Reality TV show gives parents an avenue into teens’ lives

I’m curious about the new attention to teens on television and in the movies.

The television show “The Baby Borrowers” holds up a magnifying lens to teens as they venture into make-believe parenting with real live babies and children.

The first time I watched the show, I came to it with all these questions: “What are these television producers thinking?”

But I found myself applauding them because I thought the teens were captured very authentically.

The show reveals the fragility of adolescence. When faced with frustration, some of the kids shut down, tuned out and gave up. A couple of the kids surprised us though, by rising to the challenge and showing maturity beyond their years.

After I watched another episode of “The Baby Borrowers,” I hoped all of America could watch and think about teens.

The teen years are so tricky. In the teens years there is so much confusion about how to become more grown up, how to feel connected, and what sort of things you need to know to be ready for what comes next.

Some kids have an idea of what is next, and other kids aren’t really thinking too far ahead.

Teens select from a wide range of choices, often thinking these are just experiments, but the truth is that they begin paying the price for the choices in adolescence.

I like to think of the teen years as a bank account. Some kids make choices that begin adding up to an account for the future, and some kids start going into debt really fast, making decisions that are costly for their futures.

As adults, I think we have a big job during the long march through the adolescent years.

First, it is the longest stage of childhood. A child’s birth to age 3 passes in mere blink of an eye compared to adolescence.

The first three years of adolescence is just revving the engine for what is yet to come. Preparing for the adolescent years is a lot like preparing to run a marathon, only the marathon will last for eight to 10 years.

Since it is such a long stage of childhood, filled with so many opportunities to screw up, you’ve got have a game plan.

Sure, talk about your family values, be a role model, but I think you need a back-up plan.

In our culture, family values in adolescence can be like applying a Band-Aid to chickenpox. I’ve seen families with great values have a kid who makes choices that make my jaw hit the floor.

I think one of the most influential subjects is not so much values, but our behavior with money.

Go ahead and send me hate mail if you must but, really, I think parents can make their values much more clearly known to kids through their wallets.

I am not suggesting rewarding kids with money. I am saying that teens seem to be living privileged lives, and I am astonished by the things parents will buy for teens.

I listened to a mother complaining about her kid driving home drunk the other night.

I asked her who owns the car?

If the kid is driving drunk, how many times do they need to do it before you take their behavior seriously?

In my book, only once. Take teen behavior seriously. Very seriously. Overreact if you feel like it, but don’t make the mistake of under-reacting.

Be thoughtful about how you use money around your teen. Have discussions about money, savings, planning ahead, because this sort of thinking and talking applies to all kinds of decisions.

Talking about money is actually interesting to kids and yet the same principles about how it works applies to many other things in life.

Take opportunities to have discussions about teen characters in movies and on television. Add your point of view to the things in the culture your teen is watching. Listen to their point of view.

These conversations are usually interesting. Television shows like “The Baby Borrowers” provide a great opportunity for parents to connect into the reality of their own kids.

Sarri Gilman is a freelance writer living on Whidbey Island and director of Leadership Snohomish County. Her column on living with meaning and purpose runs every other Tuesday in The Herald. She is a therapist, a wife and a mother, and has founded two nonprofit organizations to serve homeless children. You can e-mail her at features@heraldnet.com.