Parents, Need Help Talking To You Kids?

[Gangster_Octopus]

The government can help with the [url=“http://4parents.gov/starters/index.htm”]conversation starters. Good stuff!

Your jeans are looking a little short! How much taller do you think you’ve grown since last year? More changes are going to happen. Do you know what some of those changes are?
…
That song has a good beat, but the song makes it seem like having sex makes you a man (or woman). Do you think that’s true?
…
I heard that there was a wild party last weekend after the game. Have your friends been talking about it? Did you know that alcohol and drugs really increase the chances of having sex and geting a disease?

etc. and so on

[cher3]

Do they have one that goes “You know, son, most kids wait until after kindergarten to get a start on their life of crime. Mrs. Johnson really shouldn’t have my office number on speed dial.”

sigh

[Guinastasia]

@cher3

Do they have one that goes “You know, son, most kids wait until after kindergarten to get a start on their life of crime. Mrs. Johnson really shouldn’t have my office number on speed dial.”

sigh

Do you have a son named Calvin?

[FlippyFly]

Some guys go out for a good time over the weekend, and end up with thousands of dollars taken out of their paychecks for the next 18 years. Do you know how that could happen?

WTF? I don’t know how that could happen, what are they getting at?

[FlippyFly]

I was at the store yesterday and ran into Kendrick, Mrs. Jakes’ son. He joined the military after high school. What do you think you want to do when you graduate from high school?

And is this one pro-military or anit-military? I mean, maybe it’s just pro-getting to know your kids, but c’mon, its the government here.

[The_27th_Evil]

@FlippyFly

WTF? I don’t know how that could happen, what are they getting at?

When fun causes the math to read 1+1= 3, boyo’s getting hit up for child support.

[voguevixen]

I don’t know…while to the normal person these sound ham-handed and obvious, they’ll never top the day my mom and I were driving down the street when I was about 15 and out of nowhere she said: “So…have you had sex yet?”

Smooooooth!

[Lissa]

I hate to be Miss Obvious, but if your relationship with your kid is so bad that you need the federal government to assist you with suggestions for “opening lines” to try to get a conversation started, you’re in a shit-load of trouble.

Those conversation starters are just plain awful. I’ve heard better lines from drunks in bars.

It reminds me of those lines they put out a few years back to give to your kids to use when they get offered drugs or cigarettes. (“No thanks. I only smoke sausage.”) Painfully cheesy, lame and sad in a dreary way. It’s almost like they want your kid to get his ass kicked by his peers for criminal banality.

[Rilchiam]

@Lissa

It reminds me of those lines they put out a few years back to give to your kids to use when they get offered drugs or cigarettes. (“No thanks. I only smoke sausage.”) Painfully cheesy, lame and sad in a dreary way. It’s almost like they want your kid to get his ass kicked by his peers for criminal banality.

Oh, I know! One of the lines suggested by my health-class text was, “I’m not into body pollution.”

As for the link in the OP, if my parents had tried that when I was a teenager, my response to each and every one of those questions would have been, “God, I don’t know!”

These “conversation starters” sound like just a way for a parent to get their kid to let their guard down and set them up for re-Neducation. If you want to lay down the law, as in, “I don’t want you to use drugs,” then you should just do that. If you want to have a discussion, as in, “Sex is not wrong, but if you choose to do it, here’s how to protect yourself, and if you don’t choose, then here’s how to say no,” then do that.

But this sounds like trying to corner a kid, as in, “Jenny, do you ever think about sex?..AHA! I knew it! Now you’re grounded for the rest of your life, young lady!” Not what I’d call communication.