Going from junior high to high school introduces a tremendous amount of change and exposure to new levels of challenges and risks. Because of this, we had a face-to-face conversation some time during the summer before entering high school with each of our girls. In the best case, the adolescent will heed some of the advice. In the worst case, they will ignore the advice but later find at least some of it to be truthful, which gives more credibility to later advice. We created a cheat sheet of issues to discuss, including the following topics:
- Grades
- Peer pressure
- Curfew
- Penalty free ride home (see related blog post)
- Drugs and alcohol
- Boys and dating
- Sex
- Sexual abuse
The tone of the discussion should be advisory rather than dictatorial, in my opinion. And you obviously will need to add notes to each category based on your standards, your parenting style and your advice. There are three objectives of this discussion:
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