On Youth and Teens Today with Vanessa Van Petten

As grandchildren get older, they spend less time with their grandparents. Grandkids feel like their grandparents will never understand what is going on in their lives, and grandparents feel that they gap between them and their grandkids widens with the Internet, IMing, Texting and Partying that is such a huge part of teen life today.

Grandparents often have trouble connecting with their ‘grandteens’ on the phone or in person and need to speak to them on their level, with topics that interest teens. So how can grandparents do this?

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1. Use the Web
• Chorewars.com - Yes, someone has turned chores into a videogame. If you have kids that really cannot keep focus, this will help.
• Mozilla Sunbird- an amazing way to keep track of all scheduled maintenance things in your house. It is a really easy (and free) way to manage Weekly, daily and yearly chores and tasks
• ChoreBuster - Another easy and free website to manage the chores online—and as they stress a very fair way to delegate household jobs.
• Payjr - Same kind of site, another name.

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Are you unsure about what career to go into? You need to ask yourself the following questions:

1) Vision - What is your ideal career?
2) Strengths - What are you skilled at?
3) Goals - Let’s take measurable steps to make your ideal career a reality!

Career Coaching saves time, money and stress. Career Coaching is different than career counseling. Career counseling helps you choose a college after you choose a career. Career coaching helps you choose a career.

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Parenting Coach, Family Manager, Life Trainer, Family Mentor, what do all of these names mean? A few months ago, I couldn’t have told you. The title, “Family Coach” and the fabulous opportunity to give families control over their time, actually fell into my lap.

A few clients have asked me to write a blog post to explain what exactly family coaching is and why it goes beyond organizing. As a family coach or family manager, I help a family gain time, efficiency and balance by coming into their home and helping them manage everything: cooking meals, chore management, work out schedules and even throwing your children’s birthday parties.

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Recently there has been a lot of discussion about teen boot camps and sending troubled teens into the wilderness for a little tough love, life experience and time away from the home environment.

A Federal report, released on October 10, 2007 by the Government Accountability Office, gave detailed accounts of 10 cases where teenagers died while on six different wilderness programs. The reports stated horrendous examples of abuse, mistreatment and punishments that the teens had to endure before their death.

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