My friend I was discussing this with has decided that we as parents just have to pick our kid's friends for them so that they stay with the good kids. However, my parents could never have picked my friends for me and I don't see that being at all realistic. Also, "good" kids do dumb things sometimes so how are you going to know which ones to pick even if you could???? I think the best you can do there is try to steer them away from ones that you can tell are trouble. But if you push too hard that can back fire too.
Agreed.
I think telling is much less effective than *asking questions.* "That kid is bad news. Stay away from him/her" is a statement practically *guaranteed* to make the child your child's best friend for life!
OTOH, "How do you feel when your friend acts like that?" is much more likely to lead that particular horse to water AND make him/her drink.
These kids are not dumb, so obviously less is more. But lectures don't work. Making them think at least has a chance of better results, I think.
I also think that people don't talk about values enough with their kids. And I don't mean the conservative-friendly nonsense that often passes for values these days. I mean talking to kids about what they believe, about what matters to them, as well as what matters to us as parents and as people. I mean helping a kid to think about the future and what s/he wants out of life.
Kids who can envision a future for themselves don't want to "live fast and die young." They recognize that they have something to lose, and they don't want to lose it. This is actually what finally turned my GT and underachieving DH around as a teen/young man. He realized he was actually going to survive past 21 (something he didn't think he'd do for much of his teen life), and he didn't want to screw up what was looking to be a long life with drinking or drugs or maybe even prison. He pulled himself up by the bootstraps, put himself through college, and made a professional out of himself. I admire him for that.
The power of the "permanant record" is strong if the child can believe in a future for him/herself. If s/he cannot, then there's very little that any parent can do, I think, to make that teenage wasteland matter to a kid.
A life without a future in sight is a bleak one.
And, no, EandCMom, you knew that wasn't going to be my last thought, didn't you!
Not possible!
