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Conference moira::parenting_v3

Title:	Parenting
Notice:	READ 1.27 BEFORE WRITING
Moderator:	CSC32::DUBOIS

Created:	Wed May 30 1990
Last Modified:	Tue May 27 1997
Last Successful Update:	Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:	1364
Total number of notes:	23848

247.0. "Teenagers are not a common topic" by SMURF::HAECK (Debby Haeck) Mon Aug 13 1990 12:47

    In reading one of the replies to note 243 (the one which pointed off to
    the human_relations notes file) I got to wondering...
    
    This notes file (parenting) seems to concern it self mostly with
    infants and toddlers.  Being a parent of both toddlers (1.9 years & 3.5
    years) and a teenager (16 years), I read the toddler notes and also the
    teenager notes.  But, there are ALOT more notes on toddlers.  Is this
    because we PARENT a toddler but we RELATE TO a teenager?

T.R	Title	User	Personal Name	Date	Lines
247.1	demographics, I think	TLE::RANDALL	living on another planet	`Mon Aug 13 1990 13:48`	29
	Debby, I also have a 16 year old and two younger ones (10 months, 6 years) -- my impression is that relatively few DECcies in general have teenagers, but quite a number of them have toddlers. In the four years or so that I've been following PARENTING, the number of notes about teenagers has gone up steadily. In the new file we already have three or four notes abou teenagers; in v2 it took most of a year to have four notes about teenagers; in the later stages of V1, there weren't even many notes about school-age children, let alone teenagers. So I think we'll see more and more discussions of parenting teenagers as more people's children reach that age. I think there's also a tendency for teenage problems to be too painful to discuss in public -- and though this is a warm and caring environment, it is public. My personal opinion is that parenting is just one particular way of "relating" to a person who happens to be related to you in a particular way and who have needs that most people you meet don't have -- or at least don't expect you to meet. Even a newborn is its own little person, and that, I think, is the most wonderful thing about being a parent, getting to know these wonderful people . . . --bonnie
247.2	Toddlers and teens, my two favorite ages	LDYBUG::BOMBARDIER	Wherever you go, there you are	`Mon Aug 13 1990 15:49`	21
	Debby, I have two teenager daughters, 17 and 14, and read PARENTING regularly. I think we both PARENT and RELATE TO teenagers, gradually going from PARENTING (in the strictest sense) to RELATING as a child progresses through their teens. I know I do a lot more PARENTING with my 14-year-old and more RELATING with my 17-year-old. The teen years progress from a confused 13-year-old adolescent to a hopefully self-assured 20-year-old. I agree with Bonnie that the majority of notes are about younger children because that's the age of most employees' kids. But it also seems that although the majority of notes are on pre-school kids or kids just entering school, we seem to then jump up to teenagers. There are relatively few notes about 7 to 10 year olds. These kids must be giving us a breather to recover from our toddlers and prepare for them as teenagers (my two favorite ages, BTW) ;-) ;-). - Kathy
247.3	One and the same sometimes	FDCV07::HSCOTT	Lynn Hanley-Scott	`Tue Aug 14 1990 12:10`	5
	Having a 14 year old stepdaughter who just spent 3 weeks with us, and a 2 year old, I've been noticing recently how similar the 2 age-phases are, in terms of being very narcisistic. The 2 year old, though, seems to be a little more interested in the world around him :-)