OK – so the whole family just watched an episode of the now Netflix series of Fuller House – and admittedly – it deals with some issues that are a little more mature than the life stage of our children. However – we take these opportunities to talk to the kids about those issues and lay the groundwork for a relationship of trust and communication, with us as parents, that they will be able to rely on in the future. I talked a little more about this in an earlier post titled Avoiding Life’s Hard Lessons.
So this episode dealt with two of the teen characters (Ramona & Jackson) going to a party, which Ramona sincerely expected and simply characterized as a bunch of 9th graders playing Mario Cart. Well it ended up that the seniors from the football team crashed the party and brought beer. Jackson – who is the kicker for the football team – succumbed to the peer pressure to drink and Ramona ended up texting her father to discretely pick them up – which he did.
So – because I am the supreme master of the remote when the family watches TV together – I paused the episode to address the issue with the kids. Melani & I explained that what Ramona did was the right thing to do. Better to get home safely – and deal with angry parents – then risk far worse consequences – like potentially getting hurt having one of the drunk seniors try to drive them home so no one would know that Jackson got drunk.
I know that some parents have texting codes for their kids to use for situations like this – and I told the kids that we could have two codes.
Option 1) They could text me SR-71 for a stealthy and quick extraction. No drama – quick and quiet like the Lockheed SR-71 Blackbird.
Option 2) Pt 78 – Hard & Heavy – like the element Platinum. Lot’s of drama and maybe a little head banging for anyone giving one of my kids any trouble!
OK – I may have grabbed Dominick’s pajama top and ruffled him up a little bit since he was right next to me – but only to demonstrate what the Hard & Heavy might entail…
The kids got a kick out of that – but at the same time they understood that the issue is serious – and the consequences could be life or death. So I use a little humor and drama to illustrate my point. Gracie really liked the idea of the rescue codes and said that we needed to write them down…
…. And I told her – no need – I would write it in my blog that same night – and we would have a record of it or the future. Yes – they really are my primary audience for this project!
Sincerely,
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