A handbrake is no substitute for an exhaust

Teaching teens about how to curb their inherent impetuousness is perhaps the most complex task a teacher can face inside the classroom. When my eldest was younger, counting to three used to do the trick. Once they hit their tweens and teens, boys and girls need dialogue and reasons. Their exacerbated sense of justice and heightened ability to see the speck in some else's eye rather than the log in theirs, impairs teens from reflecting upon their actions and the necessary consequences. So, teens will sneak out, drink, smoke, have sex, shoplift and do anything that implies running risks.
I've often given parents the advice to make sure the rules of the road are clear. There is a tendency for teens to adhere to norms that are clearly set, based on the notion that when expectations are high, there's an also high probability of those standards being met. When expectations are low or very few standards are set, the tendency of teens is to believe that the sky's the limit and that there are no holds bared.
Now that it's my turn to be parent to a teen, I simply have to admit that all my advice is easier said than done. Keeping my cool, making sure I'm available for a discussion rather than a lecture, honestly expecting the best when I'm really dreading the worst, are all painstaking tasks. I have to constantly remind myself that it doesn't really matter how I was at that age, this is a different human being.
My eldest son is trying to find his place in the universe. One way he's found to try himself on for size is through music. At school he was given the chance to try out playing bass. He stuck with the bass for longer than we expected, so we bought him his own bass. He's been fiddling with it all vacation long and has shown amazing determination. Of course, his impulsivity gets the best of him after a while, but it has become a great outlet.
Teens need the space to be alone or with peers, away from the scrutiny of adults and younger siblings. The bass seems to be that space for our eldest son. It's his own world and nobody else's. Yesterday he and I had a major disagreement. He immediately resorted to trying to be alone, but also to playing his bass. Much better than storming out of the house to god knows where and to do god knows what! That basic need to find a vehicle to channel our frustrations that we adults value so much is no less important to a teen. It's perhaps even more important for a teen. It's the difference between being lost or attempting to achieve a valuable goal. It's the difference between taking any risk or taking a calculated one.
When talking to audiences in his series for university students, "Sessions", Billy Joel often refers to his high school classmates who "peaked too early" in life. Comparing them to caved in ashtrays, he makes the comment about the effects of looking for and finding notoriety and not knowing what to do with it or not knowing how to move on within that notoriety. At times, for teens and pre-teens the spotlight is too difficult a place to move away from and they will sometimes neglect their values in order to step into it. When self-control is not available, parents need to be their children's handbrake. Nevertheless, sometimes teens will surprise us by undertaking a task as a means for self-control and maybe, just maybe they'll achieve something great as a result.

Emergency friends

Today at lunch we were talking about how each of our sons spends their recess. Our second son was concerned that some of his friends were playing a dangerous game he didn't want to play, so he didn't always know what to do during recess. At that point our third son interjected with, "In case I don't find my friends at recess, I have emergency friends I can play with".
I get to see so many different recess experiences everyday; boys who are just hanging out, kids who have the time of their lives, girls who face ostracism, games of foosball and chess, kids reading, kids talking, groups playing instruments, others studying. Every recess experience is a new world, sometimes a brave one, sometimes a meaningless one.
For some kids, going to recess is a moment to face their worst fears. Will I have someone to play with? It just terrifies them. For others, recess is the center of the universe. I have students who show up to school just to be able to be there at recess; there they're the focus of attention and they hold their own. At recess is where they shine.
Maybe our third son is right; you need to have a backup plan for recess. I read somewhere that you'll always be the person you were when you graduated high school. So if at school someone wasn't able to figure out how to fit in or invite others to join them, maybe they never will. A backup plan could just be the answer; plan for when what usually works doesn't. But, how do you teach that? How do you put that into a kid's firmware?

Never again, not here, not anywhere

Pain and suffering are inevitably part of life. Harsh, but true. From scraped knees to heartbreak from unrequited love, pain and suffering are to be expected. It is our job as parents to teach children how to deal with pain, to adequately suffer and then move on.
It is also our job to teach them which particular kind of pain is not to be expected or accepted and that there are things we simply can't allow ourselves to dismiss as just another problem. Last night I met with over one hundred parents who, like me, were looking for ways to make sure that our children can understand that we will never allow the rapist from my youngest son's daycare center to hurt another child ever again.
I live literally right around the corner from the daycare. The center's gate and walls have been graffitied and covered in eggs and other things I don't care to mention. My kids and spouse pass by there every day, making the atmosphere permanently violent. Last night, after our meeting, a group of parents went to clean that all up. We cleaned, we painted and left the neighborhood looking a little more amiable. The immediate result was that this morning my sons saw that the walls were white. I told them that I had cleaned the insults and the paint. I also told them that I was going take legal action.
Today I became one of the now 23 plaintiffs in a civil and criminal suit that has been presented before the Chilean court system against the rapist, his employer (the rapist's mother) and any other person who might be deemed responsible during the 90 day investigation. I told my children that as long as their mother and I were alive, we would do every and anything in our power to protect them. They asked me if they would ever see "those people (our neighbors, by the way)" again.  I told them firmly that I would do everything I can to keep them locked up for life and that they would never have to see the again. My eldest son hugged me.
Yesterday I felt powerless. Today I fell powerful.