Oct 29, 2010

TRACEY FEATURED IN HOMETOWN LIFE – Tells Parents, “Just Say No” to Teens Planning Spring Break Exploits

Spring Break forum aims to help ‘pressured parents’ reach kids.

Screenwriter Tracey Jackson (Confessions of a Shopaholic, Lucky Ducks) will talk about privileged teens and parenting issues at a Tri-Community Coalition Spring Break Forum, Oct. 27, at the Berkley High School Auditorium.

This is the time of year when many parents are cajoled, hustled and pressured by teens to plunk down deposits for Spring Break adventures. Parents who have an inkling that an unchaperoned or barely-chaperoned trip out of the country is not a good idea — but just can’t say “no” — may find support and the information they need at a Spring Break forum, Wednesday, Oct. 27, at the Berkley High School Auditorium.

Sponsored by the Tri-Community Coalition, the program features New York screenwriter Tracey Jackson whose Lucky Ducks documentary questioned why there is an epidemic of unhappy, yet supposedly lucky teens. Jackson took her privileged, then, 15-year-old daughter to the slums of Mumbai for three weeks in the spring of 2008. She documented the journey in her film.

“I was trying to put a halt to a lot of what I saw going on around me. I was certainly to blame because she was spoiled, and I had not said ‘no’ when I should have, or followed through with consequences when I said I would,” said Jackson from her home in New York. “I think that’s a big problem in our parenting. There are a lot of empty threats.”

Jackson, who blogs for the Partnership for Drug-Free America, will talk about some of the reasons parents don’t say “no,” and how one’s background and situation influence their decision-making.

GUILTY PARENTING

“There’s a lot of guilty parenting,” she said. “Divorced parents often make choices based on guilt. Parents who work a lot make choices based on guilt because they feel they’re not showing up as much as they could … Some parents give in and indulge financially because they didn’t have much as a child, and now they can afford to give and they want their child to have everything.”

Jackson just recently allowed her 11-year-old daughter to have a cell-phone.

“It’s been a battle,” she admitted. “I would not give her a cell phone when most of her friends had cell phones. She was too young.”

While the experience in Mumbai was certainly an eye-opener, Jackson’s daughter was still determined to go on that rite-of-passage Spring Break senior year trip. Despite the protests — “Now, I won’t be popular. Everyone’s going.” — Jackson told her daughter the trip was non-negotiable.

“Would you let your kid leave the country unchaperoned for one week with older friends where the average boy drinks 18 drinks and the average girl drinks 10 a day, to drink from morning till morning and have unsupervised sex and God knows what happens. We all know of Natalee Halloway,” she said. “I don’t think these trips are safe. Most kids do come home, but no 17-year-old should fall out a window because they’re drunk in Mexico or the Caribbean because their parent let them go to a place that was unsafe and that they knew was a bad choice.”

Jackson came across as a very down-to-earth mom. She said her parenting style changed after the two years she spent making Lucky Ducks. Jackson is likely to share interesting observations about boomer parents, the lack of family and community support, and the benefits of parents having a “backup” of friends or a coalition like the TCC. Teens are invited to attend the forum, and “experienced” parents might add their own advice.

A MOM’S EXPERIENCE

One local parent who wished to remain anonymous wrote a lengthy e-mail to me last week about her son’s experience last year on a Spring Break trip to Mexico.

“The kids put so much pressure on you. You are nervous, but it appears that all the other parent are OK with the trip,” she wrote. “There a lots of activities and things for the kids to do. The resort looks amazing.”

This mom’s son returned home safely, but his details of the trip were unnerving.

“I realized it was a constant drinking to the point of kids needing medical attention, passing out, etc. There were even kids (whose parents were on the trip with them) that drank to the point of needing medical assistance,” she shared. “When you send them to an ‘all-inclusive resort,’ where they can drink as much as they want with no supervision for an entire week in the sun, they are going to overindulge.”

This parent learned that when kids come back from these trips they want to “keep the party going.” But there are consequences that may effect their lives for years to come.

Need some help saying “no?” The Spring Break forum begins at 7 p.m., Oct. 27 in the Berkley High School Auditorium located at 2325 Catalpa. Contact the TCC at (248) 837-8008 or visit www.tricommunitycoalition.org. Learn more about Tracey Jackson’s documentary Lucky Ducks at www.traceyjacksononline.com.

Find the original article at: http://www.hometownlife.com/article/20101024/LIFE/10240311

Posted in Press

Danielle

I wish you would come to our school and tell the parents to say “no” to everything! Cell phones, extravagant trips, walk-in closets-computers-phones-tvs in bedrooms, designer clothes from first grade, cattiness, bullying and excluduing others, every toy, wish and cupcake ever wanted, bending rules and all that expected “privilege”….all of which the parents are modeling to their children themselves.

There, I ranted.

Now I’m going to forage for some Halloween candy….the one thing parents here do say “no” to.
Dina

Tracey I am so glad that you are doing this.When I hear “Spring Break” I truly get the heebie-jeebies.I think schools and parents have to do a better job and stop this nonsense .Perhaps getting Teens more actively involved in speaking out would be one way to go.
Elisa Barsoum Losada

I have already planned to tell my kids “no” regarding any such trips. I believe in travel as a great part of one’s education, but that means going to new places and meeting people from the local community and learning a new language. “Spring Break” is a completely unhealthy waste of time and resources.
Anna

My “kids” are no 35 & 36 and yes they went on a Spring break. However we did not pay for it and it was to a place in Puerto Rico that we visited as a family before. Bare bones place. But this was not the first time these kids had to make decisions and be responsible with their expenses and well being. The problem with the typical American style Spring Break event, is that this is the first time for most of these kids to be without supervision, they are not spending their own hard earned funds, and most likely it is their first time out of the country. Most of the kids, that get into trouble, have lived in a protected environment and to never, or rarely, exposed to the realities of the world. “Spring Break” can be a healthy experience but unfortunately most of the mistakes we make as parents come much earlier than the senior year of HS and our kids are not ready, but at 18 they should be.
I understand the premise of “just say no”, but realistically it does not work. If we as parents can accept that and have an open relationship with our children chances are that they may not act out as much because they know that what they are doing is not a sin but a common “coming of age” pursuit.
Sorry for ranting but it kills me when parents think that going off to a “Spring Break” event is something one can say NO to after having indulged the kids every whim and stuck our heads in the sand thinking that all was “rosy” in the hood.
As for allowing kids to have cell phones, I am OK with as long as the kids and the parents are informed about the dangers of using them and understand that using them is not a right but a privilege.
http://n/a savrrone kinney

Tracey i know i don’t have children but some parents raise them poorly so we need to teach the parents the right way to raise the children to know the difference between right and wrong and i appreciate it