This feature on the anatomy of a parent's heart draws from Joanna's parent workshop, Fresh Start, which teaches parents how create a family culture to overcome undue influence of texting and social media.

...The voices in this edition offer practical perspectives and ways to demonstrate good faith with our children dealing with the modern issues growing up in a cyber-powered world including maintaining open parent-child communication, overcoming distraction and learning issues, recovering from risky choices, bonding in single parent households and blended families, and empowering children to create a peaceful society.

Last night I spoke at the Granite Bay National Charity League meeting at the Lutheran Church in Granite Bay. The topic was “governing a cyber-powered home”. My talk focused on an image that came across my desk on Sunday about the new iPhone 5S . Check out this picture from a Mashable article of the little girl duping the fingerprint security feature by using her dad’s thumb to open the smart phone while he is fast asleep, exhausted on the couch. I love this photo because it is a powerful image about the challenge of the modern parent; it portrays the natural glee and desire of children attracted to the devices, which capture their full attention and their cunning to access it.

CyberParentPower Topic of the Week Photo by: Lord Jim via Flickr I recently came across a powerful message about the case for hope delivered by Jeff Cavins, in his talk called Shameless: Seeing Yourself as God Sees You (CD by Lighthouse Catholic Media). He talked about the nature of shame and the role of shame in our lives. His message made sense to me, especially since modern childhood and family lifestyles with cyber-powered communications is colored by so much raw exposure to messages and experiences that bring in shame to appear as an emerging new norm (i.e., murderous violence and suicide by youth, sexual exploitation, bullying, and commercial and popular cultural influences measuring our worth by standards well beneath us).

Dr. Angela Chanter, Co-Director of Therapeutic Solutions 360 and Co-Founder of Full Circle Adolescent Services in Roseville, treats youth with mental health issues, including recovery from addiction, as a family matter. Her patients suffering from anxiety, depression and drug addiction and their families are not protected by healthy incomes and affluent life styles. “When parents who care deeply about their children ask me how much money it will take to help their child get well, I explain that it is more a matter of personal investment on their part to engage and understand their role in the healing.” Chanter observes that the issue of bonding with teens is a matter of navigating injury, or rough patches, kids experience during adolescence as they begin to separate from mom and dad. Pre-teens and teens may express their feeling of injury by withdrawing or expressing hostility to any parent attention. Often there is confusion between private and secret, and trust and faith. Children expect to have privacy from parents (which permits risky secrets), and they equate trust as an expression of affection or esteem, much like we place our faith in God. Who is the “alpha”? Parent or child? So parents need to first be clear about their role as the custodian. As the guardian they have a responsibility to know their child’s business and respect their privacy, but not grant it. There is a difference. Respecting their privacy means that you do not share inappropriately with others that which is personal and is not your story to share without permission.

The advent of the mobile phone, along with the Internet is makes it easier for tweens and teens to keep secrets and abuse drugs and alcohol; it creates a perfect storm for the modern drug addict to look like your child. In June 2011, the Center for Addition and Substance Abuse at Columbia University declared youth substance abuse the number one public health problem for America. And by the same token, prevention and recovery measures represent an opportunity to bond with your child about recognizing their issues and their inherent value as a person, as well as their capacity to ultimately be in charge of their own life. I serve as the Co-Chair for a youth substance abuse prevention organization called the Coalition For Placer Youth, founded in 2008. CPY collects data from youth via anonymous surveys regarding their attitudes and behavior regarding alcohol and drugs. One of the most significant findings with Placer County youth is that parents are not having meaningful conversations with tweens and teens to reinforce the norms for what is legal and safe, and there is a correlation between use and abuse of alcohol. Parents are largely silent and fearful about substance abuse and addiction. And for the most part, children are making good decisions every day. But as long as parents are silent about the norms for what is legal and safe, adolescents are left with tremendous anxiety as they witness substance abuse and other youth issues not addressed, and they are at risk for other mental health issues, among them anxiety, insomnia and depression.

Blind spots are the stuff about our children’s lives that we cannot experience or know unless we are open to receiving data about our children, from sources other than our own children that in most cases does not conform to our expectations. There always have been blind spots in parenting. However, the advent of the Internet and the mobile phone transformed the dynamics for communications with societal implications that leveled hierarchies at work and home; the model for formal authority that was once tied to social structure (position) carries less significance than it did for previous generations. Titles like “president”, “teacher” or “parent” carry less inherent authority. In a flat world, where hierarchies are traded for networks, authority is more related than ascribed.

As an American mother raised in the 1960's and 1970's I have observed that the role of the father in our culture has been minimized as Mom took on central prominence. Remember the Virgina Slims cigarette commercials, and the campaigns that women can have it all and do it all? If you can do it all, who needs a partner?

Return to Table of Contents: 2013 Winter Edition of Family Business Quarterly

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As a youth substance abuse prevention activist, over the past ten years, I have come to appreciate that the confusion and fear over the nature of drug and alcohol addiction - especially with minors - has created a code of silence among adults, and driven youth drug and alcohol abuse to levels so extreme it creates a new norm for addiction. In June 2011, the Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse declared youth substance abuse the number one public health problem in America.