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Teens (my teen) and the internet

May 12, 2018 by Jen

There’s no escaping it, my lad (nearly 17) loves gaming. Therefore he wants to, and usually does, spend a lot of time at his computer online gaming. I don’t like it because I think he should be doing other things as well – ie away from the screen and the internet.

Our modem allows me to set times on and off for particular devices and I have set it up for his computer as this is what he spends the bulk of his screen time on. This was after negotiating with him about these times. If we argue about anything it’s the times I’ve allocated to when it goes off particularly around the times on the weekend although he’s hardly mentioned it recently.

This negotiation included him taking some more responsibility for things around the house. He already has jobs to do and now that he wants to stay up later he has to cook once a week. This was implemented at the beginning of this year. Plus it’s a good life skill to have. I’ll always remember the time I travelled with a mid 20s male friend and when I broached taking it in turns to cook in the evenings he said he’d never cooked before. The first meal of overcooked rice and baked beans was nearly edible and it could only go up from there.

At the moment I usually tell him when and what he’s going to cook. It’s not been easy to get this process happening. Even though he agrees with it in principle, the reality is often a bit different. I’ve told him that if he doesn’t cook once a week then I’m revising his technology cut-off time. He’ll still push for me to help him and by helping he means being his kitchen hand. I try to remain as hands off as possible because otherwise he’ll never learn. For the most part what he cooks is pretty edible although the recent chorizo cassoulet was a bit dry and I realised he’d left out the stock. He also doesn’t like that part of cooking means cleaning up but as I’ve reasoned with him is that I’m happy for him to clean up every time I cook and I’ll do the same for him. He decided to clean up after himself and cleans up reasonably well after he cooks.

Recently he refused to go his school’s sports day because none of his mates were going. I can’t physically make a 6’5” young man do anything so all I had were other consequences and those included turning off the wifi for his computer and leaving him a long list of jobs to do for the day. Fortunately this was followed up an after-school detention as well. However I refused to sign a note excusing him for the day for him to get out of this after school detention.

But being the resourceful young man he is he found a way of assigning his computer a different MAC address so he could connect to our wifi. When I realised what he was doing I found that you can download software to spoof your computer’s MAC address for this type of thing. The modem thinks it’s a different device to what I’ve turned off so he can then connect.

Unless I turn off the wifi for all devices I don’t have a technological leg to stand on. So it was back to negotiation. And this is the key. MAC spoofing must have its drawbacks so the negotiation went better than I expected.

MAC spoofing is no longer being used – although sometimes threats are made to turn it back on.

In regards to the amount of time he spends gaming? Maybe it’s not too bad after all. At least he’s showing that he can commit to something. He is ranked in the top 7% of the game he plays.

Penelope Trunk has given me some hope about my son’s gaming habit.

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Must be doing something right

September 8, 2017 by Jen

Sun through the clouds the other day.

Sometimes you wonder how you’re going as a parent. After all there aren’t annual performance reviews to keep you on track ( I actually think performance reviews necessarily do this). But parenting is hard as any parent will attest if they’re not completely deluded.

My biggest fear has always been making a big mess of it and having him spend his adult life in therapy trying to get back on track.

There’s the little day-to-day annoyances with parenting a teen and you wonder how they will ever cope as an adult. I got a phone call the other afternoon after he got home from school. I was having a quick meeting with a colleague while I apologised and took the call, and my son asked me what he was going to eat as there was no cereal left. Of course there was no other food in the house that he could eat! Well none that was convenient as taking a box of weetbix, a bowl and the milk to his bedroom so he could eat a few bowls worth while doing homework gaming on his computer.

I told him to eat porridge and then had to remind him where the oats were and how to cook it.

Or there was the day I got home from work and he’d tidied his room because he’d found a couple of mice in the rubbish bin having a fine old time eating crumbs from the empty food packets. Luckily our dog is a good mouser so they were taken care of and then removed from the house. It’s not the ideal way to get him to tidy his room!

Yesterday’s after school phone call was a bit different. He was walking home from the bus and saw an elderly woman struggling to get her rubbish bins back to her yard. He said he ummed and aaahed about whether to offer help, but he did offer his help. It was gratefully received and he said it made him feel really good.

I must admit hearing this story made me feel really good as well. And these moments are what get you through the other more annoying moments and let you know that maybe he won’t be in continuous therapy as an adult.

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What’s going on?

September 2, 2017 by Jen

I’ve been writing here since April 2004 and if there’s anyone still left here you’ve probably noticed I don’t really add that much here any more.

What started out mostly as a parenting blog moved away from that once my son started getting older. He’s now 16 and – believe me – it’s not like there’s still not plenty of material to draw from as a parent but I don’t feel it’s my story to tell any more. Although I’d really like to lay it all bare here when it comes to parenting a teen I’m not going to. Although I was interviewed about being a sole parent of a teen by Nicole at Planning with Kids late last year and I do share some snippets there.

Said teen now has his learner’s permit and I’m doing a minor freak out about being on the road with him as a driver but even more so that he will be on the road by himself at some stage and that’s scary. Scary because of things that can happen but scary because in under 2 years he’ll be a legal adult!

So, I haven’t been writing here that much but felt I was lacking a creative aspect to my life. I’d been sitting on an idea for a while about a creative project and after a bit of a push by someone I’ve finally started it.

At the very least it will give me skills that I can bring to my paid employment and I’m interested to see where it can take me outside of that.

It’s not a money making venture at the moment, and it may never be.

The idea came about is because of my love for finding bargains in op-shops. I started op-shopping in the late 1980s and have been collecting clothing since then – when you could be a 1970s item of clothing for a couple of dollars or less. An example. I bought a purple knee-length leather coat from a school fete for $2.50. You’d be lucky to get something like it now for under $50. I’ve still got, and wear, the leather coat.

Now it’s 30 years later (bloody hell), buying vintage is expensive so I don’t really buy those items any more. I tend to stick to everyday clothing and much of my work wardrobe is second hand. I think some items in op-shops are over-priced. When you see a really gaudy 80s frock that you would only ever wear as a dress up on sale for $30 you’ve got to wonder. I remember picking up a safari suit for $4 with an ex-boyfriend some years ago. Now you hardly ever see them second hand and if you do they’re upwards of $40.

Anyway, the new website is thriftyclifty.com. Please head over and have a visit, and if you like op-shops and live in Adelaide, check out my map of op shops in Adelaide.

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This can be what it’s like living with a teen

March 3, 2017 by Jen

You’re at work and you get a phone call at about the time he gets home from school. That’s good. You like to know that he’s home safely. He’s quite excited and breathlessly tells me that when he got home he didn’t have his keys and he couldn’t find the spare keys, ‘because you keep moving them’. Side note, when you’ve got a teen it’s ALWAYS your fault. Never mind that I moved the keys once – which I told him about – and I moved them back to their original spot – which I also told him about, and showed him as well. And never mind that he’d used these keys a couple of weeks ago and promised me he’d put them back after he used them.

He climbed over the gate. I’m not sure why as we have 2 side gates that can be opened fairly easily.

He found a window around the back that wasn’t locked and managed to crawl through it and get inside. He was glad that on this particularly hot day he didn’t have to catch the bus to my work to get my keys.

Now, this window that was left open? We’d opened it 2 months ago when I had a party so an extension cord could fit through it to power some lights I set up out the back. I’d been asking him for the 2 months to make sure he’d locked it properly. But lucky he hadn’t hey?

When I got home from work, we looked in the spare key vicinity to try and find them. They definitely weren’t there.

He decided to look in his room because they might be there. Note to self. Steal keys occasionally and make him look for them in his room so it gets tidied! I can live with clothes on the floor until he can’t find something. I don’t like empty or nearly empty food packets, or dirty plates and glasses because I want to keep the mice and cockroaches away.

I had a look in the key bowl by the front door. Lo and behold there they were. However, he still couldn’t find his own keys.

But his keys turned up in his pencil case as he discovered the next day at school.

All’s well that ends well. All house keys are accounted for. The teen’s room is relatively tidy. All windows are locked and secured.

Until the next time.

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Love, wonder #nanowrimoprompt

November 7, 2016 by Jen

Everywhere we went people commented on his height

My lad and I recently came back from a two week holiday to Borneo, Malaysia. It had been three years since we went away together and I looked forward to this trip for many reasons.

He was/is a great travelling companion and I loved travelling with him. He, mostly, uncomplainingly tagged along with me while I looked around shops. He didn’t whinge, even when the wifi wasn’t really that great or when we had to get up on some early mornings to go somewhere. He enjoyed himself and adapted to the places we found ourselves in.

He’s tall – about 6’3″ – so he stood out in Malayasia and with good humour he took all the comments about his height –  ‘He reaches up to the heavens’, ‘He’s so high’. And he put up with the obvious glances his way as we walked past people or if we caught an elevator. He also didn’t complain when squashed into economy seats on our flights.

Sure there were times he didn’t want to do what I wanted to do but mostly it was great and considering that we spent just over two weeks right next to each other pretty much all the time we arrived home still speaking to each other and with some fabulous memories.

When we visited the Petronas twin towers in Kuala Lumpur I took the above photo on purpose – they’re really high and he’s high for his age. I look at him in awe sometimes and wonder how the hell I helped produce that, and not just because of his physical stature but because of some of the really insightful things he says.

He’s all right.

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He can be pleasant

February 23, 2016 by Jen

Now that he’s 14 I feel more comfortable leaving him at home by himself some times. And he’s more than comfortable with that as well – to the point of saying goodbye to me and whooping it up behind the door as I leave. However, there are times when I tell him that he will be coming with me – no negotiation. Of course he tries to negotiate. And he pleads. And he argues. And this is all repeated. I used to get caught up in the back-and-forth but I’ve learned to back off and walk away.

I tell him that this is what we’re doing and when we’re doing it. I give him plenty of notice because the delay tactics come into play. He’ll decide he needs to eat so out comes the cereal and milk. This is why I allow plenty of time or have something on hand to eat in the car.

I find all of this harder to deal with than getting him and all his belongings as a baby or toddler out of the door. At least he didn’t argue then.

And once he’s out and over the fact that he’s not at home by himself it’s usually pretty good.

One of our recent outings was to see the Brighton sculptures. Below are the photos with one of him actually letting me take a photo of him. Also a rare occurrence these days.

LionBrighton sculptures 2016Brighton sculptures 2016Brighton sculptures 2016Dog - best friend

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Renewal

August 28, 2015 by Jen

Spring is letting winter know that it's time to go

I’ve let this blog languish almost as long as it’s been winter. Spring is on its way though and is letting winter know it will be kicked to the kerb for another nine months. Maybe spring will help renew me around here too.

It’s been an interesting few months.

I overheard a conversation in a cafe a few weeks ago which could change my life in a fairly major way even though I’d been heading in that direction anyway. Am not spilling beans on this overheard conversation until things are settled though.

I was on the radio recently. I was approached out of the blue to speak about venting online from an online specialist point of view. While I was being briefed/asked if I would go on, part of me was thinking – no, no no. The other part of me thought, what the heck – take a risk. I listened to the other part and did it. Without having listened to myself I think I did okay. And I didn’t embarrass myself or get stuck for words. I was on the other end of a phone which made it a bit easier I think, and they had another person on discussing the same topic so the focus wasn’t totally on me anyway.

My son is a few months into his 14th year now and it’s an interesting journey. I’m finding I have to let the type of control I used to have with him go. I’m finding that really hard. It’s particularly hard around how much time he thinks he should spend playing xbox, compared to the amount of time I think he should be allowed on it. Overall though, he’s pretty pleasant and seems to be liking high school.

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