Just for Moms

I Just Want to Live My Own Life

admin — Sat, 19 Sep 2009 00:10:45 +0000

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this from my 14 year old daughter. Just skips out the part about how she still wants me to finance it though. :) One day she’ll wish she could come home and have everything taken care of for her again!

I found this article at Bukisa and thought you’d enjoy it. Click the links at the bottom to find more of the author’s work.

So Your Teenager Thinks They Can Live On Their Own. Can They?

If your a parent you’ve heard you adult teen or teenager say, “I’m an adult I can move out if I want.” If your adult teen you’ve probabl y heard yourself say this many times. I know I said those things when I was a adult teen, just the thought of living on my own was an amazing idea no more having someone telling me what to do, when to go to bed, what my curfew was, that I could or couldn’t where I wanted. Just the thought of FREEDOM was the drug I wanted.

Now first off if you want to move out you have to have a job, and right now in this economy its even hard to get a job at McDonald’s but you can do it if you really want a job, any job.

So, now you have a job. How much are you being paid an hour, how much taxes are being taken out, how much are you putting into your 401K or retirement. Also do you get insurance at this job, how much is being taken out for that. Also how many hours are you working, are you getting the same hours each week?

Now comes how much an apartment will cost you and if you want a one or two bedroom apartment. Will you be able to afford it on your own or will you need an roommate. Apartments can run from 400 to 1,000+. You also need to find out how much renters insurance will be, in case something bad happens you have insurance to cover your back.

Do you have a car? Is it brand new or used? How much do you pay for payments? How much is your insurance, if your on your parents and choose to have your own insurance that means your insurance will go up. Can you afford that? How much gas do you use in a week or bi-monthly according to when you get paid.

Now you need to find out if the apartment covers your utilities. This is water, gas, and electrity. Talk to someone you know who is renting to find out what these bills run for them so you have an idea.

Okay lets look at what you have to pay so far:

Rent
Renters insurance
Gas
Electric
Water
Gas for your car
Car payments (if your leasing or you bought the car.)
Car insurance

Now if your like anyone else you probably have a cell phone with add ons to the cell like texting. Time to look at how much your paying a month for that cell. Do you use all those minutes or texts? If not check if you can lower your payment to a plan to the amount of minutes you use.

Do you want to be able to watch TV? Does your apartment offer basic cable for free? If it doesn’t and you want to be able to watch TV you’ll have to cable. If you have more than one cable company in the area and if your apartment doesn’t have an agreement with a certain cable company. It’s time to do some price searching.

What about the Internet can you or can’t you live without that? If you can’t live without it, most likely you want to do a package deal with the cable company you choose to go with.

There is one thing the most importation thing of all is FOOD. Now, you gotta figure out how much you can afford weekly or bi-weekly according to when you get paid.

Another thing, do you have credit cards? If so, what are you monthly payments. If you don’t, it might be a good idea to have one for emergencies, but at the same time if you know you won’t be able to include that in your payments. Than DON’T GET ONE! Because you max out your credit card, its bad for your credit, if you can’t make payments, it also bad for your credit. If you do get a credit card, make sure your able to pay off what you put on each month. But once again if you can not afford a credit card DON’T GET ONE!

Oh yeah washing your clothes, if your apartment doesn’t have an washer and dryer; how much will bi-weekly will you need money wise for washing your clothes? Or will your parents let you come over and wash your clothes there?

Do you have a pet, such as a cat or dog? Check to see if the apartment allows pets. If so you’ll probably have to pay a pet deposit and a monthly pet fee. This is if you plan to take your pet with you. If they don’t allow pets will your parents let you keep the pet at your place?

So lets check the things you have to pay now:

Rent
Renter insurance
Gas
Electric
Water
Gas for your car
Car payment
Car insurance
Cell Phone
Cable (TV & Internet)
Food
Money for washing clothes
Pet Fee

I know your probably freaking out about now. Your probably starting to feel like you want to press the rewind button and go back to being a kid where you can hide behind your parents. We all go through this we all are scared of adult life.

Like adults who go through mid-life crisis, teens also go through beginning of adult life crisis. Adult teens want to put this heels in the dirt and grab onto a pole and stop themselves from entering an new era they are ready for but at the same time they aren’t.

Parents before your teen moves out go over balancing their check book, if they don’t know how to do this now. Also teach them how to save some money from their pay check each month, so they can have a emergency fund if they need it.

Since this is your first apartment you might need a co-signer since you haven’t built up much credit. If so your parents will probably be the first person you ask. If your lucky, they will be the co-signer. But since you probably have no credit your apartment deposit might be higher.

Well adult teens, have fun entering the adult world and living on your own.

(Bukisa ID #143982)

Content Source: So Your Teenager Thinks They Can Live On Their Own. Can They? - Bukisa.com

Teachable Moments

admin — Fri, 28 Aug 2009 17:48:20 +0000

Do you take advantage of the teachable moments in your children’s lives? You should be. As they get older and really need to know what you think about important issues like drugs, alcohol, smoking, and sex they tend to be more difficult to talk to. By the time you really need to talk to them and the need to know what you think and need some guidance, they often think that they already have all the answers. So, the key is to start earlier by taking advantage of teachable moments.

What are teachable moments? Those are the time when you are with your kids and a subject matter comes up where you insert some casual comments that can open up to an actual conversation, either then or later in the future. It can either grow into a full blown conversation where questions are asked and answered or experiences are shared. The important thing is that your child gets some input that they might not have gotten otherwise.

Some examples of teachable moments:
• You’re watching television and someone is smoking, drinking, or doing drugs
• Commercials
• Being out in public and seeing graffiti on a wall
• Hearing about something that happened to someone in their school
• Listening to the radio
• Jokes

Teachable moments can at arise at any place and any time so be aware of them. Watch for them and be ready for them by doing research ahead of time and knowing what kind of information you want your kids to have. Know what you think about issues likes teen sex, drugs, drinking, and smoking and think of ways to say it without pointing fingers at them. After all, they haven’t done anything at this point – you just want to do some preventative action.

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Want to know more about dealing with teens and drug issues? Watch for my e-book, Drugs - What You and Your Teenager Need to Know, coming soon!

Jen & Barb - Mom Friendships

admin — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 04:13:38 +0000

Girlfriends are important but having mommy friends can help you get through some of the tough spots.

Your Teens and Their Friends

admin — Sat, 18 Jul 2009 07:43:28 +0000

How “good” your parenting is often does not have the biggest role in your child’s choice to experiment with drugs. There are many reasons that kids choose to try drugs and lack of time with their parents, lack of communication, and lack of information is not always the reason. Those three factors do often come into play but just because you’ve spent a lot of quality time with your kids and speak to them about everything under the sun does not make them immune.

This is from an article that I wrote and published on Bukisa (read all of it here).

I think it is important for parents to come to realize and accept that they are no longer the center of their children’s universe. In fact, you might not even be on their Top Ten list. No matter how much you love them, how much attention you give them, or how much time you spend with them, there are simply other factors that play a huge role in their lives.

Friendships are one of the biggest influencing factors in teens lives. My daughter comes home and hits the computer, turning on her Facebook account right away. Then she picks up the phone. Sound familiar? She’s only been away from her friends for about 10-15 minutes but she feels a need to be constantly connected to them. Why?

I’m not the only one asking this question. Wayne Parker asks the same question in his article, What Friendship Means to Your Teen. He discusses things like changing patterns and social status and give some great ideas for letting your teen have the independence they crave yet keeping them close.

Basically, your teen is changing and becoming the adult that they will be in a very short time. They are learning about themselves and how they relate to the world - where they fit in. They know where they fit with you. You’re their parents and you love them (or let’s hope that is what they think). Now they need to figure out what other people think about them and whether or not they are happy with that or if they want to change it.

The bottom line is that your teen is changing and learning about themselves and they are going to look outside their home for answers.

A couple of good articles to further your reading:

Teen Growth and Development - 11-14 years - outlines physical, sociological, and intellectual changes your teen will go through and some tips to help you get through it, too. The thing I’ve implemented the most in the past couple years? Talk about it! Don’t keep it to yourself because then you really are alone but once you start talking you’ll find out that you aren’t alone at all and you can have a great support team. I talk about my daughter’s drug issues fairly often and I’m glad I have because if I hadn’t my friend would never have suspected her son of smoking pot. Because she knew I was having issues with it though, she thought to check up on him when things didn’t seem right and now her 12 year old son is getting the attention he needs (and yes, it does start that early!).
Ten Things Your Teen Son Won’t Tell You…But He Did Tell Me - great article about teen boys. I’m just getting into this one so I haven’t had a huge amount of experience with it yet. I think I’ll be referring back to this one!

How have your teens been influenced by friendships? Do they talk to you about it? Do you have other ways of finding out about it? How do you feel about “snooping”? Do you take advantage of tools that are available on the Internet to read messages, check out their Facebook profile?

I’d like to hear what you have to say about teens and friendships so leave a comment!