Parenting Teens

Parenting Teens has been nominated for a Blogger’s Choice Award in the categories of “Best Parenting Blog”, “Hottest Mommy Blog”, and “Best Educational Blog”. Thanks to someone out there for the nominations, and thanks for the votes so far. If you’d like to vote for Parenting Teens in any of these categories, go to the website above and click on the category. It’s quick and easy!

451 Press has quite a few blogs nominated in various categories. We’re all proud of our network! Here’s a list of categories and the nominated blogs from 451 Press. Please vote for us! Links to all of the blogs can be found at the bottom of this page.

Best Animal Blogger:
We Heart Cats
My Friendly Pets

Best Blog About Blogging:
Blog News Watch

Best Blog About Stuff:
Toybender

Best Blog of All Time:
1PStart

Best Celebrity Blogger:
Angelina Watch
Jennifer Anniston Watch

Best Educational Blog:
Fiction Scribe
Foodpast
Mom Is Teaching

Best Entertainment Blog:
Watching The Office
Pop Buzz UK
Watching Survivor
Watching 24
Watching American Idol
Reality on Bravo
Separate Sound
Pride and Opinions
Watching VH1

Best Food Blog:
Elementary Chef
Foodpast

Best Health Blog:
Discussing Breast Cancer

Best Hobby Blog:
Toy Bender
Earthly Garden
Knitting Passion
Fiction Scribe
All Paper Arts
Paintball Journal
Bead Arts

Best Photography Blog:
Digital Shutters

Best Political Blog:
Pride and Opinions

Best Pop Culture Blog:
Pop Buzz UK

Best Religion Blog:
Find Religion

Hottest Mommy Blogger:
Mom Is Teaching

(To all my fellow 451 Press Bloggers: If I have left out your site, or left out a category in which your site was nominated, please feel free to add a comment letting everyone know. These are just the categories and sites I knew about as I was writing this.)

blogs, blogging, blog awards, Blogger’s Choice Awards, 451 Press, parenting teens, parenting teenagers

Here’s an event for all you parents of teenagers who are homeschooling, or think you might be interested in homeschooling.

Over at Mothering, they will be hosting a live chat with David Albert this Thursday, March 29th. Times are 6pm Pacific, 7pm Mountain, 8pm Central, and 9pm Eastern. I’ll be joining in, and will be updating you on what’s discussed if you can’t join us.

Mr. Albert is the author of Have Fun. Learn Stuff. Grow. Homeschooling and the Curriculum of Love(2006), as well as author and editor of several other books about homeschooling. He is a homeschooling dad, writer, and storyteller. He has two teenage daughters, one 15 and one 18. The oldest is an undergraduate at Smith College in Northampton Massachusetts.

David Albert’s own website is called Skylark Sings! The site features his books, essays and articles he has written for various magazines, and resources for homeschoolers. There is also information about his charitable works, India Projects, which support child welfare and community development projects in South India.

If you’d like to participate in the chat, please visit Mothering before chat time, as you will need to register a screen name and read their participation rules before joining in.

Looks like it’ll be an interesting and informative chat! Hope to see you there!

parenting teens, parenting teenagers, homeschoolers, homeschooling, David Albert, Mothering, Skylark Sings, homeschooling resources, Have Fun. Learn Stuff. Grow. Homeschooling and the Curriculum of Love, India Projects, parenting

If you have a teenager who’ll be heading off to college next year and will need financial aid (and these days, who doesn’t), it’s time to start applying for it. This means filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA). This is about as much fun as your average root canal, but it has to be done.

Their website is a great source of infomation and, these days, you can even fill out the form, sign it electronically, and submit it online. Saves a lot of time from the old days when you had to submit it via snail mail and worry about whether it would get there on time! Of course, before you can fill out the form online, you must print out and fill in the 8-page FAFSA worksheet, so it doesn’t really save you any handwriting. But having the worksheet filled in will make filling in the actual form a breeze!

The site is really a great one-stop shop where you can fill out the form, have your questions regarding financial aid answered, check on the status of the application, once it is filed, and even find the codes for the schools to which you want to send the information. It’s a great time-save over my own days of filling out FAFSA, which required trips to counselor’s offices, etc., to find all the information I needed.

Be sure to check out the deadline dates for filing for financial aid, including your state’s deadline and the deadlines of the schools your teen is interested in attending. These may differ from the federal deadline and some schools require them in the spring for the following fall semester. Missing those deadlines could mean your student could miss out on financial aid opportunities at the school itself.

Oh, and you will need your tax information, so if you haven’t filled out those nasty forms yet either…

FAFSA, Free Application for Federal Student Aid, college, financial aid, teens, teenagers, parenting

Teenreads, a great reading site for teens that I’ve talked about on this site before has listed its choices for best teen books for 2006. Following are brief synopses of three of their choices. For a complete list, visit their website at www.teenreads.com. Find some books you think your teenage might enjoy-or recommend they visit the website themselves. There are great book suggestions and other activities there!

“The Boy In the Striped Pajamas”
by John Boyne

Berlin, 1942. When Bruno returns home from school one day, he discovers that his belongings are being packed in crates. His father has received a promotion and the family must move to a new house far away, where there is no one to play with and nothing to do. A tall fence running alongside cuts him off from the strange people he can see in the distance.

But Bruno longs to be an explorer and decides that there must be more to this desolate new place than meets the eye. While exploring his new environment, he meets another boy whose life and circumstances are very different from his own, and their meeting results in a friendship that has devastating consequences.

:The Book Thief”
by Markus Zusak

Set during World War II in Germany, young Liesel Meminger, who lives outside of Munich, scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist — books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau.

“Cathy’s Book: If Found Call 650-266-8233″
by Sean Stewart & Jordan Weisman

Things weren’t so peachy in Cathy’s life before Victor broke up with her. Her father died unexpectedly, she’s failing school and her best friend is mad at her. But when Cathy decides to investigate Victor’s reasons for ending their relationship, things suddenly go from bad to worse as her findings produce more questions than answers.

Through Cathy’s unique and irresistible voice — and lots of proof in the form of letters, photographs, date book entries, telephone numbers readers can call, websites they can access, as well as secrets only a careful reader will be able to decipher — readers will enter a strange and fascinating world where things often aren’t how they appear.

teens, teenagers, teen books, teen reading, The Boy In the Striped Pajamas, John Boyne, The Book Thief, Markus Zusak, Cathy’s Book: If Found Call 650-266-8233, Sean Stewart, Jordan Weisman, parents, parenting

Could your piggy bank use a little help after all the holiday expenses? Here’s a chance to win some bucks for your teen’s college fund, graduation gift, or just all those expenses that come along with being a parent!

451 Press is sponsoring a comment contest for blog readers. Make a comment on any of the 451 Press blogs (including this one) which are listed at the bottom of this page and you will be entered into a drawing for cash prizes. There will be one $500 cash prize and five $100 cash prizes.

Each comment you make on a 451 Press blog between now and January 31st will enter you into the contest. HOWEVER, these cannot be spam comments. They must be comments which relate to the blog entry or contribute to the conversation in some way.

451 Press has lots of blogs in many areas, so everyone should find something that interests them. So, have some fun commenting on your favorite subjects and win some money for yourself or your teen!

451 Press, comments, blogs, contests, prizes, cash

During my recent forced “sabbatical” from Parenting Teens, one thing I did have a chance to do was to make some plans for this blog. Since beginning, I have (with a few exceptions) tended to keep things light. It wasn’t intentional-just seemed to work out that way.

However, due to my background in working with teens, I have article series planned that I hope readers will find helpful. I will be continuing the “Homework Helper” series, since that seemed to go over well. In addition, I plan to begin a series on learning disabilities in teenagers beginning Monday, January 15.

In addition, I will begin a series of articles on troubled teens beginning Wednesday, January 24. Personally, I have always disliked the term “troubled teen” since it seems to end up being a catch-all for a lot of different problems, but since it is a familiar and often-used term, I will go with it. I’m not trying to re-invent the wheel!

I also plan to do some shorter features, such as a fun-but-helpful(hopefully) piece on the parenting styles of the parents of the teens from “The Breakfast Club.” And, as always, I will have news involving teens, stories about my own daughter and other things thrown in. I hope that these ideas will be a mix which will be helpful and enjoyable to anyone and everyone who’s parenting a teen.

If any readers have ideas for subjects that they would like to see covered, or any questions that they would like to ask, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I welcome all ideas and comments. I’m looking forward to 2007 on “Parenting Teens.”

parenting, teenagers, learning disabilities, troubled teens, The Breakfast Club

I want to wish everyone a happy new year and apologize to readers of this blog for my long absence. For the past several months, I’ve found myself having a classic “sandwich generation” crunch. My father (who’s in his late 70’s) has had a serious illness and needed someone to stay with him. Unwilling to trust him to strange caregivers, unless it was absolutely necessary, my brother, sister and I split up the task.

Since my work hours are more flexible than theirs, I tended to stay more often. Wouldn’t have a really big problem updating my blog except that he lives three hours away from me. I spent a great deal of my time driving back and forth-trying to make sure I spent time with my daughter and fiance, as well as with my dad. Also, unfortunately, my dad has no internet connection at his house so, when I was there, I was totally disconnected!

He’s now recovered to the point where he can stay on his own most of the time, with frequent visits from my brother and sister, who both live much closer to him, and I’m now making my visits on weekends. He should be making a full recovery soon.

Now, a bit more about handling “sandwich generations” problems when you have a teenager. My 16-year-old has been a BIG help to me during the past months. She has cooked, cleaned and done a lot of things which made being away from home so much a bit easier-all while keeping up with her schoolwork, and getting ready for the holidays. I don’t think I could have done it without her! Luckily, I had no younger children who had to be cared for, and my fiance was there to help her with transportation to school and activities.

However, no amount of help can make up for missing family members and friends. When I was with my father, I constantly missed my daughter, fiance, and friends. When I was at home, I constantly missed, and worried about, my father. I’ve gone through this before, with my mother’s illness and passing almost four years ago. However, although the outcome is better this time, things seemed a bit more poignant with my daughter being older.

Since she began her sophomore year in high school this year, there seems to be a tiny clock ticking away in the back of my mind-a bit like the biological clock, but this one constantly reminds me that my at-home time with my daughter is slipping away. We have always had a very good relationship and I know we’ll continue to be close when she leaves home for college, work, etc., but the relationship will be different.

These past few months have reminded me to cherish every moment with her, because soon her “childhood” will be a thing of the past, and we’ll be relating to each other more as equals. Not that this is a bad thing. My relationship with my own mother was very good when I became an adult and had adult issues to discuss with her. But it means the passing of one era of her life and the beginning of another. My role in her life is changing. I’m wondering if it would be different if I still had younger children at home. Maybe some of you out there could let me know your thoughts on that?

Well, I’ve rambled on enough! This is the reason why I’ve been absent for the past several months. I’m happy to be back, and here’s wishing all of us a happy and productive year!

New Year, parents, teens, teenagers, sandwich generation, relationships, parenting

By now, you may have seen the TV ads for The National Vocabulary
Championship. Created by partners GSN (Game Show Network) and The Princeton Review, this is a contest which rewards high school students for having an excellent vocabulay.

See their website for details on how your teen can enter the contest and compete for thousands of dollars in college scholarship money! If your teen has a real interest in reading and words, this contest is definitely worth a look.

National Vocabulary Championship, GSN, The Princeton Review, college scholarships

On Friday, October 20, the world lost one of the greatest moms a teen ever had-Jane Wyman. From 1954-1960, Ms. Wyman portrayed Margaret Anderson on “Father Knows Best”. During that time, Margaret Anderson parented Betty, Bud and Kathy, the three Anderson children, through their teen years.

And there was nothing she couldn’t fix! Homework problems, hair problems, boyfriend problems. Margaret Anderson knew it all. The show may have been called FatherKnows Best, but it was really Mom who knew all the answers!

When I was growing up, I watched this show in reruns. I thought these kids had the perfect life. Boy, was I disappointed when my own teen years didn’t turn out anything like the Anderson kids! Of course, being a lifetime fan of “Star Trek’, my favorite memories of Jane Wyatt are those memorable turns as Amanda, Mr. Spock’s human mother in the original “Trek” series, and in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”.

Now, anyone who could parent Spock through HIS teenage years is definitely a Supermom! Ms. Wyatt will be sorely missed.

Jane Wyatt, Father Knows Best, Star Trek, parenting teens