Prevent your teen from running away

No Parent wants their child to end up in the streets as a runaway. It happens though - over 100,000 children run away every year often over family problems.

It seems more and more common that teenagers are running away more and more. Parents of all walks of life are asking what it is that they can do.....The answers are never easy. Teens are not the easiest people in the world to deal with - however, there are a few things that a parent can do to possibly eliminate this somewhat if not totally.

Lets start first with criticizing; as a person yourself, you don't want to go to work every day and have your boss or coworker criticize you do you? That would make it virtually impossible to go to work or even want to go to work and try and have a productive day.

So with that in mind why would you want to critcize your teen and force them to have a miserable day?

I am not talking about constructive criticism - I am talking about criticizing every little thing that they do wrong. Everyone of us makes mistakes - your child is going to make mistakes as well.

The key is how you handle the mistake.

Be honest with your teen. Just like you know when they are lying to you - they are keen enough to know when you are lying to them. Admit your mistakes so that your child will be able to see that you as the parent are taking responsibility of your mistakes. What a great lesson to teach your child.

For instance - remember when you were young and you got into trouble? Remember the feeling of not wanting your parents to find out because you were scared? Admit these feelings to your teen. Tell them about a few of the mistakes you yourself made in the past. It will amaze you how your teen will look at you in a totally different light.

Moving along - if you ground your teen to their room or take away phone priviledges etc., dont tell them one day that they are grounded and then feel bad the next day and let them off. If you gave them a week of grounding let them have a week grounding. Losing permission to go out with thier friends or talk on the phone is not going to be the end of their social life for ever - they might think so but it wont be. Stick to your rules on this.

Someday your child will have children and they will use this type of training on their children.

Now one of the biggest mistakes is when parents ignore their teens feelings. Teenagers are moody. They are no different than you when you were a teen. For instance - remember when you were trying to impress a certain guy or girl in school? Or you wanted the other kids to like you so that you could be one of the so called popular kids in school....

Your teen is no different. It may seem a little weird because you forget that they are not the same little kid who you used to have to help them pick out their clothing or remind them to look both ways when they cross the street - it may seem as if while you looked away they suddenly grew up.

As parents we often get so caught up in the adult world. The world that forces us to go to work everyday, pay bills and lose that fun child-like freedom. Live life through your child eyes.

If your child does runaway here are your options:

1. contact law enforcement immediately - you do NOT have to wait 24 hours.
2. contact the Watchful Eye Foundation

At the Watchful Eye Foundation we will assist in the following:

create flyers to post; provide you with flyers that you can use to pass out to your childs friends, hang in stores etc. We want YOU to find your child. We will also assist you with calling in your missing/runaway child to the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children. Once your information is turned into them your child's information is sent out all over the United States to persons such as law enforcement, and others.

The Watchful Eye has volunteers as well that go out and hang flyers, knock on doors, etc. In addition to that we use the same flyer and post it in an email "blast" throughout the Siouxland area to an established list of persons and businesses in the tri state area of our location.

The Watchful Eye will also let law enforcement know that the parents have come to them for additional assistance and work closely with police on any tips that might come into the Watchful Eye office.

We also will contact news media and/or refer the parents to the media. An example of this is once when we had a missing/runaway boy, the pressure that was put on the public by both the Mundo Latino newspaper and the Watchful Eye Foundation was enough to cause people to make numerous calls tipping off as to where the boy was. That is a perfect example of the collaberation of team work among the media that is required to bring many of these children back home.

If you have a child that has runaway, please contact our office. Regardless if your child is a runaway or not, he or she is still YOUR child and they are missing. We will do everything in our power to help YOU find them.

Our office number is: 402/412-3393 or you may email us at: watchfuleyefoundation1@yahoo.com

Gangs and Bullies

It should be - especially here in this country one of the safest things that our children can do....go to school everyday. It is too bad that it is one of those places that actually holds fear for some kids.

This is not in anyway blaming the school, they have the liason officers, security cameras, teachers on alert, etc.....but still something is wrong and a change needs to happen.

Did you know that when your son or daughter goes to school the pressure is on for them to get involved into a gang?

Did you know that the summer before they enter the Middle school that even though your child is able to show you their regular, normal, everyday face, - inside they are scared to death about what is going to happen in the Middle school....

Did you know that when your teen is in school, to learn things such as math and reading, that anywhere he goes in school, the bullies and gangs are there - pressuring him as to what he claims?

Did you know that your child thinks it is "safer to pretend to claim a gang than not claiming anything? This keeps him or her from being beat up or jumped by the gangs.

Do you know how scary it must be for your kid every day to go to school like this?

For the kids this is only part of their reality.......

It is NOT supposed to be this way.

Here is a small version of how one 6th graders day at school goes....

He gets up and dresses for school, carefully checking his clothing colors to make sure that he is not matching up any gang colors which he has known about since the 3rd or 4th grade.

While eating breakfast he reminds himself not to eat or drink too much so that he dont have to go into the bathroom more than once at school - alot of things happen in the bathrooms.

When he gets to his locker he makes sure to get whatever it is that he will need for the entire day out of the locker. It is much easier to carry the load of books than to risk the chance of going back to the locker and having a confrontation.

Lunchtime - he smiles to himself because he has made it through half of the day. A gangster kid is staring him down in the lunchroom (mad-doggin) and he decides to ease over to some other kids that he knows are in one of the bigger, tougher gangs.

He knows that if something goes down these kids from this bigger gang will help him out - they tell him all the time that if he ever needs something they "got his back".....most of these kids he has known his whole life. He knows that they will "protect" him if he needs it.

That is often how it starts. I know, you are thinking that how could your child even consider being involved with a gang. Maybe you are thinking that what others are calling a "gang" isnt as bad as they think.

Don't think that way please.....this is your wake up call Mom and Dad.

You are probably asking yourself what you can do. The majority of parents cringe at the very thought of someone hurting their child. That is normal. That is your job to protect your child. Here are a few things that you can do.

1. When your teen wants to go somewhere whether it be with a friend or the mall, question them. Ask them - how are you getting there, who all is going, what are you going to be doing, what time do you plan on coming home. Trust me, it is much better to ask these questions BEFORE anything crazy happens so that YOU know what is going on.



2. Ask your teen how their day was at school. If you ask your teen something like " how was school" they will probably respond back " fine" ---they are not going to fill your ears with everything just because you asked. You need to be a little tricky to get them to talk to you. Instead try this:
   
   PARENT: "how was school today"

TEEN: " fine"

PARENT: "anything exciting happen today"

TEEN: "no, same old thing"

PARENT: "really? I remember when I went to school, there was always something different going on either at school or one of my friends doing something - in fact I had this one friend who was always getting into trouble"

TEEN: "really? like how?"

Then this would be your opening to either talk about an old memory of yours from school or make one up. This is your chance to get your teen to open up. Whatever you do - dont let this chance pass by.

Another thing that you can do is to get involved with your teen a little more. Believe it or not - they still need you. If needed become that Mom or Dad that is always the one to give rides or have the other kids over to the house. This allows you the opportunity to witness first hand who their friends are as well.

Just remember, your teen has feelings too. Dont ridicule them or treat them as if their feelings dont count. If they ask if they can have friends over, let them. Tell your teen that the house rules apply to their friends as well. If you treat your child the way that you would want to be treated then they will respect you for that.

And last but not least - remember - you are not their friend. You are the parent and you are the one that sets the rules. Just remember that your child is under an enormous amount of pressure everyday at school. They are trying to survive the bullies and they are trying to keep thier grades up.

Talking to your teen is one of the best pieces of advice. The other would be to listen not only with your ears but with your heart.

Until next time,
Take care and stay safe