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:
- contact law enforcement immediately - you do NOT have to wait 24 hours.
- 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
1 comment:
Thank you for this info. I guess the only way to avoid my teens to run away is to always let him feel that he's loved and supported at home. It's not enough to give them material things, time is also essential for parents to give their children. If needed, you should also be tough about abiding rules but not to the point that your kids get mistreated and abused. "Tough love" is often effective.
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