While the words “prom night” brings on gushing and giggles from many teens, for most parents, the thought of their teen heading off to prom can prompt concerns about their child’s safety and behavior, as well as worries about finances and what to do if their teenage doesn’t have the perfect night they have envisaged.

Proms are one of the key rites of passage for kids though, and can be an exciting thing for parents to get involved in, in a constructive way. Read on for some practical tips you can follow to help prepare for your child’s upcoming prom night, to ensure that they have an evening that is memorable for all the right reasons.

Talk About Safety

It is always wise for parents to have a discussion with teens about safety before they head off to their prom. Everyone knows that these events can often be hives of underage drinking and drug taking after all, as well as other types of reckless behavior.

It is a good idea, then, to talk with your child about the consequences of doing something illegal, not just within your household, but in the bigger picture. For instance, remind them that being arrested for drunken driving, drug taking, underage drinking, sex in public places, and so on can end up on their record forever, and affect their college acceptance and job opportunity prospects.

In addition, there are the safety concerns for their personal health to worry about, and that of their friends and other students to consider. Drinking too much or taking drugs can result in serious health issues and even death; while many car accidents occur because of drivers being intoxicated, distracted, or falling asleep behind the wheel.

 

Hire a driver

It pays to consider hiring an affordable driver service for the night, such as this specialist NYC prom limo option. You could have other parents or students chip in to pay for the service if a group of friends want to go together, or simply arrange it yourself or encourage your child to save up for the experience. That way, you can have peace of mind knowing that your child won’t be in a dangerous vehicle, and they can have a fun, and safe, way to get to and from the prom.

If your child really does want to drive, or be driven by their date or friend, remind them of the importance of wearing seat belts and not hopping into a car with someone who is intoxicated. Furthermore, make sure you stress to your teen that no matter what time it is, what happens, or where they are, that you can come and pick them up. You might want to give them some cash to have on hand for emergencies too. If you want to put a curfew in place, this is something to discuss before the night.

You also want to remind your child about the importance of not being pressured into sexual activities, and the need for safe sex; and the appropriate use of cellphone cameras and social media posting (with photographic evidence of things they don’t want other people to see potentially being documented online forever). It is also a good idea to have your child promise that they will check in with you during the night to let you know if they go to a different venue (such as an after party at a friend’s house) than expected.

 

Understand School Regulations

Before the prom, think about finding out about the various rules of conduct at your child’s school, or at another educational institution if they have been invited by a partner that attends elsewhere. It pays to speak to teachers, a guidance counselor, and/or the principal to find out what is acceptable and expected behavior at the prom.

Once you are clear on these rules and regulations, make sure you convey them to your teen, so that they won’t accidentally flaunt them, or knowingly flout the rules but think there is no consequence of doing so. After all, the last thing you want to happen after prom is that your child is suspended or expelled for silly or dangerous behavior.

 

 

Exchange Contact Details

You might also like to have contact details on hand for chaperones at the school where the prom is taking place, and give out your contacts so that if anything happens to your teen you can be called straight away.

If you know that your child will be attending an after party at a student’s house or other venue, make sure you also have contact details for people there, and have the address details written down. It is also wise to take the name, cell number, and driver’s license number of your child’s date.

 

 

Young adults between the ages of 15-20 often experiment with alcohol innocently as a way to fit in with their peers, handle stress and demonstrate their independence. Facts revealed by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, many teens begin the practice of binge drinking between the ages of 12 to 20 and that as early as 15 years of age, 35-percent of teens say they have had at least one drink and by the age group of 18 years the numbers nearly double to 65-percent.

Why do so Many Young Males Experiment with Alcohol?

Social media is playing a heavy role in a young adult’s life. It’s no longer just about fitting in at school but also what you do after school. With most of the teen population online at one or multiple sites, teens with insecurities or an undetected mental illness will do just about anything to make the grade. Many young adults also find alcohol as socially acceptable after all their parents throw parties and attend parties and drink. The movies and television shows write scripts showing people having a good time in bar scenes and out enjoying themselves with a drink in hand. So, for many, it starts out as a sort of curiosity, that unfortunately often goes to the next level. Rehab for young men is available as a treatment program. The key is to identify the problem early and get them the help they need so that they can grow and develop to their full potential.

Why do Young Male Teens Binge Drink?

With young adults that have no wisdom or fear inside them, rather than having a drink, they end up digesting an entire bottle of rum, vodka and other hard forms of alcohol. Because they lack experience and have no concept that a drink takes a few minutes to show results, they drink more to get the “buzz”. Males are not the only ones who binge drink. In college, more women jockeying for acceptance, are now joining the ranks of the once male-dominated sport, per se. While males still hold the top slot, women are now following closely behind. Many young adults drink to fit in with their peers, wherein if they were themselves without a drink, they would hang out without notice. The alcohol gives them the courage they need to start and join into conversations. Another reason males binge drink is for their ego. They want to prove that they are the best at everything, even if it means falling face first on the floor.

Why is Drinking at a Young Age Cause for Alarm?

Alcohol is a controlled substance and for young teens that develop the need for it, it can become a habit they don’t lose. Not only does alcohol impair their judgment, produce aggressive behavior, cause accidents, injuries and possible deaths, it can affect a young person’s brain development. The brain continues to grow well into a person’s 20’s. When you throw alcohol abuse into the mix, proper development of all functions is at risk. Recent studies show that when teens drink excessively they have smaller prefrontal lobes than young people of the same age who do not drink. This can affect their ability to learn, use good judgment, make decisions and show impulse control.

 

How do you recognize if Your Child has a Drinking Problem?

Young adults, in general, go through many changes before they reach adulthood. So for many parents, when sudden changes occur you often shrug them off as “hormonal”. If your teen is displaying out-of-character behavior take notice. Some of the tell-tale sign of having a dependency on alcohol are a change in appearance, depression, anxiety, mood swings, a new group of friends, aggressive behavior and deterioration in school interests. If your teen shows signs of a few of these, it’s time to seek professional help.

The good news is that today treatments are available. It’s no longer an embarrassment to find and get the help your child needs. Places that specialize in rehabilitation work with these young adults and help them fully recover.

Today, we will talk about the importance of being a little tech-savvy for effective parenting in this time and age. We have lately discussed all the kinds of teens issues like dating, sexting and a few more, and what If I tell you that an iPhone location tracking app could be a real solution to your many teen parenting issues? Would you think of giving it a try?  Keep reading because you are about to enter the realm of digital monitoring.

Let your teen move around confidently

Location tracking apps are very simple to use. They can be installed onto your child’s iPhone and used for tracking their location. There are many ways you can use location tracking. Let’s say you want to know where you child is at a certain point in time, use real-time monitoring tool to find the exact location with date, time and address stamps.

What if you are too busy to track your teen in realtime? Get access to the location history for the entire day and review it before going to bed. Lastly, you can also create geo-fences if you are worried about your teen’s outdoor activities.

But how does geofencing work?

Geofencing is one of the most useful tools that you could ever use for your teen’s safety. It can create virtual boundaries on your child so that they only move into places that are authorised by you. Long story short: You can mark areas that are not safe for them and set alerts. Whenever, your child will even pass by those red areas, you will be notified immediately. You can do all the aforementioned using a location tracking app like Xnspy.

What if your teen doesn’t own a smartphone?

Let’s say your teen is amongst those few who doesn’t own a smartphone? What choice do you have then? Don’t worry, if you child doesn’t own a smartphone, you can also use cheap GPS tracking devices that are available in cool and trendy wristbands. You can use these bands to monitor your kids even at those places where cell phones aren’t allowed.

However, iPhone location tracking apps are more convenient and cheaper

IPhone Location tracking bands aren’t that cheap after all. They start from $150 and go up to $200, and add a monthly fee of around $10-$15 with them too. Compare this with a smartphone tracking app and you won’t think of getting your child a wristband. You can get a smartphone monitoring app for around $8-$12 per month, so my suggestion is: why not spend those $200 for getting your teen their first cell phone, and use a smartphone tracking app to monitor, manage and oversee their online and offline activities?

You can also monitor online activities of your teens

If talking to your teen about safe texting and social media use isn’t working out, use a phone tracker to monitor their social media. You can track chats, call logs and even multimedia using an app like XNSPY.

I could write on and on about the benefits smartphone monitoring apps, but I also need to tell you how to make your smartphone monitoring experience a success. Take these tips into consideration:

• When you get your child their first smartphone, set up a smartphone contract and add monitoring as a precondition, or tell them they won’t be allowed to use their phone.
• Discuss the risks of social media networks, sexting and online dating with your teen. It’s highly possible they wouldn’t retaliate.
• Explain to them everything. These apps are non-intrusive and require only one time access to the target smartphone. Your kids can still use their cell phone without facing any slowdowns.

One of the hardest things that a parent has to go through is when their teens start to date. They are growing up right before our eyes, and we just don’t want to give them up to another person! Now, chances of your kids finding the love of their lives when they are just beginning to date is rare, but there is always that possibility, and it is a bit scary for a parent to let go! So if you are the parent who is absolutely terrified to let your teen start dating, and you are coming up with a bunch of rules to put on your kids to make sure that they are responsible and safe as they begin their dating lives, I’m here to help you out!

Putting a whole bunch of restrictions on your teens for dating is actually not a very good idea, they will go behind your back and break your rules anyway for the person that they want to see at that time! So, I am going to be sharing with you a few ways to make things easier on you to let them go, and it will still keep them in a safe environment when they start dating.

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Meet their Date: Make it a stipulation of the date that you must meet them first. If their date isn’t willing to come meet the parent of their date, they probably aren’t a very good match to begin with. You definitely want to know who your child is going out with though, especially if this person is going to be driving around your child at all. I don’t suggest doing the whole intimidating parent thing, that may scare them off and chances are your teen will be upset and embarrassed with you LOL

 Encourage Group Dating: If you’re not entirely comfortable with your teen beginning one on one dates, then maybe suggest group dating for a while. This allows them to still hang out with your crush, but you feel a bit more comfortable because you know no nonsense will be happening with a bunch of people hanging around with them as well!

Set a Curfew: Now this one is a bit touchy because I just explained that you shouldn’t put a whole bunch of restrictions, and then I’m telling you a bunch of things you should do with dating. Obviously, you have to give your teenager a curfew; they’re still a child technically. So I’m suggesting you do give them one but give them a fair and reasonable time to be home, it’s all about the compromise!

Have Them Check In: You never know what can happen out in the world, so just suggest that your teen checks in occasionally just so that you aren’t so worried about their safety. A simple text to let you know they’re safe is sufficient!

Dating is a really big time in your teen’s life, and it’s so hard to let them go but you definitely have to do it at some point. Just set some boundaries to make you feel comfortable with their dating life, but don’t go overboard and push them to rebel against you.

 

 

 

Teens are completely attached to their phones these days right?! Have you as a parent ever been worried about what exactly they are doing on their phones, but you also don’t want to be the overprotective, nosy parent either and read all of their text messages? Well, unfortunately teens are also getting into things like sex and love with their boyfriends and girlfriends at school a lot earlier than they used to back in the day.

A really common way that teens express their “love, ” and sexuality is through sexting. If you are unsure of what sexting is, it is “sex texting.” This is where the two people talk sexually to one another as well as sending photos of their genitals and bodies to the other person. This is an extremely dangerous activity for a person of any age, but especially teens. Teens tend to be a little gullible of what is appropriate to be sending to one another and often times do not understand the true meaning of love. Today I wanted to share with you the dangers of sexting that you should share with your teens and will hopefully prevent them from doing this.

First off, teenagers have constant raging hormones, and they are just wanting to get that sexual experience that they are longing for, both boys and girls. A lot of time teens are not being truthful when they say, “send me a pic, I won’t show it to anyone.” Trust me, they are probably showing it off to at least one person. Not to mention, high school relationships are extremely uneasy, and you may be really in love one day, and broken up hating each other the next, if you’ve sent that person, nude photos who’s to say that they will not send those photos to everyone or possibly even post them to social media because they are upset with them.

Next, once your teen hits that send button, there is no getting that back. That photo is now out there forever for that person to have and even pass on to others. If they do choose to post this picture to the internet, it is out there forever. Even if the photo is removed from where it was originally posted, chances are someone else grabbed it and shared it somewhere else. With that being said, these things getting out can be truly dangerous and really ruin a person’s reputation for a long, long time.

There are just so many risks to sharing nude photos or even talking sexually with someone through the phone, social media, or email. Make sure that you encourage your teens not to do this, all that could possibly come from it will be danger and bad decisions.