The problem isn't inattentive parents. It's helicopter/bulldozer parents. Please invite parents from non-Western traditions. Eastern Europeans and Asians. They are achieving things that Western parents are not, and I'm sure they have valuable perspectives. No style of parenting is perfect, and kids aren't science kits that will give you one predictable outcome as long as you mix the right ingredients together. But American parenting is a disaster.
Thanks for doing this! My son submitted an essay and it generated a ton of great family conversation and really sparked a passion for the his theme, the loss of free expression on college campuses.
A functioning method to keep teenagers from discovering porn has not been invented yet and I'm afraid it never will. The more sexually restrictive a society is the more teenagers long for porn. Therefore I don't think we should be trying to keep our offspring away from porn, but be trying to have some influence on what kind of porn young people are exposed to instead and talk to them about what a healthy sex life should look like and what to avoid in that field, getting addicted to porn being one of those traps. After all there are different kinds of porn. Some porn is sexualizing violence, degrading sexual partners and reinforcing all kind of sick fantasies and ultimately sick behaviour while other kinds of porn can promote a responsible and healthy approach to that exciting new field of human nature teenagers are about to discover. And "good porn" can be a very beneficial thing for kids whose parents are too inhibited themselves to even try to talk to them about sexuality like it was the case in my family half a century ago. So, let's try and make a balanced approach to "kids and porn".
The cause of screen and porn addiction is simple but so frightening that we consistently refuse to address it, even here at The Free Press. Children become addicted to substances or behaviors only because they’re in emotional pain, the same reason that people become addicted to alcohol or drugs. Ah, but what is the source of the pain? More than anything, children want to feel loved unconditionally, which means to be loved without any disappointment or irritation. But rarely do they get that, which is unbearably painful to a child. Then they use anything—screens, porn, cutting, anger, and much more—that will diminish the pain. The solution comes not from schools, programs, or the government. The answer is to teach parents how to give their children unconditional love. The answer is not a mystery. Find it at RealLoveParents.com, a free site dedicated to teaching parents.
The other sacred cow is video games, hyperviolent, hyper sexual, addictive video games. Those games teach kids to act out by getting weapons, and going into corridors and rooms to seek out and slaughter as many people as possible. Those games teach them to hijack cars and kill people for fun and profit.
But no! No connection to kids and young adults that go and do that. Nothing to see here folks! Profits are sacred!
The US Army showed that simply by training troops to shoot at human looking profile targets, they could multiply their force factor by about 5 times. Prior targets were bullseye targets. Troops would fire with intent to kill about 15% of all shots fired. After profiles? It reversed. About 15% were not fired with intent.
Mothers don't know because they don't want to know. I was involved with a good friend's kids because they needed it and she was a friend. I took the 13 year old on a camping trip and on the way he talked about "this video" the kids were grossing each other out with. "Two women and a cup." He wanted to know if he would have to do that with girls.
I didn't tell his mom any specifics, just that he was entering puberty and needed positive role models. A home schooling (but not super religious) mom, she responded by telling me I was not to have anything to do with her children! Not her child!
Fast forward, that kid got into cannabis concentrates, put her in a headlock on a public street to steal her car for drugs. Then she asked me to talk to him. Didn't work. The kid had become a delivery boy for drug dealers in the SF Bay Area. That got him into homes of the rich and famous.
He straightened out for a couple years and did well in college. Next time I talked to Mom she had to evict him and he was homeless and spychotic from drugs. She was the archetype of that velcro mom who makes perfect meals and has perfect kids and home schools.
A neighbor mom introduced the kid to cannabis concentrates when he was 14. Shortly after she cut me out of her kids lives because obviously I corrupt her kids.
These two essays represent privileged kids from privileged backgrounds. Midland school costs $74K per year. Helicopter parenting is a symptom of upper income families. Again, FP needs to reach out to non-traditional writers from UN-privileged backgrounds and get a different perspective. Kudos to these two young people, but I'm unimpressed. I want to hear from kids from rural Iowa or West Virginia. I want to hear from kids who haven't had a childhood with first world problems. America is full of these stories, yet we never hear them.
Seriously. Just Sunday night I went for a walk and ended up talking to another mom. Her son is getting out of prison where he's been clean. And her son's girlfriend, who is still using, her dad was so desperate he chained her in the garage for a month. He can't afford to send his daughter to rehab.
How fast do you think the boyfriend will be using again when he reunites with his girlfriend. Maybe the madness slaughtering middle America is real. Either way, with nobody but Trump to articulate the rage they're feeling, we shouldn't be surprised we're fading as a country. I wish we had better leaders.
We talked about exactly that, she and I. She has put herself at risk for losing her home. She wants him to live with her and take care of the family. He does concrete work. Makes good money. It told her to take care of her daughter.
Ask yourself, why should he care? Why shouldn't he just go back to addiction? What does his life amount to? Work his ass off, break his body down, and be looked down on, called the enemy? What does anyone's life amount to today? Why give a damn?
Jung said it a long time ago. Addiction is a spiritual problem.
But yeah, these kids might be listened to because they are the children of the upper class. Take the win you can get. Deplorables get to die or be called deplorable because they band together with other kids and form a gang with a credo that also has some kind of bigotry that they see as being against the madness slaughtering them.
Or worse, they find Jesus or something and go to church. Then they are the deplorable fringe.
Teenagers not having sex is a bad thing? In prehistoric times, yes. Since the 19th c? No. Not a bad thing. Unless abortion is a form of birth control.
These are both great essays - congratulations to the writers and I can’t wait to read the “winner”.
We need to 1st and foremost Commend & Congratulate BOTH these Talented young writers and thank TheFP for Sponsoring & Encouraging Students to WRITE !
Both Essays were Amazing - it took a bit of courage & vulnerability to express these experiences & their effects. Well Done!
Well, here’s two kids who should have an easy time with their college essays. Well done!
The problem isn't inattentive parents. It's helicopter/bulldozer parents. Please invite parents from non-Western traditions. Eastern Europeans and Asians. They are achieving things that Western parents are not, and I'm sure they have valuable perspectives. No style of parenting is perfect, and kids aren't science kits that will give you one predictable outcome as long as you mix the right ingredients together. But American parenting is a disaster.
Thanks for doing this! My son submitted an essay and it generated a ton of great family conversation and really sparked a passion for the his theme, the loss of free expression on college campuses.
A functioning method to keep teenagers from discovering porn has not been invented yet and I'm afraid it never will. The more sexually restrictive a society is the more teenagers long for porn. Therefore I don't think we should be trying to keep our offspring away from porn, but be trying to have some influence on what kind of porn young people are exposed to instead and talk to them about what a healthy sex life should look like and what to avoid in that field, getting addicted to porn being one of those traps. After all there are different kinds of porn. Some porn is sexualizing violence, degrading sexual partners and reinforcing all kind of sick fantasies and ultimately sick behaviour while other kinds of porn can promote a responsible and healthy approach to that exciting new field of human nature teenagers are about to discover. And "good porn" can be a very beneficial thing for kids whose parents are too inhibited themselves to even try to talk to them about sexuality like it was the case in my family half a century ago. So, let's try and make a balanced approach to "kids and porn".
The cause of screen and porn addiction is simple but so frightening that we consistently refuse to address it, even here at The Free Press. Children become addicted to substances or behaviors only because they’re in emotional pain, the same reason that people become addicted to alcohol or drugs. Ah, but what is the source of the pain? More than anything, children want to feel loved unconditionally, which means to be loved without any disappointment or irritation. But rarely do they get that, which is unbearably painful to a child. Then they use anything—screens, porn, cutting, anger, and much more—that will diminish the pain. The solution comes not from schools, programs, or the government. The answer is to teach parents how to give their children unconditional love. The answer is not a mystery. Find it at RealLoveParents.com, a free site dedicated to teaching parents.
The other sacred cow is video games, hyperviolent, hyper sexual, addictive video games. Those games teach kids to act out by getting weapons, and going into corridors and rooms to seek out and slaughter as many people as possible. Those games teach them to hijack cars and kill people for fun and profit.
But no! No connection to kids and young adults that go and do that. Nothing to see here folks! Profits are sacred!
The US Army showed that simply by training troops to shoot at human looking profile targets, they could multiply their force factor by about 5 times. Prior targets were bullseye targets. Troops would fire with intent to kill about 15% of all shots fired. After profiles? It reversed. About 15% were not fired with intent.
Since then, the military has improved simulation.
Video games are training simulators.
Mothers don't know because they don't want to know. I was involved with a good friend's kids because they needed it and she was a friend. I took the 13 year old on a camping trip and on the way he talked about "this video" the kids were grossing each other out with. "Two women and a cup." He wanted to know if he would have to do that with girls.
I didn't tell his mom any specifics, just that he was entering puberty and needed positive role models. A home schooling (but not super religious) mom, she responded by telling me I was not to have anything to do with her children! Not her child!
Fast forward, that kid got into cannabis concentrates, put her in a headlock on a public street to steal her car for drugs. Then she asked me to talk to him. Didn't work. The kid had become a delivery boy for drug dealers in the SF Bay Area. That got him into homes of the rich and famous.
He straightened out for a couple years and did well in college. Next time I talked to Mom she had to evict him and he was homeless and spychotic from drugs. She was the archetype of that velcro mom who makes perfect meals and has perfect kids and home schools.
A neighbor mom introduced the kid to cannabis concentrates when he was 14. Shortly after she cut me out of her kids lives because obviously I corrupt her kids.
These are excellent essays. I can't wait to read the winner's contribution.
What a sad situation. However it does give me hope that there are young people that see the issues and speak out.
These two essays represent privileged kids from privileged backgrounds. Midland school costs $74K per year. Helicopter parenting is a symptom of upper income families. Again, FP needs to reach out to non-traditional writers from UN-privileged backgrounds and get a different perspective. Kudos to these two young people, but I'm unimpressed. I want to hear from kids from rural Iowa or West Virginia. I want to hear from kids who haven't had a childhood with first world problems. America is full of these stories, yet we never hear them.
Seriously. Just Sunday night I went for a walk and ended up talking to another mom. Her son is getting out of prison where he's been clean. And her son's girlfriend, who is still using, her dad was so desperate he chained her in the garage for a month. He can't afford to send his daughter to rehab.
That's how the deplorables are living.
How fast do you think the boyfriend will be using again when he reunites with his girlfriend. Maybe the madness slaughtering middle America is real. Either way, with nobody but Trump to articulate the rage they're feeling, we shouldn't be surprised we're fading as a country. I wish we had better leaders.
We talked about exactly that, she and I. She has put herself at risk for losing her home. She wants him to live with her and take care of the family. He does concrete work. Makes good money. It told her to take care of her daughter.
Ask yourself, why should he care? Why shouldn't he just go back to addiction? What does his life amount to? Work his ass off, break his body down, and be looked down on, called the enemy? What does anyone's life amount to today? Why give a damn?
Jung said it a long time ago. Addiction is a spiritual problem.
She could go to NarAnon. Loving an addict is a spiritual problem also.
That's fentanyl and meth.
But yeah, these kids might be listened to because they are the children of the upper class. Take the win you can get. Deplorables get to die or be called deplorable because they band together with other kids and form a gang with a credo that also has some kind of bigotry that they see as being against the madness slaughtering them.
Or worse, they find Jesus or something and go to church. Then they are the deplorable fringe.
A whole basket of them
Thank you, Bari--sobering, eye opening, concerning, and simultaneously inspiring to hear such eloquent and influential voices.
Yikes!
Technology break - we can learn from young people if we are open to it.
PornHub - wait / WHAT? Frightening message and everyone in charge needs to take action now.
This contest was an amazing opportunity to hear from our future. Looking forward to tomorrow’s insight.
Pornhub.com . Kink.com . The list is endless. But pornhub is the biggest.