With every passing year parenting seems to be more and more difficult. Unfortunately it’s not just our imagination; parenting is getting more and more difficult because of all the new things that surround us. Parenting teens is getting extremely difficult, with all the cell phones, computers, internet and all the new technology available there are plenty of opportunities for kids to be led from the straight path by their so called friends. Social sites are not just a place for friends to hang out; unfortunately there are people that shouldn’t be allowed to use a computer on those sites. Issues like cyberbullying, online harassment, identity theft are all too common now. And the worst part is that we have to make our teen children understand that some things are simply not supposed to be done, and how do we do that when their answer is, “But all the other children are doing it.”
Parenting has never been as difficult as in 21st century, that is why there is a need for education of parents, the only way parents can raise their teen child properly is to educate themselves. You need to understand that parenting and education go hand in hand, especially if you want to keep up with all the things your teen child may be involved with. The first step is to educate yourself about the internet, and don’t be a slob about it, you might need internet very soon, after all we are living in the 21st century. Exploring parenting as a new entity in the 21st century is the real thing; it’s not just something from bad news reports. We almost need to learn parenting from scratch in order to deal with all the new things and all the new and complex problems our children may encounter.
Don’t expect if you read a book called parenting advice for the 21st century that all your parenting issues will be solved. Parenting issues are always there and will be, you need to educate yourself constantly, it’s like we are talking about a computer software, if you don’t stay on top of it and update your system often you will be outdated compared to your children, and we don’t want that to happen. Be involved with your teen child, help him make the right decisions by pointing, not pushing him, in the right direction. And the only way for you to achieve that is to know how. Forget about the old school parenting, we live in the age of technology and it will be yours and your children’s failure if you don’t educate yourself constantly. In the end we can surely say that the 21st century itself is a trap for parents, a maze that we have to find out way out from, but that is what parenting was always about, struggling until you find the right path.
