Are parents aware of their teens?

I am back. Now armed with a scanner to add to my blogging arsenal. What I need next, is a digital camera that I am allowed to bring outside without asking for permission. And connect to my new laptop. But looking at the clumsy person that I am, ("Hey hi! So how's li..*bang*") my mum and I have reached a consensus that it isn't safe for me to bring the camera out. No deal signed, but it's understood.

Alright this morning I was pointed out to a newspaper article by my dad from the Sunday Times. It relates to me in terms of age, but considering my lifestyle, man, it's far from me. So here's the newspaper article for you lazy bums bilge rats. Aye!


(Click on image to enlarge) Sunday Times, gen y, page 40

Anyway I'm 100% sure that I wouldn't be in any party, booze or no booze, gays or no gays, girls or no girls, in the next 10 years of my life. I'm too career-orientated to attend any party, be it class gathering (which I have not been to a single one since primary school) or anything that involves chalet or overnight stay.

To start, I am very sure from my life experience that it depends on self-discipline. Know your priorities, know your purpose of going to the party, and understand that there is a limit to everything. The reason why I have not been to a single party is mainly because of restrictions from above, but my dad and I know my priorities.

In any case, one must understand that yes, there is a time to play, and there is a time to be serious. I'm not speaking from a view point of a religious person in any way, but I'm simply taking the position of a sensible person. If you know that after consuming alcohol, you're unlikely to have control of your own senses, then don't consume any! I once had an harrowing experience of really being egged on to smoke - that was after my performance for the Cancer Society at Singapore Conference Hall. There was a barbecue a week later, and during the barbecue I was egged on by three people to smoke because they offered me one. And the rest of the people were hardly doing anything to persuade me not to! Well I didn't take the smoke in the end, otherwise I believe my life will be crap now.

The newspaper article rightly points some of the blame to the parents, and indeed, it is the parents that should be clicking with their child, and have a close relationship with their teen. Here's a quote from Mr Gn Chiang Tat, Youth Guidance Outreach Services programme director.

"If the teen is looking for some way of release, and if he doesn't have a close relationship with his mum and dad, what's going to stop him from smoking, drinking, having sex and consuming drugs behind their backs?"

The parents play a very important part in guiding their child in terms of education, socialising, and discipline. Parents should already be more aware of their child's behavior, and definitely be in charge of their upbringing. Of course, the teens themselves really have to be in control and have a sense of self-discipline. Being teens, it will only be a few years before they go into the working world already, where one has to act and think maturely.

There was also mention of the amount of freedom a parent should give to a child - freedom, I feel, in this case, should be considered a privilege by the teen. There must be a substantial amount of control from the parents, so much so that over a long period of time, the teen is instilled a sense of discipline, and knows what is accessible and what is not.

Summing it up, it's really up to the teen's self-discipline! And of course some parental guidance.

My dad is really getting nervous about tonight's football games. Here's something I remembered a few days back. My dad returned home from an examination on a course he signed up on. The night before, he asked to borrow a couple of stationary. So there was the pencil, the pen, the correction tape, the eraser, and not forgetting the ruler. He did his exam the next day, and when he came back home, he took out the pencil case, and then the correction tape.

So he proceeded to say, "How does this thing work? I tried holding it like this (holds it awkwardly, gripping it like a handshake) and like this (turns it over this time, upside-down) but I still couldn't apply it on paper!"

"Did you take of the cap?"

"Yes I did!"

"Show me how you did it dad"

"(Grips the tape on the correct side, proceeds to press it on the paper, but no tape came out) Sometimes it works but sometimes it doesn't. What's the problem?"

"Dad, it's like this. (Proceeds to hold it correctly and easily pulls it across the paper)"

":O oh..."

We do learn new things everyday! My dad hasn't been in touch with correction tapes simply because he, like me, has learnt the art of cancelling.

Here's cheers to the end of another day.