Guns in the Wrong Hands

By Dr. Roger McIntire

Canada is concerned because in the latest reported year, 153 Canadian children were killed by guns while France had only 109 children killed and in Japan, the number was zero.

The United States had 5,285 childhood gun deaths that same year, the Center for Disease Control reports. The Center also reports that the number of firearm deaths of kids under 15 is almost 12 times higher in the United States than in the next 25 industrialized countries combined. We average over 4,000 dead children annually.

School kids are getting guns at home or elsewhere, sometimes legally, sometimes not.  In the school year beginning in the fall of 1998, 3,523 students brought guns to school and were expelled for it.

Parents who approve of their children carrying weapons under certain conditions have a responsibility to supervise how their children handle these weapons. Parents must insist that their children practice the safety rules, routines and restrictions. Now is the time for this training—not after a 15-year-old is involved in a terrible incident.

Usually when a child gets into trouble with guns, his parents are surprised. Keep guns in a safe place where you can see their situation often and keep up with all that is going on with your kids.

In the late teenage years, a preoccupation with guns, cars, alcohol and the opposite sex can produce a recipe for disaster. Kids growing up too fast can snatch at entertainment and ignore other facets of life. At the first sign of these narrowing interests, a parent’s job is to keep their child’s sights on the longer view.

If narrowing interests seems to be your teen’s situation, it’s time to visit college campuses. Even a high school sophomore needs to see his future and his possibilities. Encourage attendance at church youth activities, community projects and encourage useful activities at school.  

From West Virginia to the Mid-East, the most dangerous thing on our planet is a human being with nothing to do.

What do the Children Think of Tiger Mom?

What do the Children Think of Tiger Mom?

 In Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, Tiger Mom (Amy Chua) put aside her interest in her two daughters and replaced it with days filled with music practice and homework hours designed to see that the children avoid the disgrace of getting a “B” in school. Success is all that counts.

Chua’s “Battle hymn” is a no-nonsense approach to child-rearing that leaves no doubt who is in charge, who is setting the goals and the daily agenda for each child. A’s in school and first place in violin and piano are the only acceptable grades or outcomes. Mommy knows best and the little person’s interests or thoughts on the matter are not important and shouldn’t be part of the selected activities which are to be practiced until perfect.

 One disadvantage of the Tiger-Mom approach is that the child’s view is entirely discounted as if the child has no idea of what talents he has or which activities deserve extended practice. What if Chua’s daughters had talents in other areas not of interest to Mom?

Chua does offer some useful observation. For example, she says western parents often give heaps of praise when a child’s accomplishment is close to nothing, This habit reduces self-esteem because real accomplishment is viewed as no better than a casual attempt. With nothing to strive for, the child may have no reason to try harder. Some of us locals could learn from Chua’s suggestion of holding off on undeserved praise. But Chua would hold off on almost all praise because she’s never quite satisfied.

            If Mom’s routine reaction to her child’s interests is negative, and she has no respect for anything outside of the preferences of her adult friends, she may say, “Put that guitar out of your mind and get to work.” If her daughter fails to impress others after hard work, she may not try again. Instead she may wander into bad habits and become a victim of the fanatics that troll the troubled waters of the teenage years.

High Schoolers Face Scary Days

Kids reach driving age at 16. At the same time, cars boost the annual accidental death rate of teenagers from one per 100,000 kids to ten.

At the end of high school, 25 percent are alcohol abusers. This group also has pregnancy and abortion rates higher than all other developed countries. Most teenagers say they have serious “school problems,” and nearly all parents of kids gone berserk with a gun didn’t think their child was disturbed.

Parent and step-parents can help counter these terrible problems by spending time in parent-teen conversation. It is the most effective use of family time, but most parents find it hard to find the time or the teenager. In fact, most parents and step-parents report less than 10 minutes per week of serious conversation with their teenagers.

Substance abuse and pregnancy are the two most common topics of interest and concern to both teens and parents. On the drug topic, keep the above listening rules in mind, but also watch for these signs:
1. Unusual, unexplained need for money, or money missing from the house.
2. Changes in friends, eating habits or sleeping that don’t make sense.
3. Lack of concentration, extreme agitation.
4. “Cold symptoms” that just don’t go away—red eyes, runny nose, increased infections.
5. Changes in appetite, cravings.
6. Changes in fatigue, hyperactivity, appearance, becoming sloppy.
7. Unusual clumsiness, shortness of breath, coughing, peculiar odor to breath or clothes.

Concerning the pregnancy topic, the Adolescent Health Study has followed 10,000 students ages 12 to 17 since 1994, adding new youngsters each year. The study found that sexual behavior is common for one in five seventh and eighth graders and for two out of three high school juniors and seniors. However, teens who do well in school are less likely to get into self-destructive activities such as drinking, drugs, crime, and sex. Even the number of attempted suicides is lower among good student.

The top predictor of sexual activity is the amount of unsupervised time a teen has. “Among all the factors that can be associated with teenage sex, the big one is opportunity,” says Dr. Robert Blum, the director of the study.

Managing Discipline

            How and when to punish bad behavior is a constant problem for parents. The complications come up in selecting the appropriate punishment. Physical punishments such as spanking, hitting and slapping are quick and probably will have an immediate effect, but not a lasting one.

         If you know exactly what bad behavior is when you see it and only have a vague idea of what good behavior you’re looking for, then, most of the time, you’ll find the bad. Parents following this strategy usually complain that they are always being forced to act like a policeman with no chance to “be nice.” This strategy makes you look bad, mad, and grumpy.

            The next problem with physical punishment is that the children will imitate. From school violence in pre-teens to road rage in young adults, the violence can grow from an imitation of parents as much as the media. Mom and Dad are sending the message that punishment is a good way to deal with people.

              The Washington Post recently announced on its front page that parents have begun using “digital grounding” as an alternative punishment. Taking away the cell phone or changing the password on the computer gets their child’s attention and perhaps his compliance as well.

                Of course, we are trying to raise adults, here and your spouse would probably complain if you tried to limit his or her cell phone as punishment for coming home from work late.  So using punishment on an adult, even “digital grounding,” is insulting—to an adult and to a child as well.

You expect me to belittle the problem, “The traffic must have been really bad. Let’s fix supper together.” We deal with the mistake together as a third thing, not you, not me, and we offer a chance to make amends.

            Ignoring is also an adult strategy, but it has to be used carefully. If a parent plans to ignore the bad behavior, the usual amount of acting up will no longer get the attention the child seeks, and he may escalate the volume!  Parents may revert to punishment at an equal volume, and then return to the ignoring rule only to go back to punishment when the volume again reaches pain threshold.

            To make the ignoring plan work, you need to have the compliments ready when your child is successful. Considering all the possible mistakes a child can make, he won’t learn good behavior by just being told, “Wrong!”

            When bad behavior can’t be ignored and opportunities for encouragement of good behavior are plentiful, try a time-out.  Most parents are familiar with the drill of putting the child on a chair or in his/her room for a little cooling off and isolation. This can work well if the time-out is short so that threats, arguments, and other verbal decorations that often precede it can be kept to a minimum.

                        “Digital grounding” can have a useful place in family situations where a defiant teenager says, “You can’t make me.” Removing the cell phone or computer time is a power parents should not ignore.

            The best parental strategy will include praising the good behavior, ignoring the tolerable, and reacting with logical, mild, and consistent reprimands to the bad.

Advice for College-Bound

Let me answer a few questions from your off-to-college son or daughter: How many high school grads go to college? About half. How many of those will make it to a college degree? About half. How many will flunk out? About 10 percent, the left-over 40 percent will drop out for their own reasons. How many will change their major? About 90 percent, half will change more than once. How many will have an alcohol problem?  About 31 percent, according to a Rutgers study in the Journal of Studies of Alcohol and Drugs.

How many girls will leave because of pregnancy? About five percent, and 15 percent of both sexes will contract a sexually transmitted disease. Almost all will blame alcohol for the unsafe behavior.

The risk of alcohol-related deaths of college students increased six percent from1998 to 2000, reports the American Review of Public Health. College students who reported driving under the influence went from 26 to 31 percent, and 500,000 were unintentionally injured while under the influence. Another 600,000 were hit or assaulted, or sexually assaulted,  by another drinking student.

For why the 40 percent who have acceptable grades left for their own reasons, the most useful question to ask is, “How far do you live from campus?” If you live far away, you probably work far away. Traffic and parking become a big part of life, and you might be tempted to avoid extra trips to campus for clubs, sports, study sessions or just hanging out. If work and driving “home” take up 30 hours a week, there’s not much college left to quit. Live as close to campus as possible.

Driving is a big part of life, and it is the biggest killer of college students until they are in their thirties. Of course their alcohol habit plays a large role in driving accidents as it does in the career wreckers of pregnancy, health problems, and money and time mismanagement

What can a college student do to keep up course grades? A good way to remember the good habits is with the letters in SNAP. The “S” in SNAP stands for Show Up. The best predictor of low grades is the number of classes missed. Almost all students who drop out start by missing classes for work or sleep. Woody Allen once said, “Eighty percent of life is just showing up,” and he’s right.

            The “N” in SNAP stands for Notes. I never had a student flunk who could show me reading notes. All great women and men take notes on their work. A good rule is, “Never turn a page without writing something.” Copy and clean up lecture notes on the same day you take them.

            The “A” in SNAP stands for Active Studying. Tests ask you to do something and learning is in the doing. A yellow highlighter cannot write the answers. Get busy. Use a lot of paper.

            The “P” in SNAP stands for Planning. It’s easy to squander your time on entertainment, partying and computer games. Select and reserve your time for studying, mark your calendar and stick to it.

            In the few days of August that are left before school, review the health issue. If your college-bound takes regular medication has he arranged for refills at college? Does he or she know who to call locally if medical help is needed?

If your son or daughter is cooking for himself, perhaps an additional lesson at the food store about buying healthy food is in order.

Caution your student to avoid all credit card offers (his mailbox will be full of them in the first few weeks). That’s only one suggestion about the money and time management issues that could come up at a family sendoff college shower, an evening when everyone could offer their advice.

Problem of New high School Grads

Once the kids are out of high school, you might think your parental duties would wind down, but in these tough times opportunities for good jobs require more preparation than high school.

In only a few weeks many graduates will face college on their own. How can parents help get them ready for that culture shock so they will stay the course through four years?

            Parents can help with three danger zones: health, housing and habits.

Health. American teenagers should be the healthiest in the world and on many measures they do rank very high. The college student group, however, does bring the average down. Their diet contains too much fat, salt and sugar. Their exercise sits on a broad base in front of a computer, TV, and steering wheel punctuated by mad moments of sport frenzy.

Teach your college-bound high school escapee to cook. Not only will it make a few good meals more likely, but it will give you a few moments to teach good food choices. Put in a plug for avoiding caffeine and late-night eating. Both disturb sleep and produce bad disposition and energy the next day.

Late-night studying, bad diet and erratic exercise make college students the greatest sufferers of colds, headaches, mono and the latest flu bug.

Housing. The best single predictor of college failure is present address, not high school grades and not even college grades. Most dropouts leave with an acceptable record. Where will they live while trying to stay in college? That’s the most important question. The quality of college comes from the on-campus experiences; if you live or work on the other side of town, you’re not likely to drive yet again to show up at a college event. It’s easy to quit, if you only have classes to quit.

Habits. Bad habits start when offers of credit cards come to their new mailbox. Cars and credit cards keep the pressure on to work more hours at a part-time job and account for many leaving students. Students need to keep their shopping, credit cards and car expenses low.

Alcohol is the next most dangerous habit. Almost all girls (and boys) in the college-age group, dealing with an unwanted pregnancy, use this excuse, “I couldn’t help it, I was drunk.”

            Give an “Off-to-College Shower” this summer as a habit-shaping event. Bring all the relatives and friends over to offer their best advice. Maybe they could write their best advice in a card, “The best thing I did in school was… have a good breakfast…join the local church young adults group…take up dancing… run every day…join the computer club or ski club.”

            In addition to hundreds of clubs, most universities have over 100 majors. This can be a source of trouble between student and parent. Now is not a time to push for a decision. First-time students can barely name 20 of the available majors. No wonder over 90 percent of freshmen change their major somewhere along the way and over 50 percent more than once.

            Parents can help here by talking over majors as they come up in early required courses. Keep the pressure to make a decision low. One primary advantage of college is in educating about the variety of life’s opportunities.

If college is viewed as a source of information about choices, then staying in makes sense. Little is lost by taking courses to explore the wide range of majors and careers before making this important decision.

College graduates of five years ago who were recently asked what courses they wish they had taken, seldom mentioned courses in their major. Instead, engineers mentioned business courses, teachers mentioned additional psychology or language courses and others mentioned history, science or hobby-developing courses. It’s a long way from graduation to retirement.

Parent Alert: New Deadly Threat

            Epidemic hits high schoolers! Death rate quadruples among 16-year-olds! No immunity in sight. Medical community has no shot that will help.

            All your efforts to protect your teen from childhood diseases, accidents with sharp objects and running with scissors pale to almost nothing.

            Is it a virus? A cancer? A new mind-splitting drug? No. It’s cars.

           A study by Ezekiel Emanuel and David Wendler from the National Institutes of Health shows that daily hospitalizations, emergency room visits, and even deaths per million increase only slightly through childhood and early adolescence.

Before the driving age, football injuries top the list at 3800 injuries per million occasions of participation. Soccer is next at 2400, then basketball at 1900, cheerleading 1700, baseball, 1400 and skateboarding, 800. All of these injuries become less frequent as the kids grow up. Of course the number and age of players varies in these sports.

But until they reach the 15- to 19-age group, the daily death rate among children is almost steady at about 1 per million per day. For teenagers, the statistics increase dramatically. From early to late teens, emergency room visits jump from 30 to 60 per million per day. For older teens, deaths skyrocket to 10 per million per day.

All that we do to protect our kids by using car seats and seat belts, lecturing about looking both ways and following the rules at the neighborhood pool—all is overwhelmed and swept aside by the shocking statistics of driving and riding with reckless friends.

The girls are now almost as much at risk as the boys. In 1990, 160 of every 1000 girls wrecked their cars that year and by 2000 the number was 175.  The boys are steady at 210 per 1000 per year.

The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse reports that girls drink just as much as boys—48 percent of girls drink; 52 percent of boys. In 2000, high school freshmen girls nudged out the boys for first place in reports of regular drinking—41 percent of girls and 40 percent of boys.

Saying, “Be careful” is not enough. Limitations and restrictions need to be enforced. Join a parent team that will be checking every car that leaves the prom dance. Better yet, help your teens plan the whole evening with chauffeuring and no need for cars. Nothing else you have ever done to protect them during all their growing up years means as much as your riding and driving rules.

You don’t want that terrible late-night phone call, “This is Officer Smith of the State Police, Your son (daughter) has been . . .”

Dr. McIntire is the author of Raising Your Teenager Write him through the Journal or go to www.ParentSuccess.com

What Sets Him (or her) Off?

What Sets Him (or Her) Off?

            Many adults recognize their own occasional emotional irritations as coming from coffee or the lack of it, certain foods, medications, delay of meals, alcohol abuse, or even missing water for too long. Of course, many come straight from the horse’s (word deleted) mouth of fellow humans. Not all emotional problems are the fault of the fit-thrower.

Mom may have learned what (or who) to avoid, but children hardly ever get the connection between their diet (or “friends”) and bad mood swings.

            Allergic reactions sometimes show up as hives or stomach aches but can also come out as behavioral irritations. Even serious problems such as bipolar disorders or ADHD can be aggravated by allergies and sensitivities to foods.

            Since the behavioral problems are usually a part of family interactions, what causes what can be difficult to sort out. Keeping a record of your child’s behavior and the foods he eats can be an inconvenient task for parents who already have a full schedule.

            Most doctors won’t ask you to keep records, but the information can be very useful in lowering the chances of a melt-down, whether or not medication is required.

A good way to keep a record is with the most likely culprits: caffeine, sugar, chocolate, eggs, and milk products. Draw up a chart with the days marked down the side and hours across the top. Tape it on the refrigerator, high above nosy eyes.

Do You Like Me?

“Do you like me?” Children always have this unspoken question on their minds and it’s easy for parents to overlook it. The answer is crucial to both friendship and parenting. Like good listening habits, liking habits are part of the overall parental attitude the children will take to heart.
Parents send a lot of messages about liking. Every time the kids do anything, the parents react negatively or with support or indifference. What a parent likes and doesn’t like about what’s going on is constantly expressed.
What should a parent look for in a child’s or a teen’s choices of action? We parents know the bad behaviors well but we are less specific about the good.

Mom: “Leave the baby alone, Nathan”
Nathan: “I was just going to pat him.”

Now Mom has a choice. She could say, “I know what you were going to do. Now just stay away, you will wake him!” Or she could say,”I like to pat him too, but it will wake him and he’s tired.”
She has the same choice when the mistake is already done: (Nathan drops his jelly sandwich.) “You are so messy! Look what you did!” Or she could say, “Oh, look what happened! Better pick it up and get a paper towel.”
If Mom goes with her first impulse, she emphasizes Nathan, the person. You will wake him , you are messy! If she chooses her second choice, she emphasizes a situation that she and Nathan are dealing with together: It will wake him. Look what happened.
It won’t make a lot of difference to Nathan on this one occasion, but over the days and weeks, Nathan ends up with a very different message and a very different relationship with Mom.
Many of us had a good mother like Nathan’s. Very concerned, always carefully watching, correcting, often lecturing. But Nathan was frequently disagreeable and angry. When I asked Nathan’s mom for examples of Nathan’s good behavior, she had trouble getting started but finally came up with common ones such as “doing well in school” and “getting along with others.” I asked her to look for specifics of these during the next week and compliment Nathan when he showed success.
At our next meeting she reported an odd reaction after a compliment. Nathan said, “What’s the matter with you?” After another week of being on the lookout for chances to show a little liking, Nathan’s mom encountered another odd reaction: Nathan asked, “Do you like me?”
“Of course I like you,” Mom said.
“Wow,” said Nathan; already ten and just finding out that his mom not only loves him, she likes him!

Mom. I Think I Have a Problem

We all hope this problem turns out to be simple and not too serious—maybe a tough homework assignment or a fellow student with bad social skills. We hope it is not the forever life-changing announcement. But you might have a moment of fear since May is Teen Pregnancy Month.
A conversation too short, too fast or with too many family members chiming in is not likely to help. Pick a good time when you can go slow with time to listen in a one-on–one situation.
Make sure your teen gets the facts straight. One teenaged girl told me, “I want to be safe. If I have sex, I always take one of Mom’s pills the next day.” Your daughter has a 1 in 20 chance of becoming pregnant, and both sons and daughters are at three times that risk for sexually transmitted diseases. This is not just a “girl problem.”
Fathers who cause teen pregnancies are usually long out of high school, so caution your teenager daughter about these not-quite-adults and supervise your 18-and-something son on this temptation.
Alcohol is the most common excuse young women give for making the big mistake. What attitudes should a parent model on this subject?
Take your time on this subject, it may be the most important part of your influence on your son’s or daughter’s future. The New York Times reported last week that the introduction of the pill in the 50’s did not reduce dangerous sexual habits as was first predicted. National rates of teen pregnancies, births, and abortions did not peak in the 50’s but continued upward until the 90’s. Even now West Virginia averages 60 teenage girls per week who have babies.
The pregnancy rate is actually higher than that because many pregnancies end before they are reported and aborted pregnancies (about one third) are not included.