you could TALK on and were HUGE lol!! So it was basically a home phone you could take everywhere…nothing like what they have become today.

Do me a favor…take a day to notice, really pay attention to how much you, your kids and the people in your life are on their phones. We have become so immune to it that I don’t think anyone really sees HOW MANY HOURS we spend scrolling and not engaging in LIFE. I have a feeling you will be shocked. ***This is MY goofy kids on THEIR phones laughing about snap chat filters 😉

We moved to Tennessee as most of you know for almost 3 years and after we moved there I decided it was time for me to get on social media to be able to connect more freely with everyone at home. It definitely provided a forum for us to stay close all day every day in a way you could have never done in MY childhood. THAT is an example of change doing good. Facetime??? Just the most amazing thing when you live far away from the people you love. Again, technology that has a wonderful place. Look how amazing it has been with the military and their families. Our precious men serving have been able to experience their children being born….just incredible.

I personally do not think we have done enough to control all the bad in social media. Look at all the recent incidents with Facebook and all the hacking going on. Our PRIVACY????? It makes me ill to think that you will see the disappearance of this in our lifetime. And I promise you, you won’t appreciate privacy until its gone.

Privacy, social media, respect, discipline, schools, sports, deciding to have kids and values, are some of the many subjects concerning our precious youth I will be writing about in upcoming chapters. 

I hope you will keep an open mind and maybe begin to see what I see. We are so blessed to know there are still many wonderful young people out there doing good and being lead with love, discipline and guidance. I think it is our job to get the rest down the right path and we can surely do that if we open our eyes and see, really see what they are silently crying out for. And guess what? It’s pretty easy. We just need to take the time to SEE it and DO it….because let’s face it they ARE WORTH IT 🙂

Written with love by:

Char Head 🙂

Creations_by_Char