Parenting
Teens
How do you encourage a child who does not seem to have a focus on their future?
I have to say, and this may be a little controversial, but, my experience is that there are a lot of teenagers in the 11th or 12th grade who don’t seem to have a focus on their future because of the expectations of the adults in their lives. They’ve grown up with the adults around them expecting that they go to college.
What criteria do you use to determine what you provide for your children vs. what they need to earn?
I think that bar begins to shift in adolescence. It’s a moving target depending on what’s going on in their lives. But in adolescents, chores become a more obvious part of their life. When a child is a teenager, then there is much more focus on what they earn.
Can a parent give their child too much?
Yes, parents can give children too much, especially teenagers. And I see it happen all the time. I watch it and I’m baffled sometimes as to how parents are unable to look forward into their child’s life and understand how do you not understand what’s going to happen here.