Once your kid hits a certain age, knowing what they're up to doesn't get you very far. Let's say you know your 15-year-old child's friends use drugs - what are you going to do about it? Cut off their contact with those people, follow them around and make sure they have the "right" friends... ? I can't think of anything that wouldn't almost certainly do more harm than good.
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Now please don't tell me that you are serious in your post, please! If you ch"v know your son is hanging around teen druggies you'll just let it be? I hope to never have to experience this, but int hat event I'd reach out to a professional and have some trained specialist get my son into good company, casually and professionally, without him realizing our intervention.
There is a big difference between no intervention and what you suggest. Without the kid realizing your intervention? Most kids are smarter than that. How is somebody going to get a kid into good company? Maybe a very compliant child, but they aren't the ones getting into trouble to begin with.
Oy is this thread fun! So much to say, but so little time today because I have so many cases to review, so much to prepare for tomorrow's conference that I am probably going to have to attend instead of my underlings who are out for a few weeks and the new caseworkers don't know their a$$ from their elbows so I have to go and babysit them.
Back to business.
Isramom, I'm all for Ritalin in the dining room. Good drug when used right.
Table, I know what you are talking about, have seen it, but usually again the boys who at least "used" to go that route were not the frum ones but the rather mesorati sefaradi ones who were either on their way out or remained mesorati like the "kiddush at 11 AM, shirim veshe'arim on the radio shabbos day at 1 PM" type. Interesting.
Bubby - Fawlty towers is awesome!
Chanchy - nu, you bring an article by my good buddy Eitan? Do you know what Retourno is? Who he works with? This is NOT representative of what going on usually among DLs. I've worked with his group and the story about the kiddush...nu be'emet. Representative of what trend exactly? Nada.
There are Israeli DL kids who drink. Only they aren't DL anymore. Not "because" they drink, it's the other way around, the fact that they are drinking, and it sure as heck ISNT kiddush wine but rather junky cheap booze they buy, is because they are ALREADY OTD pretty much except for the small kipa that they slap on their heads when they walk into the house. They have not been part of the DL youth for quite a while, they are mechalel shabbos in their rooms, they are the kids who don't just text but also talk softly on the phone at 14 so momma and poppa don't hear them on shabbos afternoon, and they are hanging around with girls at 14, making out at 15, sleeping with them at 16, etc.
Drinking is only one small part of this shababian behavior.
Young adults drinking. Sure they do, but nothing like what you see abroad, simply because unless you are talking Russians and those around them it's still not an integral part of Israeli culture to go and get wasted on a Friday nite. My kids have been known to go and drink at a bar (yes), they have frum ones too, but the idea is that you get a nice (for those who like them) mixed drink, maybe two, maybe even three and have a designated driver but not because someone is wasted.
At least this is among the frum. The frei drink more but again, maybe some of the kids as a lark try to get wasted every once in a while but the older ones? In their 20s? My kids age groups? Nah...and with work friends some of them have been to chiloni bars as well for professional reasons, they don't drink more than a coke from a bottle in places like that of course, and they try not to go there because of the cigarette smoke (they all HATE it, got it from me I guess as I'm allergic) but there, too, it's rare to see middle class Israelis (who else can afford the drinks there?) get wasted. I'm not talking about the bums who buy bottles of vodka and drink it in the park. I'm talking about those who go to bars and are shelling out 50 shekel and more for a tiny glass with an umbrella on top.
Different culture still among Israelis frum and frei as compared to others abroad to which I say Boruch Hashem.
Ruchel is right, I've seen it all over France. non jews drink. They drink themselves into a stupor. Nu non jews what do you expect...
Pickle I agree with you in full that if you have given your kids good values, a strong backbone and good education there is also a good chance that they will be in the middle of a den of iniquity and won't even notice a good deal of it.
To which I say Boruch Hashem as well. Because we cant change the world, we can't een teach the world but we can hope to educate our own kids as best as we can, from age zilch. Being a mother - as my own mother taught me, may she live and be well, is a full time educating experience from the minute a child can understand you. And it never stops. I have big grown up adult kids who are mommies and daddies and I feel that I am STILL educating them about various things. I thank the Ribono Shel Olam that we are all close enough that they actually listen to me at least half the time and may even internatilze the message occasionally. But that doesn't stop me from trying to teach them ALL the time.
So...back to topic. If first and foremost we are here as mothers to RAISE and to EDUCATE our kids...is the best way to do it to keep spotless houses, have ourselves dolled up for our husband when he gets home, and serve big lavish meals with fresh ingredients daily AND have to send our kids to camp to get them out of the house so that we can have KOYACH to do all of this....and even have to ask for ZEDOKO to send them if we can't afford it...or maybe there is a better way to educate them?
Just asking (and ducking the rotten tomatoes).
Off to casework supervision for the next two hours...be back for lunch to see what happens here.
200 pages is my goal. 100 is just puny...
I have read that binge drinking is an increasing problem in France--Lyon wants to stop overnight alcohol sales.
In the UK, teen drinking is a terrible problem, much worse than America IMO. I don't know as much about drugs in schools; I would think anyone could get pot and quite a few kids have tried, but hard drugs are less common. I went to public school in the early '90s, and I didn't go to a school known for its drug problem (very middle class, neither poor nor rich kids with money to throw away), but pot wasn't hard to find then. Didn't mean we had a ton of regular smokers, but it was easy enough to get. And pot is more mainstream now, not less. So I would be completely unsurprised at a kid anywhere in the US or UK who said they could get some from friends. Doesn't mean they're a smoker, but it's definitely around.
And before binge drinking... it was just "drinking too much". Accidents in car, throwing up, passing out. No, I also do not see it. But everyone knows it is happening.
So...have all the american posters left since Mamabear moved? What about what I asked regarding camp and drugs versus being home under mommy's watchful eye and not being exposed to drugs when you aren't coming home to mommy and daddy?
So...have all the american posters left since Mamabear moved? What about what I asked regarding camp and drugs versus being home under mommy's watchful eye and not being exposed to drugs when you aren't coming home to mommy and daddy?
I hate to tell you this, fs, but this thread is dying. I would try to start a fight with you to keep it going, but when you and I start debating that's really the death knell.
My suggestion - wait a while, let it calm down and let people forget they aren't following this thread anymore, then come back as "amother" and post something inflammatory about tznius.
So...have all the american posters left since Mamabear moved? What about what I asked regarding camp and drugs versus being home under mommy's watchful eye and not being exposed to drugs when you aren't coming home to mommy and daddy?
I hate to tell you this, fs, but this thread is dying. I would try to start a fight with you to keep it going, but when you and I start debating that's really the death knell.
My suggestion - wait a while, let it calm down and let people forget they aren't following this thread anymore, then come back as "amother" and post something inflammatory about tznius.
We must keep the thread going! I know...how do you feel about having so many trips in camp? Are they necessary? If camp is funded by tzedaka, should it be wading pools and simple arts and crafts?
My kids are doing a considerable number of trips. The principal claims neither he nor parents can occupy kids with simpler activities for ten minutes.
When I was in the tween division of a day camp, the director disabused us of the notion that there should be a trip every day. But now that same program is called Teen Travel, and there is a trip every day. A sign of our times?
Do you think camps should require vaccinations?
Do you think camps should have strict tznius rules, like during the school year? Should girls in all-girl camps be allowed to relax the tznius rules?
Should tzedaka money be used to vaccinate a child so s/he can attend camp?
Should tzedaka money be used to vaccinate a child so s/he can attain clothing appropriate for camp?
We must keep the thread going! I know...how do you feel about having so many trips in camp? Are they necessary? If camp is funded by tzedaka, should it be wading pools and simple arts and crafts?
My kids are doing a considerable number of trips. The principal claims neither he nor parents can occupy kids with simpler activities for ten minutes.
When I was in the tween division of a day camp, the director disabused us of the notion that there should be a trip every day. But now that same program is called Teen Travel, and there is a trip every day. A sign of our times?
Whenever something is called, "A sign of our times," it makes me feel old.
Anyway, I registered dd for camp and now a child I don't want her associating with has also registered. This other girl has bad middos and waaaay too much freedom for my taste. (Read: unlimited Internet access, no curfew, no limits that I see.) We're talking early teens here.
There is no other camp for my dd to go to and she's been looking forward to this all year.
Now what?
So...have all the american posters left since Mamabear moved? What about what I asked regarding camp and drugs versus being home under mommy's watchful eye and not being exposed to drugs when you aren't coming home to mommy and daddy?
I had to leave my almost 12 y.o. son alone for an hour. He was in the middle of a certain innocuous (you could even argue it was great for hand/eye coordination) game but I really didn't want to leave him on that website for so long. He said, you know, you're upstairs for so long sometimes I could easily be on something else and switch when I hear you coming downstairs.
Ok, let me contribute a bit more to this thread to keep it going: camp campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
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campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
Last edited by shosh on Wed, Jul 20 2011, 5:20 pm; edited 1 time in total
Ok, let me contribute a bit more to this thread to keep it going: camp campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
I guess I should really go to bed, but sometimes being silly on here keeps me awake long enough to finish writing about crock pots and cupcakes when I'm really tired.
Still that's my contribution towards getting this thread up to 100 pages. If I see you guys flagging, I'll add some more!
Ok, let me contribute a bit more to this thread to keep it going: camp campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
campcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcampcamp
Shosh, not to be nosey but WHY did you edit this?
Because I thought that the plot wasn't exciting enough so I had to change it somewhat!
I hope to never have to experience this, but int hat event I'd reach out to a professional and have some trained specialist get my son into good company, casually and professionally, without him realizing our intervention.
